![]() ![]() It can be said that the Rosary is, in some sense, a prayer-commentary on the final chapter of the Vatican II Constitution Lumen Gentium, a chapter which discusses the wondrous presence of the Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and the Church. A marvellous prayer! Marvellous in its simplicity and its depth. Twenty-four years ago, on 29 October 1978, scarcely two weeks after my election to the See of Peter, I frankly admitted: “The Rosary is my favourite prayer. To it I have entrusted any number of concerns in it I have always found comfort. The Rosary has accompanied me in moments of joy and in moments of difficulty. I was powerfully reminded of this during my recent visit to Poland, and in particular at the Shrine of Kalwaria. From my youthful years this prayer has held an important place in my spiritual life. I myself have often encouraged the frequent recitation of the Rosary. Among the more recent Popes who, from the time of the Second Vatican Council, have distinguished themselves in promoting the Rosary I would mention Blessed John XXIII ( 4) and above all Pope Paul VI, who in his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus emphasized, in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, the Rosary's evangelical character and its Christocentric inspiration. Worthy of special note in this regard is Pope Leo XIII who on 1 September 1883 promulgated the Encyclical Supremi Apostolatus Officio, ( 3) a document of great worth, the first of his many statements about this prayer, in which he proposed the Rosary as an effective spiritual weapon against the evils afflicting society. Numerous predecessors of mine attributed great importance to this prayer. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.Ģ. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. ( 2) It is an echo of the prayerof Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. ![]() In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium. The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. It blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” ( duc in altum!) in order once more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life” ( Jn 14:6), “the goal of human history and the point on which the desires of history and civilization turn”. Simple yet profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. ![]()
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