Simple, but powerful! That is what can be said of the Holy Rosary. In fact, when we look at how God works, it can be generally said that God acts simply, but powerfully. The magnificent act of Creation could not have been simpler—God simply said a few words and it happened!  Not much fuss, just simple and powerful. “And God said: Be light made. And light was made.” (Genesis 1:3) and so on throughout the remaining days of Creation.  God simply said, and it happened. 

Throughout the Old Testament we see God’s simple, yet powerful, way of acting. He has Moses simply strike a rock in the desert, and, miraculously, water flows forth. 

God’s prophets also followed the same pattern.  

The Prophet Elias “stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body!’  And the Lord heard the voice of Elias: and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived.” (3 Kings 21-22).

The Prophet Eliseus tells Naaman the leper, to simply wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman thought this was ridiculously simplistic and was about to go home, until his servant persuaded him to try it—and lo and behold, he was cured (4 Kings 1-14).

A boy with a simple sling shot and one pebble kills Goliath, whom the weapons and soldiers of the Israelites had failed to defeat.

We see God the Son act in the same simple, but powerful way, in the miracles that he performed. Not much fuss, just simple actions or simple commands:  

► The leper said: “‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ And Jesus stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will, be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed.” (Matthew 8:2-3).  Simple, but powerful!

► “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying, and sick of a fever: and He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to them.” (Matthew 8:14-15).  Simple, but powerful!

► “And behold they brought to Him one sick of the palsy, lying in a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, … said: ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house!’ And he arose, and went into his house.” (Matthew 9:2-7).  Simple, but powerful!

► “Jesus said: ‘Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth!’  And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose.” (Matthew 9:24-25).  Simple, but powerful!

► “And when He was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus saith to them, ‘Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?’  They say to him, ‘Yea, Lord!’  Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened.” (Matthew 9:28-30).  Simple, but powerful!

► “They besought Jesus that they might touch but the hem of His garment. And as many as touched, were made whole.” (Matthew 14:36).  Simple, but powerful!

► “And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, He brake, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the people. And they did all eat, and had their fill. And they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women.” (Matthew 15:26:38).  Simple, but powerful!

► “Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.” (Matthew 17:17).

► “And behold two blind men, sitting by the way side, cried out, saying: O Lord, Thou son of David, have mercy on us .... And Jesus stood, and called them, and said: ‘What will ye that I do to you?’  They say to Him: ‘Lord, that our eyes be opened!’  And Jesus having compassion on them, touched their eyes. And immediately they saw, and followed Him.” (Matthew 20:20-34).  Simple, but powerful!

► “And Jesus entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there who had a withered hand ... He saith to the man:  ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’  And he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored unto him.” (Mark 3:1-5).

► “As Jesus was in the ship: and there were other ships with Him. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled. And He was sleeping; and they awake Him, and say to Him: ‘Master, doth it not concern Thee that we perish?’ And rising up, He rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased: and there was made a great calm.” (Mark 4:36-39).  Simple, but powerful!

► “And whithersoever he entered, into towns or into villages or cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch but the hem of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole.” (Mark 6:56).  Simple, but powerful!

► “And they bring to him one deaf and dumb; and they besought him that he would lay his hand upon him. And taking him from the multitude apart, He put his fingers into his ears, and spitting, He touched his tongue: and looking up to Heaven, He groaned, and said to him: ‘Ephpheta!’ which is, ‘Be thou opened!’ And immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right.” (Mark 7:32-35).  Simple, but powerful!

► “Bartimeus the blind man, began to cry out: ‘Jesus son of David, have mercy on me!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘What wilt thou that I should do to thee?’ And the blind man said to Him: ‘Rabboni, that I may see!’ And Jesus saith to him: ‘Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole!’ And immediately he saw, and followed Him in the way.” (Mark 10:47-52).  Simple, but powerful!

► “When Jesus had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he, that had been dead, came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin.  Jesus said to them: ‘Loose him, and let him go!’” (John 11:43:44).  Simple, but powerful!

With God nothing is impossible!  As the Archangel Gabriel said to Mary, at the Annunciation: “No word shall be impossible with God!”  (Luke 1:37). Which was later echoed by Jesus, when He said: “With God all things are possible!” Matthew 19:26).  With God, the impossible is simply possible—because God is God, and whatever He wants, happens!

This same simplicity, yet power, carries over into our day and age. 

At Baptism, can we fully grasp the incredible things that happen at the simple, but powerful, words: “I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” while simple water is simply poured on the one being baptized? Miracles of grace suddenly take place!  The baptized has Original Sin and all their personal sins removed; grace is poured into the soul; the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are planted within the soul; the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come into the soul; the person becomes an adopted child of God and an heir to the kingdom of Heaven! Simple words and actions, but an awesome and powerful result!

The same can be said of the Sacrament of Confession. Even though the priest may say additional prayers while giving absolution from sin, the key words are: “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen” while making a sign of the cross over the penitent. The worst crimes, the most shameful sins, no matter how many times committed, can be forgiven and forgotten by God using those simple words and actions.

When there is an impossibility to get to Confession, in such a case it is possible (though not guaranteed) that one short true act of perfect contrition can remove all guilt of sin and restore grace to the soul (provided one intends to confess those sins at the soonest possible time).  Note, that we say TRUE and PERFECT act of contrition!  This is sorrow that is based upon a true love of God, not a fear of His punishments.  It is amazing what God will do when He sees that we TRULY mean those words: “I am sorry!” “I love you!”

The same applies to the Consecration at Mass, when God, using the ministry of His servants, the priests, changes mere bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Only-Begotten Son.  What brings about such an awesome miracle?  Again, like the Sacrament of Confession, even though more words are used, the essential words are the simple ones of “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood.”  Simple words, beautiful result!  Simply beautiful!

Now what has thing long-winded, interminably dragging, endless article got to do with Our Lady, the Rosary or the month of October?  Well, before you build a house upwards, you have to go in the opposite direction beforehand, namely, dig-out and lay the foundations. 

The purpose of these endless examples of divine doings, has been to establish the principle (not just a rare occurrence) of how God usually works with mankind. It is quite simple and quite powerful at the same time. The Rosary is one of those simple things that Heaven has given to us. It is so simple, that some, like Naaman the Leper, think it is beneath them, and they are tempted to turn away from the Rosary and go their own way. They would be foolish to do so!  We often seek complicated human solutions, when Heaven wants us to use simple divine solutions!  Do we really think that Our Lady does not know what she is talking about, when she tells us to pray the Rosary daily? 

Tomorrow, we will start to take a closer look at the Rosary, and we will see that it falls into the same category as the miracles we have listed above.  Why does it do this?  Only God can explain why He wants it that way!  Why didn’t Jesus use something more precious than water for Baptism, given the great things that Baptism does? Only Jesus can explain why He wants it that way! For us, mere sinful mortals, it is enough to follow Mary’s simple, yet powerful, advice to the stewards at Cana: “Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye.” (John 2:5).  Let us keep it simple, and leave the powerful stuff and miracles to God!  Ave Maria!

Yesterday, we spoke of the simplicity with which God seems to prefer to do His work. We listed miracle after miracle, wherein God “went straight for it” without any fuss or “beating about the bush”: 

“Jesus stretching forth His hand, touched him, saying: ‘I will, be thou made clean!’ And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed.” … “And Jesus having compassion on them, touched their eyes. And immediately they saw” … “He saith to the man:  ‘Stretch forth thy hand!’  And he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored unto him.”  Simple, but powerful!

The same happens in the giving of the Sacraments, just a few words are spoken and marvelous, miraculous results occur: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost … This is My Body … This is My Blood … I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen”  

The Rosary, too, consists of a few very short prayers, but they have a most powerful effect.  The Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be form the backbone and are the essence of the Rosary. If these simple prayers are used well—and are prayed slowly and with devotion—then marvelous results can flow forth. But mark well the words “prayed slowly and with devotion”!  That can be a real challenge, even for the best of folk!  God is not mocked, and, therefore, we should pray in a manner that manifests our seriousness about what we are doing, and shows that we really want to pray, thereby, saying what we mean, and meaning what we say!  Then, a simple prayer can be powerful and will simply produce powerful results. I think that the power of the simple Rosary is beautifully shown by St. Louis de Montfort, when he relates an wonderful incident in his book, The Secret of the Rosary, in the chapter entitled “Thirty-Third Rose” :

When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an Albigensian was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people; it appears that over twelve thousand had come to hear him speak. The devils, who were in possession of this wretched man, were forced to answer St. Dominic's questions, in spite of themselves. They said:

1. That there were fifteen thousand of them in the body of that poor man, because he had attacked the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary;

2. That by the Rosary which he preached, he put fear and horror into the depths of hell, and that he was the man they hated most throughout the world because of the souls he snatched from them by the devotion of the Rosary.

3. They revealed several other things.

St. Dominic put his Rosary around the neck of the possessed man and asked them who, of all the saints in Heaven, was the one they feared most, who should, therefore, be the most loved and revered by men.

At this, they let out such unearthly screams, that most of the people fell to the ground, seized with fear. Then, using all their cunning so as not to answer, the devils wept and wailed in such a pitiful way, that many of the people wept also, out of pure natural pity. The devils, speaking through the mouth of the Albigensian, pleaded in a heart‑rending voice, 

"Dominic, Dominic, have pity on us, we promise you we will never harm you. You have always had compassion for sinners and those in distress; have pity on us, for we are in grievous straits. We are suffering so much already! Why do you delight in increasing our pains? Can't you be satisfied with the pains we now endure? Have mercy on us, have mercy on us!" 

St. Dominic was not in the least moved by the pathetic words of those wretched spirits, and told them he would not let them alone until they had answered his question. Then they said they would whisper the answer, in such a way, that only St. Dominic would be able to hear. The latter firmly insisted upon their answering clearly and audibly. Then the devils kept quiet and would not say another word, completely disregarding St. Dominic's orders.

So he knelt down and said this prayer to Our Lady: "Oh, most glorious Virgin Mary, I implore you by the power of the holy Rosary command these enemies of the human race to answer my question."

No sooner had he said this prayer than a glowing flame leaped out of the ears, nostrils and mouth of the possessed man. Everyone shook with fear, but the fire did not hurt anyone. Then the devils cried, "Dominic, we beseech you, by the passion of Jesus Christ and the merits of his holy Mother and of all the saints, let us leave the body of this man without speaking further; for the angels will answer your question whenever you wish. After all, are we not liars –so why should you want to believe us? Do not torment us any more, have pity on us."

"Woe to you, wretched spirits, who do not deserve to be heard," St. Dominic said, and kneeling down he prayed to the Blessed Virgin: "O most worthy Mother of Wisdom, I am praying for the people assembled here, who have already learned how to say the Angelic Salutation properly. I beg you, for the salvation of those here present, compel these adversaries of yours to proclaim the whole truth here and now before the people."

St. Dominic had scarcely finished this prayer when he saw the Blessed Virgin near at hand surrounded by a multitude of angels. She struck the possessed man with a golden rod, that she held, and said, "Answer my servant Dominic at once." (It must be noted that the people neither saw nor heard Our Lady, only St. Dominic.)

Then the devils started screaming:

"Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? O advocate of sinners, you who snatch them from the very jaws of Hell, you who are a most sure path to Heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness.

"Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective.

"We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints. We fear her more than all the other saints in Heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants.

"Many Christians, who call on her at the hour of death, and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards, are saved by her intercession. And if that Marietta (it is thus in their fury they called her) did not counter our plans and our efforts, we should have overcome the Church and destroyed it long before this, and caused all the Orders in the Church to fall into error and infidelity.

"Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains, for her servants, the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy."

Then St. Dominic had all the people say the Rosary very slowly and with great devotion, and a wonderful thing happened: at each Hail Mary, which he and the people said, a large number of devils issued forth from the wretched man's body, under the guise of red‑hot coals. When the devils had all been expelled and the heretic completely delivered from them, Our Lady, although invisible, gave her blessing to the assembled company, and they were filled with joy. (The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Third Rose”).

Let us take heart from this wonderful incident, and make a resolution to reform ourselves by praying our Rosaries better. Let us pray them more slowly, more deliberately, and with more devotion.  Ave Maria!

We have all heard of the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”  The more we become used to something, then the chances are that we will gradually—perhaps even imperceptibly—lose our estimation and respect for it. Marriage is a wonderful (or should we say “terrible”) example of this. The respect, patience, efforts and love, spent in winning-over the future spouse, can very quickly evaporate over the years and give place to their opposites. The same applies to newly bought items—at first we take such great care over them, handle them gently, keep them sparkling clean, etc. However, over time, all that is forgotten and we can even give way to misuse and abuse.

The same can be said of prayer—whether it be the supreme prayer of the Sacrifice of the Mass, or the Divine Office, or the Holy Rosary. If we are not careful, our assistance at Mass will degenerate with relative ease, and our Rosaries and other prayers will slide comfortably into a daily mechanical routine that we apply to so many other things and chores of life.  The saints warn us against this:

St. Augustine says: “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? What sweeter and more delicious? What higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?”

St. Bernard says that the angels receive our prayers and present them before God - as the angel said to Tobias: “When thou didst pray with tears, I offered thy prayer to God" (Tobias 12:12).  St. Hilary says the same: “The angels preside over the prayers of the saints and offer them each day to God.”

When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God.  St. John Chrysostom warns us: “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you.”

At Lourdes, it was noticed that Our Lady prayed the Rosary, with St. Bernadette, SLOWLY and RESPECTFULLY.  At La Salette, Our Lady asked the two children if they said their prayers well—which startled them and they had to embarrassingly reply: “Oh! No, not so much!”  St. Louis de Montfort, in his The Secret of the Rosary, writes: “It is a good thing to think over how we should pray if we want to please God and become more holy.”

Then, a little further, he continues: “In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions, by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. To be guilty of willful distractions during prayer would show a great lack of respect and reverence; it would make our Rosaries unfruitful and make us guilty of sin. How can we expect God to listen to us, if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying? … People who do that forfeit God's blessing, which is changed into a curse, for having treated the things of God disrespectfully: "Cursed be the one who does God's work negligently." (Jeremias 48:10).”

“We read in the life of Blessed Hermann of the Order of the Premonstratensians, that at one time when he used to say the Rosary attentively and devoutly, while meditating on the mysteries, Our Lady used to appear to him resplendent in breathtaking majesty and beauty. But, as time went on, his fervor cooled and he fell into the way of saying his Rosary hurriedly and without giving it his full attention. Then one day Our Lady appeared to him again, but this time she was far from beautiful, and her face was furrowed and drawn with sadness. Blessed Hermann was appalled at the change in her, and Our Lady explained, ‘This is how I look to you, Hermann, because this is how you are treating me; as a woman to be despised and of no importance. Why do you no longer greet me with respect and attention while meditating on my mysteries and praising my privileges?’"

A further passage of St. Louis’ hits the nerve of so many people: 

“The fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said, especially when we have promised to say it regularly or have been told to say it as a penance more or less against our will. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. We could not possibly expect anyone, even the most important person, to think that a slipshod address of this kind was a compliment, and yet we imagine that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it! Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before.”

Why does that happen?  Usually because of the phrase we used earlier—“Familiarity breeds contempt.”  So let us resolve to improve the way we approach and pray our Rosaries. A few moments of quiet reflection before starting could make a big difference in changing our Rosaries from being sinful (a thought which shocks many, no doubt) to being virtuous. As St. Louis says elsewhere: “It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly.” (The Secret of the Rosary, "Forty-First Rose").

Let us put our minds and hearts into our Rosaries and then we may begin to see great things starting to happen around us. Let us not take it for granted, nor relegate it to the level of a chore. It is a great privilege and honor to be able to honor our Queen and Mother, when the vast majority of the world ignores her—nay, even blasphemes her! Let this October be beginning of a new attitude to prayer in general, and to the Rosary in particular.  Ave Maria!

As St. Louis de Montfort writes: "It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly" (The Secret of the Rosary, "Forty-First Rose"). The devil knows this too, and, so, it is in his best interests to make sure that our Hail Mary or our Rosary is not said properly. This is a perennial battle that everyone has to face—whether it be pope, bishop or priest, or man, woman and child—it will be so to our dying day. 

Unfortunately, in our modern-day existence, quantity and speed have replaced the ancient values placed on quality and thoroughness. Not that quality is totally disregarded, but it often comes second to quantity. A bottom-line principle that can be seen in the lives of many people is that they want to pay less for things, so that they can afford to buy lots of different things. Now of course, one's income obviously plays a large part in this, but many of the rich even play the same game. Manufacturers are often more focused on the quantity they can produce, more so than on the quality. If they can make something "look real" then there is no point spending extra money making the real thing. So we have fake stone or brick facades for houses; we have fake furs; fake foods; fake wood; fake gold; fake marble; fake candles; fake glass, etc., etc.  We are living in a fake world! 

The sad part is that this over-spills into our intellectual, moral and spiritual lives. We fake knowledge, we fake behavior, and we fake piety. We learn superficially—just enough to be able to make it look like we know a lot. Trivia becomes more popular than in-depth knowledge. We become a race of "Tips-and Tricks"—but we are only tricking ourselves. Morally, the world has never been as sinful as it is today, yet we put on a kind of 'moral-make-up' to hide the sinfulness and focus on the sins of others to make us feel better in our own miserable state. Spiritually, we cover the facade of our Temple of the Holy Ghost (which St Paul says we are), with pseudo-gold bricks'.  Financially, we are prepared to fall into serious debt, in order to appear, to the world around us, as something that we are not, but simply want to be. I guess that would make us "fake wannabees"!

The Pharisees were a bit like this in their day, and this brought down upon them the wrath of Jesus—the whole of chapter 23 of Matthew is dedicated to Our Lord venting against the Pharisees, which is something unparalleled in the whole of Scripture. Jesus says of them: "All their works they do for to be seen of men ... they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues ... Ye foolish and blind; for which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? ... Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness. Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men' s bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."

Yet at the same time, Jesus shows quite the opposite attitude to a sinner, who, objectively speaking, was far, far worse than the Pharisees—Mary Magdalen. She was a whore; she was possessed by seven devils (symbolic of all the seven capital sins) and had been caught in adultery. Jesus' response to her was the exact opposite of the "Woes" that he pronounced against the Pharisees.  In fact, Jesus said of her: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less" (Luke 7:47). 

There is the answer! There is the secret! There is the clue to what we need to change the power of our prayers. From being ridiculous to reverential; from puny to powerful; from being farcical to frightening. Wouldn't you like your prayers to be so powerful that would be almost infallibly heard and answered? The key element, or trunk or root, to that problem is the virtue of charity or love. The degree of one’s charity can change the prayer from being a mere firework (a passing flash in the sky) to an atom-bomb or a nuclear bomb. If you've seen the size of the atom-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, you will notice that it relatively small in relation to the power that it packs——in fact, the part that does the damage is a very small part within the large casing.

It can be so with our prayers, and that is why St. Louis de Montfort says: "It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly."  The charity or love that we say our prayers with, greatly increase their value and power. Our Lady had such a great and sincere love of God, that the slightest prayer of hers was capable of moving mountains. This is why the devils themselves admitted to the power of her prayers during an exorcism: "We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints." (The Secret of the Rosary, "Thirty-Third Rose"). Let us spend this month of October examining and improving our manner of praying, and the first thing to do is to restore the primacy of QUALITY over mere quantity. More on that tomorrow!  Ave Maria! 

Yesterday, we saw how Jesus rejected the zealous, but fake, Pharisees, yet accepted the sinful, yet sincere, Mary Magdalen. Now, of course, this does not mean that Jesus accepts and condones sin—far from it—on the contrary, He preached and fought against sin all His life, but it was for the purpose of bringing the lost sinner back to God: "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10) ... "I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance" (Luke 5:32) and  "I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance" (Luke 15:7).

Both Mary Magdalen and the Pharisees were sinners--“Who can say: 'My heart is clean, I am pure from sin'?” (Proverbs 20:9). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Mary listened to the call to conversion, the Pharisees ignored and rejected the call. As you sow, so shall you reap! Therefore, Jesus accepted the 'accepting Mary', but rejected the 'rejecting Pharisees'.  Of Mary He says: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less" (Luke 7:47). Yet, of the Pharisees He says: "Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin." (John 8:24). Jesus had won over Mary's heart, but the Pharisees closed their hearts to Him. It is all a matter of heart—especially in our prayer life, and more so in praying the Rosary.

For the heart plays a major role with God. We are told love God with our whole heart (mind, soul, strength).  He detests a lukewarm heart: "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth."  (Apocalypse 3:16).  We are told to "fear the Lord, and serve Him with a perfect and most sincere heart" (Josue 24:14). Jesus complains of the lack of heart in prayer:  "This people honoreth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!" (Matthew 15:8). We beg of the Holy Ghost to enkindle in our hearts the fire of His love.  Jesus wants to be especially honored in His Sacred Heart.  He also wants the world to show devotion, with their hearts, to both the Sorrowful Heart and the Immaculate  Heart of Mary.  We cannot serve God and the world and “where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.” (Matthew 6:21). If the world and its amusements is our treasure, then we will have little heart for prayer; but if our heart is in God, then we will have little love in our hearts forf the world. We cannot have both.  "Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God." (James 4:4).

Our prayer life, and therefore our Rosary, is primarily a matter of heart.  “Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23).  “But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19).  It is the heart that loves and prayer is meant to be a communication with the One we love.  

"I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with my whole heart...” (Wisdom 8:21).  “I entreated Thy face with all my heart” (Psalm 118:58).  “You shall seek Me, and shall find Me: when you shall seek Me with all your heart.” (Jeremias 29:13). God was moved to action only when “they all begged of God with all their heart” (Judith 4:16).  “With his whole heart he praised the Lord, and loved God that made him: and He gave him power against his enemies” (Ecclesiasticus 47:10).  So, “let us draw near with a true heart” (Hebrews 10:22). 

That true heart goes beyond a Rosary lip-service or lip-recitation, and seeks out a 'heart-meditation'. Our Lady said that the soul of the Rosary is the meditation, not the vocal prayers.  “I am the Lord who searches the heart” (Jeremias 17:10).  “He should be loved with the whole heart” (Mark 12:33).  “My heart grew hot within me: and, in my meditation, a fire shall flame out” (Psalm 38:4).  “And they said one to the other: 'Was not our heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in this way, and opened to us the Scriptures?'” (Luke 24:32)  “...then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest, believing, they should be saved.” (Luke 8:12).

Sadly, especially today, too many pray with a divided heart. They want to love God, but they also want to love the world. They want to be loved by God, and they also want to be loved by the world. It cannot be!  “A heart that goeth two ways shall not have success” (Ecclesiasticus 3:28). Such a divided heart will be rejected by God: “The perverse heart did not cleave to Me: and the malignant, that turned aside from Me, I would not know” (Psalm 100:4). “Their heart is divided: now they shall perish: He shall break down their idols, He shall destroy their altars.” (Osee 10:2).  “That the house of Israel may be caught in their own heart, with which they have departed from me through all their idols” (Ezechiel 14:5).

Most of the world prays badly (or not at all)!  Do not be like most of the world--“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). Make this month of October the month when you reform your habits of prayer in general, and your habits of praying the Rosary in particular. Think more about the aspect of love and try ensure the presence of love in your prayers, for it love that which makes the prayer powerful—dare we even say infallible. That is why a short, simple perfect act of contrition (whose motive is a love of God, not a fear of God) can wipe away the gravest and the most numerous sins, as in the case of Mary Magdalen, who loved much. 

Tomorrow, we will look at the counsels of the saints in praying the Rosary!  
Ave Maria!

Present Day Power of the Rosary
Today we celebrate the beautiful feast of Our Lady of the Rosary!  As Sister Lucia of Fatima has said: "The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls" (December 26, 1957).

However, any weapon or tool depends upon the attention, effort and skill of the person using it. As we said yesterday, the praying of the Rosary, is primarily a matter of heart.  “Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart” (Colossians 3:23). A true heart goes beyond a Rosary lip-service or lip-recitation, and seeks out a 'heart-meditation'. Our Lady said that the soul of the Rosary is the meditation, not the vocal prayers. If our heart is not in it, then we shall fall under the condemnation of Our Lord's own words: "This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8).

Our Lady also said to Blessed Alan de la Roche, in a vision, "When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer." For the Rosary said without the meditation on the mysteries, would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation. A Christian who does not meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary is very ungrateful to Our Lord and shows how little he cares for all that our divine Saviour has suffered to save the world. (The Secret of the Rosary).

Having said that, it is, nevertheless, important that the "whole package" be in perfect order. We should try our best to focus (and probably often refocus) our mind on the prayers that we are saying. While the mind may meditate on the mystery, the vocal prayers (Our Fathers, Hail Marys, etc.) should be prayed respectfully and with dignity.

The Devil and the Rosary
If the devil cannot prevent you from praying your Rosary, then he will, at least, try to make sure that you pray it badly. He has centuries of experience, and also quite a lot of success—as we all know from our personal experiences ... “...then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest, believing, they should be saved.” (Luke 8:12).

Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. Before we even begin, he makes us feel bored, distracted, or exhausted; and when we have started praying, he oppresses us from all sides, and when after much difficulty and many distractions, we have finished, he whispers to us, 

"What you have just said is worthless. It is useless for you to say the Rosary. You had better get on with other things. It is only a waste of time to pray without paying attention to what you are saying; half‑an‑hour's meditation or some spiritual reading would be much better. Tomorrow, when you are not feeling so sluggish, you'll pray better; leave the rest of your Rosary till then." By tricks of this kind the devil gets us to give up the Rosary altogether, or to say it less often, and we keep putting it off, or change to some other devotion.  (The Secret of the Rosary).

The holy and learned Jesuit, Father Suarez, was so deeply aware of the value of the Angelic Salutation that he said he would gladly give all his learning for the price of one Hail Mary well said.  (The Secret of the Rosary).

It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervour with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should. It is a good thing to think over how we should pray if we want to please God and become more holy.   (The Secret of the Rosary).

Most of the world prays badly (or not at all)!  
In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with great attention, for God listens more to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth. How can we expect God to listen to us, if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying?   (The Secret of the Rosary).

Before beginning a decade, pause for a moment or two, depending on how much time you have, and contemplate the mystery that you are about to honour in that decade. Always be sure to ask, by this mystery and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, for one of the virtues that shines forth most in this mystery or one of which you are in particular need.  (The Secret of the Rosary).

A fault commonly committed in saying the Rosary is to have no intention other than that of getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is because so many look upon the Rosary as a burden, which weighs heavily upon them when it has not been said. It is sad to see how most people say the Rosary. They say it astonishingly fast, slipping over part of the words. Small wonder, then, that the most sacred prayers of our holy religion seem to bear no fruit, and that, after saying thousands of Rosaries, we are still no better than we were before. (The Secret of the Rosary).

"I beg you to restrain your natural precipitation when saying your Rosary, and make some pauses in the middle of the Our Father and Hail Mary, and a smaller one after the words of the Our Father and Hail Mary which I have marked with a cross, as follows (The Secret of the Rosary).:

St. Louis de Montfort's ideal Our Father and Hail Mary
Our Father who art in Heaven, + hallowed by thy name, + thy kingdom come, + thy will be done + on earth as it is in Heaven. + Give us this day + our daily bread, + and forgive us our trespasses + as we forgive those who trespass against us, + and lead us not into temptation, + but deliver us from evil. Amen. 

Hail, Mary, full of grace, + the Lord is with thee, + blessed art thou among women, + and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. + Holy Mary, Mother of God, + pray for us sinners, now + and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

At first, you may find it difficult to make these pauses because of your bad habit of saying prayers in a hurry; but a decade said recollectedly in this way will be worth more than thousands of Rosaries said in a hurry, without pausing or reflecting.   (The Secret of the Rosary).

An example of what a slow, well-said Hail Mary can do is recounted by St. Louis: "Then St. Dominic had all the people say the Rosary very slowly and with great devotion, and a wonderful thing happened: at each Hail Mary which he and the people said, a large number of devils issued forth from the wretched man's body under the guise of red‑hot coals."   (The Secret of the Rosary).

However, in case we think the Rosary is just about quality, with no regard for quantity, let us remind ourselves of Our Lady's words at Fatima, regarding little 9-year-old Francisco, of whom she said that he would not go to Heaven until he had said many Rosaries. One day Saint Gertrude had a vision of Our Lord counting gold coins. She summoned the courage to ask Him what he was doing, and He answered, "I am counting the Hail Marys that you have said; this is the money with which you purchase Heaven."

"If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, you shall receive a never‑fading crown of glory. Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins." (The Secret of the Rosary).

May this glorious feast of Our Lady of the Rosary bring you many graces and blessings! Ave Maria! ..... 

Are You Underpraying?
Too many people "underpray" their Rosary!  What do we mean by that? We are quite simply saying that we are all capable of far more than we think! Many souls wait for a perfect moment to pray their Rosary: "Oh, I'll wait until I get home tonight!"  "I just can't seem to find the time to say it!"  Wow! What a busy day, I don't even have time to pray!" 

What is the perfect time to pray? Anytime and all the time!  St. Paul tells us: "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) ... which is just what Jesus said: "we ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1). 

"You must be joking!" you say, "That's insanity! That's just not possible!"  Well, not really. As Scripture says, "Jesus beholding, said to them: 'With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.'" (Matthew 19:26). Besides, we are taught that God never commands the impossible. But Jesus commands we ought always to pray. Therefore it must be possible. But how? And especially, how can that be possible for the Rosary?

First of all let us analyze ourselves. When we really think about it, there is not one moment of the day that we stop thinking! It might be thinking about whether or not to get out of bed, or hit the snooze button; it may be thinking about what we are going to have for breakfast and what we have to do today; it may be thinking as we read, as we drive, or as we observe others; it might be thinking during Mass and Thanksgiving; thinking about our immediate duties at work or at home—we are thinking, thinking, thinking all day long!  We even think in bed as we fall asleep! Arguably, you could say we 'think' throughout our dreams!!!

Nobody complains about not having time to think, do they? Now, what is prayer? The Church and the saints teach us that "Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God." In other words, prayer is thinking about God!

The next thing we have to do is convince ourselves that there nothing better, or more important, or more profitable for us than to think about God. This is merely saying in another way what Our Lord said: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God" (Luke 12:31) and "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind" (Luke 10:27). 

There is More Time in the Day than You Think!  
Plug the sink. Turn the tap on so that it barely drips. Go you own way and come back at the end of the day and see how much water is collected by little drips.

We should "Drip Our Rosaries" in the same way. You may not be able to say five decades at any given moment throughout the day, but one decade will most likely be possible. All it takes is about three minutes! Walking from one office to another. Tea or coffee break. Walking to and back from the restroom. Sweeping the floor. Loading the washing machine. Doing the dishes. Taking out the trash. The list is endless. It is just a question of prioritizing and creating a habit.

If Jesus said that we ought always to pray, then He knows that this must entail praying as we work and live out our daily lives. Jesus and Mary do not mind that. In fact, it shows and proves that we love them.

You will be amazed at how many decades you manage to get through in a day, using that principle. And don't worry if you lose count of your Hail Marys or decades. Jesus and Mary know, and that is all that matters. Numbers can lead to pride or routine. Leave the numbers to God.

Another thing that you may find helpful, is to avoid worrying about meditating all five or all fifteen decades in a day. That is not necessary. Take one decade a day if you like. Dwell upon the mystery while you shower, eat, drive, work, etc. Again, it is not abnormal, because we all think without ceasing every day. Just think about the mystery you have chosen as often as you can. Sandwich it in between decades of the Rosary. It is like a daily project, where you at the mystery from all angles throughout the day.

If the mystery turns out to be really fruitful, continue the same mystery the next day, and the next, and the next—if it is still working for you. If not, move onto another. In this way the Rosary becomes something deeper, more personal, more meaningful and less boring, less monotonous, less burdensome. 

May Our Lady grant you the grace to truly enter into the spirit of the Rosary and drink of the abundant graces therein. Ave Maria! 

Sometimes you may find it hard to believe that such a little simple thing like the Rosary can be called a weapon. Yet that is what the Popes and Saints of the Church tell us. 

Perhaps it is our scientific, materialistic, skeptical age that influences our way of thinking, or it may be that we are a "Doubting Thomas", who hasn’t personally witnessed any Rosary miracles, and so we think to ourselves "Unless I experience or see a miracle myself, I will not believe!"

Yet, I am sure, those miracles happen more often than we imagine throughout the world of devout Rosary clients. Most are perhaps miracles of grace, some will be physical miracles. Let us not think for one moment that our skepticism limits the power in any way.

Pope Pius XI  wrote that "The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin . . . It serves admirably to overcome the enemies of God and of religion."

St. Padre Pio used to say that "The Rosary is the weapon" 

In a letter to Dom Umberto Maria Pasquale, an Italian Salesian priest, Sister Lucia of Fatima wrote:

"The decadence which exists in the world is without doubt the consequence of a lack the spirit of prayer. It was in anticipation of this confusion that the Blessed Virgin recommended the recitation of the Rosary with such insistence. And, as the Rosary is, after the Mass, the most appropriate prayer for preserving the Faith in souls, the devil has unleashed his struggle against it.  Unfortunately, we see the disasters he has caused ... We must defend souls against errors which can make them stray from the good road. I cannot help them other than by my poor and humble prayers and my sacrifices; but you, Fr. Umberto, you have a much more extended field of action to develop your apostolate. We cannot and we must not stop ourselves, nor allow, as Our Lord says, the sons of darkness to be more wise than the children of Light ... The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending ourselves on the field of battle."

That is just the testimony from the players on our side. The opposition, too, have declared the Rosary to be all conquering. That most beautiful passage from The Secret of Rosary, where St. Dominic is performing an exorcism, and commands the devils to speak out about Our Lady. Here is that passage:

When St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary near Carcassone, an Albigensian was brought to him who was possessed by the devil. The Saint exorcised him in the presence of a great crowd of people; it appears that over twelve thousand had come to hear him speak. The devils who were in possession of this wretched man were forced to answer St. Dominic's questions in spite of themselves. They said:

1. That there were fifteen thousand of them in the body of that poor man, because he had attacked the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary;

2. That by the Rosary which he preached, he put fear and horror into the depths of Hell, and that he was the man they hated most throughout the world because of the souls he snatched from them by the devotion of the Rosary.

3. They revealed several other things.

St. Dominic put his Rosary round the neck of the possessed man and asked them who, of all the saints in Heaven, was the one they feared most, who should therefore be the most loved and revered by men.

At this they let out such unearthly screams that most of the people fell to the ground, seized with fear. Then, using all their cunning so as not to answer, the devils wept and wailed in such a pitiful way that many of the people wept also, out of pure natural pity. The devils, speaking through the mouth of the Albigensian, pleaded in a heart‑rending voice, "Dominic, Dominic, have pity on us, we promise you we will never harm you.

"You have always had compassion for sinners and those in distress; have pity on us, for we are in grievous straits. We are suffering so much already, why do you delight in increasing our pains? Can't you be satisfied with the pains we now endure? Have mercy on us, have mercy on us!"

St. Dominic was not in the least moved by the pathetic words of those wretched spirits, and told them he would not let them alone until they had answered his question. Then they said they would whisper the answer in such a way that only St. Dominic would be able to hear. The latter firmly insisted upon their answering clearly and audibly. Then the devils kept quiet and would not say another word, completely disregarding St. Dominic's orders.

So he knelt down and said this prayer to Our Lady: "Oh, most glorious Virgin Mary, I implore you by the power of the Holy Rosary command these enemies of the human race to answer my question."

No sooner had he said this prayer than a glowing flame leaped out of the ears, nostrils and mouth of the possessed man. Everyone shook with fear, but the fire did not hurt anyone. Then the devils cried, "Dominic, we beseech you, by the passion of Jesus Christ and the merits of his holy Mother and of all the saints, let us leave the body of this man without speaking further; for the angels will answer your question whenever you wish. After all, are we not liars ‑ so why should you want to believe us? Do not torment us any more, have pity on us."

"Woe to you, wretched spirits, who do not deserve to be heard," St. Dominic said, and kneeling down he prayed to the Blessed Virgin: "O most worthy Mother of Wisdom, I am praying for the people assembled here, who have already learned how to say the Angelic Salutation properly. I beg you for the salvation of those here present, compel these adversaries of yours to proclaim the whole truth here and now before the people."

St. Dominic had scarcely finished this prayer when he saw the Blessed Virgin near at hand surrounded by a multitude of angels. She struck the possessed man with a golden rod that she held and said, "Answer my servant Dominic at once." (It must be noted that the people neither saw nor heard Our Lady, only St. Dominic.)

Then the devils started screaming:

"Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? O advocate of sinners, you who snatch them from the very jaws of Hell, you who are a most sure path to Heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness.

"Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective.

"We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints. We fear her more than all the other saints in Heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants.

"Many Christians, who call on her at the hour of death, and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards, are saved by her intercession. And if that Marietta (it is thus in their fury they called her) did not counter our plans and our efforts, we should have overcome the Church and destroyed it long before this, and caused all the Orders in the Church to fall into error and infidelity.

"Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody, who perseveres in saying the Rosary, will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy."

Then St. Dominic had all the people say the Rosary very slowly and with great devotion, and a wonderful thing happened: at each Hail Mary which he and the people said, a large number of devils issued forth from the wretched man's body under the guise of red‑hot coals. When the devils had all been expelled and the heretic completely delivered from them, Our Lady, although invisible, gave her blessing to the assembled company, and they were filled with joy.

A large number of heretics were converted because of this miracle and joined the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. (The Secret of the Rosary, "Thirty-Third Rose").

So there we have it!  A consistent testimony, over the centuries, and from both sides of the battlefield, on the power of devotion to Mary through the Rosary. Let us rekindle the faith in our hearts in this wonderful sacramental and weapon that Heaven has given to us. Let us use this month of October, which is especially dedicated to the Holy Rosary, as a springboard to improving and overhauling our Rosary armory. Let us try to really meditate the mysteries, rather than just say them—for Our Lady says that the meditation is the heart and soul of the Rosary. It is because we do not meditate its mysteries that perhaps our prayers are not answered as we hoped. As we sow, so shall we reap. Paraphrasing St. Augustine, we can say that he, who prays the best, gets the best graces; and he who prays most, gets the most graces. So let us pray well and let us pray much!

Once again, may Our Lady grant you the grace to truly enter into the spirit of the Rosary and drink of the abundant graces therein. Ave Maria!

                                     

This will be a tale of two parts. First of all comes the scary part! After that, will come some words of comfort! Looking at Our Lady's messages in her modern-day apparitions, it is certain that we are living in scary times. When Our Lady says such things as: 

"If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much I can no longer keep hold of it. Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches to protect their authority and dominate with pride. The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity.  Yes, the priests are asking vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads.  Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again!  The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people.  There are no more generous souls; there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world.  God will strike in an unprecedented way.” (La Salette in 1846).

“Woe to the inhabitants of the earth!  God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together.  The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence.   God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family.  Physical and moral agonies will be suffered.  God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other for more than thirty-five years.  The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events.  Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.” (La Salette in 1846).

“Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God.  They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell; several religious institutions will lose all faith and will lose many souls.  Evil books will be abundant on earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God.” (La Salette in 1846).

“All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principal, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds ... they will abolish civil rights as well as ecclesiastical, all order and all justice would be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension would be seen, without love for country or family ...  disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the earth ... France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war.  Blood will flow in the streets.  Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian.  A general war will follow which will be appalling.  Men will kill each other; massacre each other even in their homes.  The earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds (in addition to plague and famine which will be wide-spread). There will be a series of wars, until the last war, which will then be fought by the ten Kings of the Antichrist.” (La Salette in 1846).

“Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the earth stained with crime. Tremble, earth, and you, who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves! Tremble, for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth!  There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases.   There will be thunderstorms which will shake cities, earthquakes which will swallow up countries.  Voices will be heard in the air.  Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment.  Blood will flow on all sides.” (La Salette in 1846).

Just over 70 years later, Our Lady of Fatima warned that, if her requests were not heeded, Russia would "spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated."  

Then 56 years later, at Akita in Japan, in 1973, Our Lady warns: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres...churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord ... If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.”

Now, we have to ask the question: “Are these things irrevocably bound to happen?” The answer is quite simply “No! For prophecy is conditional—a case of if you do this, this will happen; but if you don’t do that, then that won’t happen.”  

This is clearly seen by Our Lady’s words at the apparitions. At Fatima she places the condition that IF Francisco prays many Rosaries, then he too will go to Heaven with the two girls; meaning therefore, that IF he doesn’t pray many Rosaries, then he won’t go to Heaven. Also at Fatima, Our Lady places the condition that “IF my requests are granted, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. IF NOT, she will scatter her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecution of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be destroyed.” At La Salette, Our Lady says: “IF my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much I can no longer keep hold of it.”  Therefore,  IF the people do submit, the hand of her Son will not fall upon them.

However, God, Who knows all things, even the future, knows the effect of Our Lady’s messages on mankind, and He knows that mankind will, as a whole, turn a deaf ear to her entreaties. God knows that mankind will respond as it should. Therefore, though the prophecies are conditional, it is 99% certain they will happen.

Yet, in His infinite mercy, God has offered us a way to avoid this terrible punishment.

Richard of St. Laurence states "there is not such powerful help in any name, nor is there any other name given to men, after that of Jesus, from which so much salvation is poured forth upon men as from the name of Mary." He continues, "That the devout invocation of this sweet and holy name leads to the acquisition of superabundant graces in this life, and a very high degree of glory in the next." And whose name to we call upon over a hundred times each time we pray five decades? Mary’s of course—as we call upon her name twice in each Hail Mary!

After the most sacred name of Jesus, the name of Mary is so rich in every good thing, that on earth and in heaven there is no other from which devout souls receive so much grace, hope, and sweetness. Hence Richard of St. Laurence encourages sinners to have recourse to this great name, "because it alone will suffice to cure them of all their evils;" and "there is no disorder, however malignant, that does not immediately yield to the power of the name of Mary."  

This echoes Our Lady’s words from both Fatima and Akita:  “Don't be discouraged, I will not abandon you ever. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and through it will conduct you to God” (Fatima). “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” (Akita)

“The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary ... Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.” (Akita in 1973).

“The greatest method of praying is to pray the Rosary.” (St. Francis de Sales).

“Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day be led astray. This is a statement that I would gladly sign with my blood.” (St. Louis de Montfort).

“If you persevere in reciting the Rosary, this will be a most probable sign of your eternal salvation.” (Blessed Alan de la Roche).

“You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.” (Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche).

“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.” (Sister Lucia).

“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.” (Pope Blessed Pius IX).

“God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will … I make an urgent appeal to the earth.  I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of men; I call on my children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me, so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my spirit.” (La Salette).

“They shall be the true apostles of the latter times … they shall be true dis­ciples of Jesus Christ  …  teaching the narrow way of God in pure truth, accord­ing to the holy Gospel, and not according to the max­ims of the world; troubling themselves about nothing; not accepting persons; sparing, fearing and listening to no mortal, however influential he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts … They shall be like sharp arrows, in the hand of the powerful Mary, to pierce her enemies.” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

“Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in suffering and unknown to the world.  It is time they came out and filled the world with light.  Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children.  I am at your side and within you, provided that your faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days.  Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see.  For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends. The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay.  But now Enoch and Eli will come, filled with the Spirit of God.  They will preach with the might of God, and men of good will believe in God, and many souls will be comforted.” (La Salette).

But we must remember that a lukewarm, half-hearted, even one, two or three decades a day will not suffice. For we are in the middle of the most terrible—though partially invisible—war that mankind has ever seen. Any war, never mind the most terrible war, calls for EXTRAordinary actions and not just ordinary peace time actions. The fifteen decade Rosary is a peacetime Rosary. For Lepanto, they processed most of the day praying the Rosary; Pope Pius V had been up all the previous night praying all night long. In a war, soldiers are in conditions far more taxing than when they are in their barracks—little or no sleep, little or no food, and, if they’re Catholic, probably lots and lots of very serious prayer into the bargain. It is a case of as you sow, so shall you reap—or, if you prefer a materialistic phrase, then “You get what you pay for!”  

So let us pray and pay our “protection money” to Our Lady, for as Sister Lucia said: “The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.” 

Have confidence, she will not abandon you if you play your part and get serious about the times at hand! Live as though at war and not as though in peacetime!
Ave Maria!

                                       

Our Lady is traditionally reputed to have said to St. Dominic that, one day, through the Rosary and the Scapular she would save the world. It is most likely that she was speaking of our times—for Our Lady has insisted on the Rosary a remarkable number of times in her most recent, Church approved, apparitions. The final apparition at Fatima, where she repeatedly demanded that the Rosary be said daily, she also appeared as Our Lady on Mt. Carmel at the final apparition on October 13th, 1917—which led Sr. Lucia to comment that never was she as beautiful as she was when she appeared as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, holding out the Scapular to the world.

The Scapular is a sign of our special adoption by the Mother of God. The first and the greatest privilege it brings is that it envelops us in the special love of our Blessed Mother. It makes us "hers" in a very special way. She repeats to us the words of the prophet Ezechiel: "And I passed by thee and saw thee: and behold thy time was the time of lovers: and I spread my garment over thee and covered thy ignominy. And I swore to thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee . . . and thou becamest mine" (Ez. 16:10). All, who were reborn on Calvary, are the children of her love and she is the Mother of grace to all of them, but what mother is there that does not have her favorites? As Fr. Le Jejune says:"Mary's love is boundless and her mercy extends to all. Nevertheless, she has her favorites. There is no one in the world for whom she prays more readily than for the religious of Mt. Carmel and all who are affiliated to them, because she has a particular tenderness for them. The reason is that the religious of Carmel were the first to consecrate themselves to her. They are her eldest."

The special adoption by which, as the Preface of the Scapular Mass says, we became "the sons of her choice" is the foundation of all the spiritual value the Scapular possesses. And what a privilege this is! "And thou becamest mine."  These words spring from the very depths of her tender Mother's heart. She brought us forth into the life of grace, wrapped us up in the garments of her special love and we became hers forever. We can easily understand the love that led Our Lady to wrap up her firstborn Son in the swaddling clothes, but that she should cover the ignominy of our spiritual nakedness, is something that only her most merciful love can explain.

The thought that, from the moment she spreads her garment over us, her special love envelops our whole being should be the greatest force for good in our daily lives. It should inspire us with the profoundest sentiments of love and gratitude and bring us to dedicate ourselves to her in time and in eternity. Life itself is all too short to thank her. Her special love is like a ray of shining light which shows us her face in the midst of the heartless world of our banishment from God. Surely we can address her in the words of Eternal Wisdom: "Her ways are beautiful ways: and all her paths are peaceable" (Prov.)

A mother's love is the most practical thing in existence. It is never satisfied with words but is always pouring itself out on someone. Mother love is also capable of the greatest sacrifices. It is born in suffering and time serves only to increase its generosity and service. If this is true of the mother love we have all experienced, what must be said of the love of her who became the Mother of Sorrows and the Queen of Martyrs for love of us? When we see her with the sword of Simeon plunged deeply into her heart, how can we ever doubt that her love for mankind is as practical as that of her Divine Son?

Since she became the Mother of men, she has never ceased to show herself a mother to all who have gone to her for help. He who is mighty has done great things to her; and she in turn, who is mighty through the power of her divine motherhood, has done great things for those who have sought her intercession. She has been the cause of our joy and will continue to be to the end of time.

Our Lady is the Virgin Most Faithful; she will keep her promise and, since she is heard because of the great reverence due to her as Mother, her Son is bound to hear the prayers which she pours forth on our behalf. Her love for us is invincible for it was cradled in the Sacred Heart of her Son. It is stronger than death itself, and the waters of contradiction and ingratitude can never extinguish it. She knows us better than we know ourselves. She sees us tossed, without any comfort, on the billows of life, and, in her great and tender mercy, she has stooped down to bring us the peace, the eternal peace, of her Scapular promise.

he spiritual alliance of the Scapular puts our lives and our souls in the safe keeping of Our Lady. Her overshadowing love draws us into her bosom and we find protection from all our enemies in her invincible strength. When Abraham found himself in the strange and dangerous land of Egypt, he said to his wife: "Say that thou art my sister that I may be well used for thee and that my soul may live for thy sake" (Gen. 12:13). Abraham feared that since Sara was beautiful the Egyptians might kill him to take her, so he found safety in calling her his sister.

Through the alliance of the Scapular Our Lady has called us the "sons of her choice," that our souls may live and we may be well used for her sake. The dazzling splendor of her holiness makes her the terror of demons. She is "terrible as an army in battle array" against all the forces of evil that would molest us or attempt to snatch us from under the mantle of her maternal protection. And, as Queen of Angels, she can summon legions of heavenly hosts to our defence. When the king of Syria sent his forces to capture Eliseus, the prophet told his servant to "fear not for there are more with us than with them. And Eliseus prayed, and said, Lord open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Eliseus" (4 Kgs. 6:16, 17).

The Queen of the Angels repeats those words to those who are clothed in her Habit: "Fear not, for there are more with us than with them." She can summon legions of angels to our side and surround us with the power of Heaven. As Daughter of the Eternal Father, Mother of the Word, and Spouse of the Holy Ghost, her prayer is infinitely more powerful than that of any prophet. Even the mention of her name is enough to confound the powers of darkness. When the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, he saw that his master was not alone. Neither are the "sons of her choice" alone in the battle of life. The alliance of the Scapular brings us the strength of heaven--while we are clothed in the Habit of Our Lady, we are surrounded by the forces at her command. "All who see them shall know that they are the seed the Lord hath blessed" (Is. 61:9).

As long as we live our lives and finish our course, under the sweet protection of her mantle, we have nothing to fear. Our path to Heaven is made easy by her who crushed the serpent's head and shared the glorious victory of her Risen Son. Our Lady is the Gate of Heaven particularly to those whom she has clothed in the garments of her love:"Whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go; and where thou shalt dwell I also will dwell" (Ruth 1:16).

Genesis tells us how Jacob loved Joseph above all his other sons and, as a sign of his special love, he made a coat of divers colors for him. This particular affection, which the father had for his favorite son, aroused the jealousy of his brothers. They determined to do away with him and, when the opportunity presented itself, they stripped him of his coat, dipped it in blood and sent it back to his father who immediately recognized it as his son's. If the eye of Jacob could have followed his beloved Joseph into the fields and had Jacob's arm been long enough to save him from his enemies, his love would have prevented Joseph from being sold into Egypt. The ever vigilant eye of our Blessed Mother is always upon those who wear her Habit, and, where her eye is, there also is the love of her Heart to save and defend us. The might of her love follows us and wherever we go and wherever we dwell, her love surrounds us.

Let us have a great confidence in the holy sacramentals, of the Rosary and the Scapular, that Heaven has bestowed upon us. Seemingly little and insignificant in worldly eyes, they bear a mighty power, which Our Lady will use, as she promised, to save the world. Ave Maria!

We are all creatures of habit. It is the way we were made to function. That, too, is what the spiritual life is all about—habits. A habit is a frequently repeated action to the point that it becomes an accustomed action.  Good habits are called virtues, whereas bad habits are called vice. A sin is not necessarily a vice. Only when it becomes habitual can it a sin be called a vice. Likewise, a good action is not necessarily a virtue. It is only when it is performed habitually that the good action becomes a virtue.

Where are going with this? Well, many, if not most, of our daily actions are habits or habitual actions. We may have a habit of going to bed at a certain time and rising at a certain time—and that habit can be hard to break, be it good or bad. In the morning, we have a habitual way of getting ready in the morning, before launching ourselves into the day. Once we have flossed, brushed, shaved and showered, there might be the habitual breakfast waiting for us. We use habitual greetings with the family. We have an habitual way of starting the car; an habitual route we take to work or school; an habitual schedule once at work; we mostly buy the same foods each week, etc., etc.

The same often applies to our spiritual life. We usually have habitual morning and night prayers (if we remember to say them). We say more or less the same prayers in preparation for Mass and in thanksgiving after Holy Communion. We might even have an habitual place where we like to sit in the church. Even the liturgy is habitual. Every year we have the same readings on the same Sundays and feast days.

This takes us to the praying the Rosary. We probably are also habitual in our manner of praying the Rosary. By this I mean that we might have a certain time or times of the day when we pray it. We may well have a certain manner in praying it, for example it may be habitually kneeling or sitting, or perhaps while driving or walking. Another Rosary habit is the way in which we pray the Rosary. It may be habitually fast, or habitually distracted, or, God forbid, habitually forgotten!

It is on this point that I would like to focus, because if we habitually say the Rosary, if we habitually say it attentively, if we habitually say it slowly, if we habitually say several Rosaries each day—then we can say that our daily Rosary is truly a virtue of ours.

However, if we habitually miss or forget to pray our Rosary, if we say it more than we pray it, if we say it distractedly, with haste and without any zeal—then we can truly say that our Rosary is truly a vice of ours. 

Virtue will be rewarded by God, but vice has to be punished. "Ah, then!" you say, "It is better then that I don't Rosary at all, in that way I won't get punished!"

Well, not quite. For Heaven expects ALL of us to be saying our Rosaries. It seems like Our Lady of Fatima made it more of an obligation than an option. Your argument might be comparable to the man who has received several speeding tickets for driving to fast and inattentively on his way to work. So, he says to himself, "Since I keep getting speeding tickets while driving to work, I had better not go to work, then I won't get fined by the police!"  True, but though you won't get fined by the police, you will get fired by the boss. That will end up being more expensive in the long run!

Most of us have some, if not many, bad habits in our prayer life and perhaps especially in our "Rosary life". The Rosary is such a powerful prayer, that I think it really is worth our while to stop "leaking money" by running up fines with Heaven, and start learning to pray it the way Heaven wants prayed.

This month of the Rosary is a perfect time for that "New Rosary Resolution"! Start simple and get the basics right first, then go on from there. I would say that for this month of October (but hopefully for the rest of your life) quite simply MAKE TIME for the Rosary and TAKE TIME in praying your Rosary. What I mean is this. Don't make the Rosary a mere accessory to your life, make it the focal point of your life. Don't just "fit-it-in-somewhere" but build the day around the Rosary. 

After the Mass *and the Divine Office), there is no better or more important prayer than the Rosary. We don't just "fit-the-Mass-in-somewhere"! The Mass has it time and place, and everything and everybody else has to fit and plan around that. We send Our Lady a message, for better or worse, by the place we give to Rosary in our day. Do games, entertainment, leisure come before the Rosary? If so, then we have manifest how cheaply we look upon the Mother of God. So let us MAKE TIME for the Rosary and make everything else fit around it.

Secondly, TAKE TIME with the Rosary—meaning that you should take your time praying the Rosary, and not rush through it in order to go do something "better" or "more exciting". If that is our attitude, then, once again, we manifest how cheaply we look upon the Mother of God. She is treated like a visit to an unliked grandparent. Once we arrive at their home, we are thinking about how soon we can leave and go home. 

TAKING YOUR TIME means praying or talking to Heaven more SLOWLY. The speed with which some people—not all and probably not you—pray the Rosary is quite astonishing. They would never speak to anyone in real life at that speed for very long, nor could they even if they wanted to! Let us slow down. As St. Louis de Montfort writes: 

"It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervour with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should." (The Secret of the Rosary, "Forty-First Rose").

So beginning with this month of October, the month of the Holy Rosary, let us FIND TIME, let us MAKE TIME for the Rosary, and let us TAKE OUR TIME praying, not just saying, the prayer that pleases Our Lady more than all others. Ave Maria! 

On October 13th, at Fatima, when Lucia passed on messages from people asking Our Lady for cures, Our Lady said: “Some yes, but not others. They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins… Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.”  Our Lady also stated:  “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day.”

The Rosary, if said devoutly and often enough, will bring about what Our Lady stated—namely, forgiveness of sin and amendment of life.

One day when he was offering Mass, Our Lord, who wished to spur him on to preach the Holy Rosary, spoke to him in the Sacred Host.
"How can you crucify me again so soon?" Jesus said.
"What did you say, Lord?" asked Blessed Alan, horrified.
"You crucified me once before by your sins," answered Jesus, "and I would willingly be crucified again rather than have my Father offended by the sins you used to commit. You are crucifying me again now because you have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach my Mother's Rosary, and you are not doing it. If you only did that, you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin. But you are not doing it, and so you yourself are guilty of the sins that they commit."
This terrible reproach made Blessed Alan solemnly resolve to preach the Rosary unceasingly. (The Secret of the Rosary, “Fourth Rose”).

Here are a few effects that we can expect from saying the Rosary devoutly.

In every “Our Father” we pray: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."  Every sin, says St. Augustine, is a debt which we contract with God, and He, in His justice, requires payment down to the last farthing. Unfortunately, we all have these sad debts. No matter how many they may be, we should go to God with all confidence and with true sorrow for our sins, saying:

"Our Father who art in Heaven, forgive us our sins of thought and those of speech, forgive us our sins of commission and of omission which make us infinitely guilty in the eyes of thy justice. We dare to ask this because thou art our loving and merciful Father, and because we have forgiven those who have offended us, out of obedience to you and out of charity. Do not permit us, in spite of our infidelity to thy graces, to give in to the temptations of the world, the devil, and the flesh. But deliver us from evil."  That is to say from the evil of sin, from the evil of temporal punishment and from the everlasting punishment, which we have rightly deserved. (The Secret of the Rosary, “Twelfth Rose”).

Even though there is nothing so great as the majesty of God and nothing so low as man, in so far as he is a sinner, Almighty God does not despise our poor prayers. On the contrary, He is pleased when we sing His praises. (The Secret of the Rosary, “Sixteenth Rose”).

In every Hail Mary, or Ave Maria, we call upon Mary to help us. Are you in the miserable state of sin? Then call on Mary and say to her, "Ave," which means "I greet thee with the most profound respect, thou who art without sin," and she will deliver you from the evil of your sins. Are you groping in the darkness of ignorance and error? Go to Mary and say to her, "Hail Mary," which means "Hail, thou who art bathed in the light of the Sun of Justice," and she will give you a share in her light. Have you strayed from the path leading to Heaven? Then call on Mary, for her name means "Star of the Sea, the Polar Star which guides the ships of our souls during the voyage of this life," and she will guide you to the harbor of eternal salvation ... Have you become an outcast and been accursed by God? Then say to Our Lady, "Blessed art thou above all women and above all nations by thy purity and fertility; thou hast turned God's maledictions into blessings for us." She will bless you.  (The Secret of the Rosary, “Twentieth Rose”).

The Gospel teaches us that a sinner who is converted and who does penance gives joy to all the angels. If the repentance and conversion of one sinner is enough to make the angels rejoice, how great must be the happiness and jubilation of the whole Heavenly court and what glory for our Blessed Lord himself to see us here on earth meditating devoutly and lovingly on his humiliations and torments and on his cruel and shameful death! Is there anything that could touch our hearts more surely and bring us to sincere repentance?  (The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Third Rose”).

To encourage you still more in this devotion, I should like to add that the Rosary recited with the meditation of the mysteries brings about the following marvellous results:
1. It gradually brings us a perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ;
2. It purifies our souls from sin;
3. It gives us victory over all our enemies;
4. It makes the practice of virtue easy;
5. It sets us on fire with the love of Our Lord;
6. It enriches us with graces and merits;
7. It supplies us with what is needed to pay all our debts to God and to our fellow‑men, and finally, it obtains all kinds of graces from God.   (The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Seventh Rose”).

“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins you shall receive a never‑fading crown of glory. Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.” (The Secret of the Rosary, “Red Rose”).

Blessed Alan de la Roche, who was so deeply devoted to the Blessed Virgin, had many revelations from her, and we know that he confirmed the truth of these revelations by a solemn oath. Three of them stand out with special emphasis: 

The first, that if people fail to say the Hail Mary, which has saved the world, out of carelessness, or because they are lukewarm, or because they hate it, this is an indication that they will probably be condemned to eternal punishment.

The second truth is that those who love this divine salutation bear the very special stamp of predestination.

The third is that those to whom God has given this favor, of loving Our Lady and of serving her out of love, must take very great care to continue to love and serve her, until the time when she shall have had them placed in Heaven by her Son in the degree of glory which they have earned. [These things were revealed to Blessed Alan de la Roche by Our Lady]. Among Catholics, those who bear the mark of God's reprobation, think but little of the Rosary. They either neglect to say it or only say it quickly and in a lukewarm manner. 

Even if I did not believe what was revealed to Blessed Alan de la Roche, even then my own experience would be enough to convince me of this terrible but consoling truth. I do not know, nor do I see clearly, how it can be that a devotion, which seems to be so small, can be the infallible sign of eternal salvation, and how its absence can be the sign of God's eternal displeasure; nevertheless, nothing could be more true.  (The Secret of the Rosary, “Seventeenth Rose”).

Lastly, let us remind ourselves once again of some of Our Lady’s Fifteen Promises to those who recite the Rosary:

2nd Promise: I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary. 

3rd Promise: The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell; it will destroy vice, decrease sin... 

4th Promise: It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things… 

5th Promise: The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish. 

6th Promise: Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice; he shall not perish by an unprovided death... 

7th Promise: Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church. 

8th Promise: Those who are faithful in reciting the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise. 

9th Promise: I shall deliver from Purgatory, those who have been devoted to the Rosary. 

10th Promise: The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven. 

11th Promise: You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary. 

What fools we would be to ignore this wonderful means of self-reformation and growth in virtue!   Ave Maria! 

One of the principles of this modern world is to get the most possible for the least effort. People want more pay, but they also want to work less, not more. We want to pay less for our purchases, so that we buy more things with the money we have. 

We are more concerned with the "Rights of Man" than we are concerned about the "Rights of God." We are very upset when someone offends us or does us any harm, but we are not in the least bit upset, or not upset as much, when we offend God.

At La Salette Our Lady said: "You will never be able to make up for the trouble I have taken over for the rest of you." She said similar things in her other apparitions. Our Lady is the Mediatrix of All Grace, and we sure take all the grace that we can get! But what do we do in return?

As Psalm 30, says in its 34th verse: "O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord will require truth, and will repay them abundantly that act proudly." The same can be said of Our Lady: "O love Our Lady, all ye saints!" For she is God's masterpiece, and God will repay our pride of having ignored her.

Firstly, one of the principle ways we show love is by conversation. Our love of Our Lady is reflected by the frequency and manner in which we talk to her. He who loves little, talks little; he who loves much, talks much. 

Secondly, the same can be said of, not only our words, but also our thoughts. We love to think of the things we love. How much do we think of Our Lady? How often do we think of Our Lady? Nothing prevents us from thinking about the things we love—neither work, nor fatigue, nor illness, nor the company of others.

Thirdly, we tend to want to give to those whom we love, the things that they love the most. We give them treats for this purpose—it might be by preparing for them a meal that they especially like, as in the case of Isaac and Esau (and Jacob); or it might be the giving of a gift that especially pleases the person, as in the case of Our Lord offering and re-offering Himself to His Father in each Sacrifice of the Mass.

Similarly, the Holy Rosary is especially pleasing to Our Lady. Through the Rosary, we seem to do all the three above mentioned things at once, or in one action—that is the action of praying and meditating upon the mysteries of the Rosary.

By the words of the Rosary—the Our Father, Hail Mar,and Glory Be—we talk to Our Lady. We praise Our Lady. We remind her, over and over again, of her greatest privilege—that of being the "Mother of God." 

Each time we say "Holy Mary" we fulfill the prophecy of Mary, when she said to St. Elizabeth: "behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." As we meditate on Mary's actions and words in the mysteries of the Rosary, we honor Our Lady by taking the time to do so, when we could waste time reflecting upon other vain things. We also prove our love for her by thinking about her and the things she did during her life.

One day, when St. Mechtilde was praying and was trying to think of some way in which she could express her love of the Blessed Virgin better than before, she fell into ecstasy. Our Lady appeared to her with the Angelic Salutation written in letters of gold upon her breast and said to her:

"My daughter, I want you to know that no one can please me more than by saying the greeting which the most adorable Trinity presented to me and by which I was raised to the dignity of the Mother of God.

"By the word Ave, which is the name of Eve, Eva, I learned that God in his infinite power had preserved me from all sin and its attendant misery which the first woman had been subject to.

"The name Mary, which means 'lady of light,' shows that God has filled me with wisdom and light, like a shining star, to light up Heaven and earth.

"The words, full of grace, remind me that the Holy Spirit has showered so many graces upon me that I am able to give these graces in abundance to those who ask for them through my mediation.

"When people say, The Lord is with thee, they renew the indescribable joy that was mine when the eternal Word became incarnate in my womb.

"When you say to me, Blessed art thou among women, I praise the mercy of God who has raised me to this exalted degree of happiness.

"And at the words, Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, the whole of Heaven rejoices with me to see my Son Jesus adored and glorified for having saved mankind."

To Blessed Alan de la Roche, it was said: "'That is why, before doing anything else, priests should try to kindle a love of prayer in people's hearts and especially a love of my Angelic Psalter. If only they would all start saying it and would really persevere, God in his mercy could hardly refuse to give them his grace. So I want you to preach my Rosary."' (The Secret of the Rosary, "Third Rose").

As for the selfish part of "What do I get out of it?" we can only quote the words of St. Dominic, who appeared in a vision to Blessed Alan de la Roche and told him of the great results of his ministry: he had preached the Rosary unceasingly, his sermons had borne great fruit and many people had been converted during his missions. He said to Blessed Alan, "See what wonderful results I have had through preaching the Rosary. You and all who love Our Lady ought to do the same so that, by means of this holy practice of the Rosary, you may draw all people to the real science of the virtues."

Blessed Alan de la Roche, who restored the devotion of the Rosary, received many privileges from Our Lady. He used to be horribly tempted and persecuted by devils, and then a deep sadness would fall upon him and sometimes he would be near to despair. But Our Lady always comforted him by her presence, which banished the clouds of darkness from his soul. She taught him how to say the Rosary, explaining its value and the fruits to be gained by it; and she gave him a great and glorious privilege, which was the honor of being called her new spouse. As a token of her chaste love for him, she placed a ring upon his finger and a necklace made of her own hair about his neck and gave him a Rosary.

Let us persevere with our Rosaries! Let us improve our Rosaries! Let us say more Rosaries! Let us meditate our Rosaries! For they give Our Lady so much honor and pleasure! For our part, we will take the crumbs that fall from her table! Ave Maria!

Fr. Patrick Peyton 91909-1992) accredited his inspiration for the Rosary Crusade to Our Lady, for he says that she interceded with her son Jesus Christ, to obtain his miraculous recovery from, what was at the time, an incurable tuberculosis in 1941. 

Patrick had entered the seminary in 1932. During October of 1938, before ordination to the priesthood, Patrick's health took a turn from good to bad when he started coughing blood. For months he ignored his hemorrhages until he could no longer concentrate with his work. He was taken to hospital and, after examination, the doctors announced that there was an advanced stage of tuberculosis in Patrick's lung. Initially, Patrick was despondent and thought that his life was going to end at the age of thirty. His sister, Nellie, came all the way to Notre Dame, IN, from Scranton, PA, bringing with her novenas to the Our Lady. Nellie reminded Patrick of Our Lady’s never ending love and reminded Patrick that their own family had lived a life of prayer, especially the Holy Rosary.

Fr. Peyton, though downcast, placed himself in the hands of Our Lady, leaving it to her whether he would live or die. For his own part, then still a seminarian, Peyton, immersed himself in meditation while praying his Rosaries. Several months afterwards, his doctors discovered that all traces of tuberculosis in his body disappeared. This miracle made Father Peyton intensely devout in his devotion to Our Lady, and throughout the rest of his life he would promote the Holy Rosary and devotion to Our Lady. Fr. Peyton insisted that the Rosary, if prayed and mediated as it should be, was the most efficacious form of meditation, especially in learning and imitating the Our Lord’s life, passion and death.

On May 1941, a dispensation was granted by Rome, permitting Patrick’s ordination to the priesthood, with the condition that he finish his studies after ordination, due to having missed many of them due to his severe illness. On June 15, 1941, Patrick and his brother Thomas were finally ordained at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, in the University of Notre Dame, as members of the Congregation of Holy Cross.

From that time onwards, Fr. Peyton would try to repay Our Lady’s intercession for him, by spreading devotion to Our Lady, especially through the praying of the Rosary.

After his ordination and upon completion of his missed studies, as a result of his recent severe illness, Fr. Peyton, was given very light duties. His first assignment was as chaplain of the Holy Cross Brothers of the Vincentian Institute in Albany, New York. From there, he began to write appeals to Bishops, the Catholic lay, even to non-Christians arguing and appealing the importance of the families praying the Family Rosary. Using various media such as the radio, films, outdoor advertising and later on television; and with the help of celebrities, artists and advertising practitioners, 

Father Peyton was one of the first pioneers of evangelism using mass media. This was also the method used by Bishop Sheen around the same time. St. Maximilian Kolbe would also make good use of the various available means afforded by the media in his own day and age. Arguably, it could be said that perhaps the master tempter, Satan, made the means (the media) become too important in the end, and thereby weakened the true spiritual message, of the Rosary and devotion to Our Lady, under the glitz and glamor of media coverage and presentations. Virtue stands in the middle, between excess and neglect.

He would also pioneer in conducting public rallies to bring families to pledge to pray the Rosary as a unit. These series of Rosary rallies, attended by millions, would become the most significant event where Father Peyton could be best remembered. According to one historian, Hugh Wilford, "Peyton himself was deeply conscious of the political dimension of his mission, proudly proclaiming in a 1946 radio broadcast, 'The Rosary is the offensive weapon that will destroy Communism—the great evil that seeks to destroy the faith'" The American CIA even tapped-into Fr. Peyton’s Rosary Crusades (an possibly even partially financed them) especially in South America, where it was hoping to reduce the threat of Communist rise to power.

These Rosary rallies, the crusades were imitated in various dioceses. As a result of increasing popularity and large attendances, Fr. Peyton soon found himself being invited to places all around the world, taking him to locations such as from Brussels, Belgium to Madrid, Spain across Asia to Manila, Philippines, down south of the equator to New Zealand and Papua New Guinea and into several South American cities like Lima, Peru, and to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

With the help of a non-Catholic advertising practitioner, Father Peyton would popularize the slogan, "The family that prays together stays together."

Sadly, today, though we have media communications that far outshine those of a mere 50 years ago, we do not outshine the promotion of the Rosary and devotion to Our Lady that Fr. Peyton was trying to do. However, today, each person can many, many more people—and without a real significant cost—simply by a good and judicious use of the internet. E-mail costs nothing extra, other than the regular monthly costs of subscribing to an internet service provider. The only cost is that of time. Are you prepared to take some time to spread devotion to Our Lady and devotion to her Rosary? All it takes is the sending of links to websites that promote Our Lady. You can become a sower of the seed of Marian devotion at the click of a mouse! But don’t be as timid as a mouse in doing it!  Ave Maria!

Disease requires that we give the body more attention and care until the disease is conquered.  Hospitals even place patients under “intensive care” in order to cure them.  The cure of a disease requires that we take a much greater quantity of nutrients or drugs.  A normal supply of nutrients, that would suffice in a time of health, is insufficient when battling a disease.

In a war, peace time activities have to be sacrificed to enable the war to be fought. People no longer follow “peace-time schedules” but their lives are often turned upside down by the schedule of war. For soldiers, it can mean little or no sleep; little or even no food; uncomfortable surrounding; etc.  When the enemy attacks, one or two bullets shot in the direction of the enemy will do little or no good. There is often a constant stream of bullets being fired at the enemy.

Our resting heart-rate is supposed be somewhere from 60 to 100 beats per minute.  But when we are engaged in strenuous work or exercise, that heart-rate has to rise, in order to bring more blood with its nutrients and oxygen to the muscles. This means that the considerably increased heart-rate can climb to anywhere from 120 beats during light exercise, to anywhere from 140 to 200 beats per minute during strenuous exercise.  Most of the time, you’re probably blissfully unaware of your heart's ceaseless activity—nearly 100,000 beats per day, or about 37 million beats per year and 3 billion in an average lifetime.

More strenuous work requires more food for energy. If I am sedentary I should eat, let’s say for example, 2,500 calories. If I am moderately active and work out 3 times a week then I should eat, for example, 3,000 calories.  If I do very strenuous work and exercise, then it would rise to, let’s say, 3,500 calories. Greater physical efforts require a greater amount of calories in order to perform them well.

Hauling more weight uses more gas. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your miles-per-gallon by up to 2 percent. By 2002, 62 percent of American adults were overweight or obese.  By 2010, that figure had grown to 70%. As American waistlines have expanded since 1960, so has their consumption of gasoline. 1 billion gallons of fuel are consumed each year because of the average weight gain of people living in the United States since 1960. Furthermore, an idling car engine can use a quarter to a half gallon of fuel per hour, depending on engine size and air conditioner use. This recalls back to mind Our Lord’s parable, where the master of the vineyard is looking for workers, and says: “Why do you stand here all day idle?” (Mt. 20:6).

This brings us to the heart of today’s thought. Why are we content with only praying, or perhaps only saying, a single Rosary per day?  For most people, the Rosary means only five decades, but the true Rosary consists of fifteen decades. There are still cultures today that look upon it that way—South America is one example. 

But even so, that is only a “rest-rate” for the Rosary, like the rest-rate of a heart beating. But in a fight, that heart beat rises incredibly! Today, we are in a fight that has no known precedent. Religiously, politically, morally, economically, intellectually—the world has taken a nose dive. We are attacked on all sides. The threats increase with each day and year—yet we still persist with a Rosary “rest-rate beat” of five decades a day!  Incredible!  Illogical!  Insane!

Francisco, one of the three children who saw Our Lady at Fatima, was told he would have to say many Rosaries before he could go to Heaven. He was almost 9 years old when Our Lady appeared to him in 1917, and almost 11 years old when he died in 1919. Lucia and Jacinta, the other two privileged children, say that he was rarely seen without his Rosary in his hands from that time onward—until his death.  In the August apparition of 1917, Our Lady said: “Pray, pray very much…”

Yet the “very much” must be also joined to the “very well.”  Remember that, at La Salette, Our Lady asked Melanie and Maximin: “Do you say your prayers properly, my children?"  At Lourdes, it was stated that Our Lady prayed the Rosary with St. Bernadette, SLOWLY and RESPECTFULLY.  

"It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Most Catholics say the Rosary, either the whole fifteen mysteries or five of them, or at least a few decades. Why is it then that so few of them give up their sins and make progress in virtue, if not because they are not saying them as they should." (The Secret of the Rosary, "Forty-First Rose").

We already spoke of the recommended method of praying the Rosary by St. Louis de Montfort in our 6th Article, but it needs repeating often, so as to break bad habits. St. Louis places a cross where he feels a pause could be made in the recitation of the Our Father and Hail Mary:

Our Father who art in Heaven, + hallowed by Thy name, + Thy kingdom come, + Thy will be done + on earth as it is in Heaven. + Give us this day + our daily bread, + and forgive us our trespasses + as we forgive those who trespass against us, + and lead us not into temptation, + but deliver us from evil. Amen. 

Hail, Mary, full of grace, + the Lord is with thee, + blessed art thou among women, + and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. + Holy Mary, Mother of God, + pray for us sinners, now + and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

St. Padre Pio is a wonderful example of praying well and praying much. He was very attached to his Rosary. Fr. Marcellino testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time, "because he didn't want to let go of the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other."

Father Alessio Parente said, “I was at his side for six years, and in all that time I never saw him without the Rosary in his hands night and day. Our Lady never refused him anything through the Rosary. The Rosary was his constant link with Our Lady.”  

Once Padre Pio said to Fr. Onorato Marcucci, grabbing the Rosary that he had put on the nightstand for a few seconds: "With this, one wins the battles."

Padre Pio used to permanently carry a Rosary in his hands and would pray it many times a day.  Here are the testimonies of various people to whom Padre Pio revealed, at different times, how many Rosaries he would pray daily.

On February 6, 1954 he said to Fr. Carmelo: "I still have 2 Rosaries to pray today. I said only 34 so far. Then I will go to bed." 

Answering a question of Fr. Michelangelo regarding the quantity of Rosaries he had prayed, Padre Pio replied: "Today I said 32 or 33 Rosaries. Maybe 1 or 2 more."

Answering a similar question from Fr. Mariano, Padre Pio said: "About 30. Maybe some more, but not less."

Then when Fr. Mariano asked “How do you do it?” Padre Pio simply said:  "What is the night for?"

To Enedina Mori, Padre Pio said:  "When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again."

Answering another question concerning the quantity of Rosaries he had prayed daily, he replied: "Some days I say 40 Rosaries, some other days 50." 

Then when asked how he managed that, Padre Pio said: “How do I do it?  How do you manage not so say any?"

Lucia Pennelli asked Padre Pio one morning, around 7:00 a.m., after Mass: "How many Rosaries did you say so far today? Two?"  Padre Pio replied:  "I already said seven."

To the same Lucietta Pennelli, one day at about noon, he said: "Today I have already said 16 complete Rosaries."

We will leave you with some quotes from St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina on the Rosary:

► “Mary has recommended the Rosary at Lourdes and Fatima because of its exceptional value for us and our times.”
► "Pray the Rosary frequently. It costs so little, and it's worth so much!"   
►"Always recite the Rosary and recite it as often as possible." 
►"When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again." 

Well said Padre Pio!  Let us not only pray our Rosaries well, but let us pray more Rosaries too!  Ave Maria! 

Are you a Catholic Spectator? Uh? What? What do you mean by "Catholic Spectator"? Okay, let's explain what we mean.

In life, there are those who try do something and there are those who try do get away with doing nothing. We see several instances of this in Holy Scripture. One is found in Our Lord's Parable of the Talents (Mt. 25:13-30), where three servants are given money by their departing master. The first receives five talents, the second two talents, and the third one talent. Upon his return, the master wants to know what they have done with the money he left them. The first two had made a profit, the third had done nothing with it, except buried it. In anger, the talent is taken away from him and the unprofitable servant is cast out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Another incident from Holy Scripture is very similar to the above mentioned one. St. Luke (chapter 19) relates a parable by Our Lord, where a nobleman departs his house to receive a kingdom and gives his ten servants all the same amount of money—one pound each—so that they might trade with it and bring a profit. Luke only gives details of the nobleman's judgment on three of those ten. One had made ten times the amount given to him; another had made five times the amount; another had made nothing, but had hidden his money in a napkin. The result was the same. In anger, the master takes the money away from him and gives it the servant who had made ten times the amount. 

In modern times, we even joke about this phenomenon of watching and doing nothing. Each country has its own scapegoat nationality for a joke similar to this:
“How many (put in the nationality here) men does it take to dig a hole?” 
“I don’t know, tell me!” 
“Fifteen! One to dig the hole and fourteen to stand around criticizing!” 

As they say, many a true word said in jest!  That is particularly true today, when we have become a race of talkers, but not walkers. Perhaps the talking would not be too bad, if we were only talking to the right people—which would be Our Lord and Our Lady. However, we talk to every Tom, Dick and Harry instead of Our Lord and Our Lady—with the consequence that nothing gets done and world is still as bad as it was when we began talking.

Some words count, other words don’t!  Words addressed to the world are nowhere near as valuable or as powerful as words addressed to Heaven. One day Saint Gertrude had a vision of Our Lord counting gold coins. She summoned the courage to ask Him what he was doing, and He answered, "I am counting the Hail Marys that you have said; this is the money with which you purchase Heaven." Or as St. Padre Pio used to say: “The Rosary is the prayer of the Madonna, the one that triumphs on everything and everybody.”  

However, we find no time to pray the Rosary if we are preoccupied with doing nothing else than just venting to the world, or listening to the world venting—which makes the devil very happy indeed. The prayer time that is lost on unprofitable reading on the internet or unprofitable talking whether face-to-face, or on the phone.  Unprofitable, because once something is read, especially if it is bad, it never becomes the object of a fervent prayer of intercession. That way, we become like the Jewish priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, who see the problem, but walk on by.

One of the chief faults in all of this, lies in our false set of values. We have long-since discarded the idea of “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” and “love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength” in favor of “Seek me first and love myself with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength.”

More happens through prayer than though any other means. Prayer is the engine or the gasoline of the world, but there are very few drivers behind the steering wheel. Our Lady came at Fatima to ask for more prayer—but, as she complained at La Salette, “People will think of nothing but amusement” and will have barely time for their regular prayers, let alone any extra prayers. Our Lady of La Salette knowingly warned us, saying: “The spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God.”

“Why stand you here all the day idle?” (Matthew 20:6). The two children at La Salette and the three children at Fatima, could be said to have been idle in their prayers. When Our Lady asked them at La Salette if they said their prayers properly, they had to admit that they didn’t. At Fatima, they were more interested in playing than praying—they had even come up with an abbreviated version of the Hail Mary, so as to be able through the Rosary all the quicker in order to go and play. 

 We see that at the second apparition of the Angel, which preceded Our Lady’s apparitions and took place during the summer of 1916. While the children were playing around their favorite well, the Angel suddenly appeared. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Pray, pray a great deal! The Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer unceasingly prayers and sacrifice yourselves to the Most High."

The world has been becoming worse and worse since Our Lady came to Fatima in 1917 to tell us that so many souls are falling into Hell because there is nobody to pray and offer sacrifices for sinners. We know that—at least I hope we do—and yet very little is done to activate the Catholic prayer machine throughout the world. “People will think of nothing but amusement.”  

With souls being lost by the cart-load each day—St. Teresa of Avila said she saw souls falling into Hell like snowflakes in a blizzard—we calmly and nonchalantly go about our daily lives as though that truth was the figment of someone’s imagination! Heaven asks for prayers—the Rosary in particular—and what is the response?  

St. Padre Pio would pray 30, 40 and sometimes 50 Rosaries a day! Who knows how many little Francisco Marto (one of the three Fatima seers) would pray each day? As Our Lord complained:  “Why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).  “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). Let us pray … Ave Maria!

In the Middle Ages, a saint, to whom Our Lord appeared, asked Him why there were no longer any miracles happening of the grandeur and frequency as in the early days of the Church. Our Lord replied that it was due to a lack of the faith on the part of the priests and faithful. 

Faith moves mountains. Faith attracts miracles. Faith wins battles. Faith saves souls. Let us look at Holy Scripture to see how true that is.

Even the Apostles were deficient in the faith at times, as we see in the following passage: "There came to him a man falling down on his knees before him, saying: 'Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic, and suffereth much: for he falleth often into the fire, and often into the water.  And I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him!'  Then Jesus answered and said: 'O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to Me!'  And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.  Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: 'Why could not we cast him out?'  Jesus said to them: 'Because of your unbelief. For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, 'Remove from hence hither!' and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!'" (Matthew 17:14-19).

The Apostles had gone through the motions of the exorcism, but nothing happened because of their lack of faith. So often we go through the motions of praying the Rosary, but nothing happens!  It is because of a deficiency in our faith. 

“Behold a woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment.  For she said within herself: If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: 'Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole!' And the woman was made whole from that hour” (Matthew 9:20-22).

Her faith was such that she was convinced by merely touching the hem of His garment would bring about her cure! How does that compare to our faith?

The faith of the blind man attracts the mercy and a miracle from Jesus. “And they came to Jericho: and as He went out of Jericho, with His disciples, and a very great multitude, Bartimeus the blind man, the son of Timeus, sat by the way side begging.  Who, when he had heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, began to cry out, and to say: 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"  And many rebuked him, that he might hold his peace; but he cried a great deal the more: 'Son of David, have mercy on me!'  And Jesus, standing still, commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying to him: 'Be of better comfort: arise, He calleth thee!' Who casting off his garment leaped up, and came to Him.  And Jesus answering, said to him: 'What wilt thou that I should do to thee?' And the blind man said to Him: 'Rabboni, that I may see!'  And Jesus saith to him: 'Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.'  And immediately he saw, and followed Him in the way” (Mark 10:46-52).

I guess that is what we call "blind-faith"!  If only we had such confidence and blind-faith in Jesus!

A similar faith is seen in Our Lord's cure of the ten lepers. “And it came to pass, as He was going to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off; and lifted up their voice, saying: 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!'  Whom, when He saw, He said: 'Go, show yourselves to the priests!'  And it came to pass, as they went, they were made clean.  And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God. And he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan.  And Jesus answering, said, 'Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine?  There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger.'  And He said to him: 'Arise, go thy way; for thy faith hath made thee whole!'"  (Luke 17:11-19).

Yet, while a strong and confident faith pleases Our Lord, a lack of faith displeases Him: “Behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but He was asleep. And the disciples came to Him, and awaked Him, saying: 'Lord, save us, we perish!'  And Jesus saith to them: 'Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?' Then, rising up, He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm.  But the men wondered, saying: 'What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey Him?'” (Matthew 8:24-27).

St. Peter also showed his faith to be rising and falling like the waves he walked upon. 
“And they seeing Jesus walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’  And they cried out for fear.  And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘Be of good heart: it is I, fear ye not!’  And Peter making answer, said: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the waters!’  And He said: ‘Come!’ And Peter going down out of the boat, walked upon the water to come to Jesus.  But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: ‘Lord, save me!’  And immediately Jesus stretching forth his hand took hold of him, and said to him: ‘O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?’” (Matthew 14:246-31).

We may well be heading into stormy waters in our present day, looking at the all the religious, moral, political and financial turmoil roaring all around us, and the waves get higher with each year. We need to have that faith in our prayers, and not be among the "little faith"! As Jesus said: "In all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive" (Matthew 21:22).

In the Old Testament, the prayer of Moses turned the battle against Amalec in the favor of the Israelites. As long as Moses held his arms stretched out in the form of a cross, the battle went their way; but whenever his arms began to sag and fall, the battle turned against them. 

“And Amalec came, and fought against Israel in Raphidim.  And Moses said to Josue: 'Choose out men: and go out and fight against Amalec. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill, having the rod of God in my hand. Josue did as Moses had spoken, and he fought against Amalec; but Moses, and Aaron, and Hur went up upon the top of the hill.   And when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel overcame: but if he let them down a little, Amalec overcame.  And Moses’ hands were heavy: so they took a stone, and put under him, and he sat on it: and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands on both sides. And it came to pass that his hands were not weary until sunset.  And Josue put Amalec and his people to flight, by the edge of the sword.” (Exodus 17:8-13).

Here we have a symbol of perseverance in praying much, not just little. As Our Lord said: “We ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1), which is echoed by St. Paul when he writes: "Pray without ceasing!" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). This is what Moses had to do to secure victory in battle. The same can be said of the victory of the Christian fleet against the Muslims at Lepanto. Pope Pius V prayed all through the night prior to the morning battle and then had people process through the streets praying the Rosary all throughout the day. Only real prayer brings real victories. 

Finally we see faith save souls. Abraham has faith in God and bargains with Him to save Sodom and Gomorrha:

“And the Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous ... but Abraham, as yet, stood before the Lord. And drawing near he said: ‘Wilt Thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty just men in the city, shall they perish withal? And wilt Thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein? Far be it from Thee to do this thing, and to slay the just with the wicked, and for the just to be in like case as the wicked, this is not beseeming Thee: Thou who judgest all the earth, wilt not make this judgment.’   And the Lord said to him: ‘If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’ And Abraham answered, and said: ‘Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes.  What if there be five less than fifty just persons? Wilt Thou for five and forty destroy the whole city?’  And He said: ‘I will not destroy it, if I find five and forty.  And again he said to Him: ‘But if forty be found there, what wilt Thou do?’  He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of forty.’ 'Lord', saith he, 'be not angry, I beseech thee, if I speak. What if thirty shall be found there?’  He answered: ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty there.’  'Seeing', saith he, 'I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord. What if twenty be found there?' He said: 'I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.'  'I beseech thee', saith he, 'be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more: What if ten should be found there?'  And He said: 'I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.'  And the Lord departed, after He had left speaking to Abraham: and Abraham returned to his place." (Exodus 18:20-33).

Of course, we know that not even ten just men were to be found and God destroyed both Sodom and Gomorrha, while Abraham and his family fled the city just before the destruction. Nevertheless, we the faith of Abraham shine forth in his bargaining with God to obtain mercy for those sinners. 

Speaking of sinners, we now turn to the last moments of Our Lord's life, as He hangs dying on the Cross. On each side of Him, there hangs a thief — caught, condemned and crucified. One of them wants to get out of the mess he is in, but has no real sorrow for his sins of thievery (and probably murder too, for thieves and robbers were prepared to take their victims lives in order to take what their victims possessed). He says to Jesus: “‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.  But the other thief answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation?   And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil!’  And he said to Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom!’  And Jesus said to him: ‘Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!’" (Luke 23:39-43).

As they say, the Good Thief couldn't resist the theft of a lifetime as he was dying, and ended up stealing the Heart of Jesus and stealing a ticket to Paradise! What a thief! But a thief full of faith! His faith in Christ saved him!

So let us cry out with the poor father, who wanted Jesus to heal his son: "Lord: help my unbelief!"

“Master, I have brought my son to thee, having a dumb spirit. Who, wheresoever he taketh him, dasheth him, and he foameth, and gnasheth with the teeth, and pineth away; and I spoke to thy disciples to cast him out, and they could not [because of their unbelief, as stated above]. Who answering them, said: 'O incredulous generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto Me!'  And they brought him. And when He had seen him, immediately the spirit troubled him; and, being thrown down upon the ground, he rolled about foaming.  And He asked his father: 'How long time is it since this hath happened unto him?' But he said: 'From his infancy: and oftentimes hath he cast him into the fire and into waters to destroy him. But if thou canst do anything, help us, having compassion on us.'  And Jesus saith to him: 'If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth!'  And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: 'I do believe, Lord: help my unbelief!'  And when Jesus saw the multitude running together, He threatened the unclean spirit, saying to him: 'Deaf and dumb spirit, I command thee, go out of him; and enter not any more into him!'  And crying out, and greatly tearing him, he went out of him, and he became as dead, so that many said: 'He is dead!'  But Jesus taking him by the hand, lifted him up; and he arose.  And when He was come into the house, His disciples secretly asked Him: 'Why could not we cast him out?'  And He said to them:  'This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting!'" (Mark 9:16-28).

Prayer, fasting and faith in God. That is what is needed today!  The danger is, as Our Lady said at La Salette: "“People will think of nothing but amusement”  and “the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God.”

Let is not slacken either in our faith, nor in our prayers, nor in our fasting. We are in a real war and the weapons that will work, are not the weapons of this world, but supernatural weapons, for, as St. Paul writes: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places"  (Ephesians 6:12).

As Sister Lucia of Fatima has said: "The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls" (December 26, 1957).

Many of us become discouraged with prayer because our prayers are rarely, if ever heard. Yet there are ways in which we can almost infallibly get our prayers answered. The spiritual writers list the following cardinal points as “infallible” means of having our prayers favorably heard and answered:

1. PRAY FOR WHAT IS GOOD AND NOT SINFUL or harmful to our salvation—We should always remember that what we want is not always what we need. At times adversity is a better route to heaven than prosperity. St. Augustine says: “We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.”

2. Our prayer must be HUMBLE—Remember the prayer of the Pharisee and the Publican. Remember, too, Our Lady’s prayer, the Magnificat, wherein she says that God has “regarded the humility of His handmaid…He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.” The Old Testament says: “...nor from the beginning have the proud been acceptable to Thee: but the prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee” (Judith 9:16). “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things” (Psalm 11:4). “Thou hast rebuked the proud” (Ps.118:21). “Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).

3. Our prayer must be FERVENT—Too often our prayers are said listlessly, routinely, mechanically; our heart is not in them. Of such Our Lord said: “This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:7). Our prayers should be like grains of incense, placed on the hot coals of our hearts.

4. We should AMEND OUR LIFE — If we persist in leading a life of sin, then we greatly handicap the chances of having our prayers heard. “He who turns his ears from hearing the law, his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).  “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth His will, him He heareth” (John 9:31). It is like beating up a person, while at the same time asking him to do you a favor! Before you start asking for favors, stop hitting him!  As God says in Ezechiel (chapter 18): “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die ... Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices, which he hath done, shall not be remembered: and in his sin … he shall die.  For when the just turneth himself away from his justice, and committeth iniquity, he shall die therein: in the injustice that he hath wrought he shall die. And when the wicked turneth himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and doeth judgment, and justice: he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth and turneth away himself from all his iniquities which he hath wrought, he shall surely live, and not die.” (Ezechiel chapter 18).

5. We should FORGIVE those who have injured us — This was the example of Christ dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them...” “If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath any thing against thee—Leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “Forgive thy neighbor if he hath hurt thee, and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest” (Ecclesiastes 28:2). 

6. Our prayer should be united to GOOD WORKS OR SACRIFICES — “Prayer is good with fasting and alms” (Tobias 12:8). Notice how, at Fatima, Our Lady did not just ask for prayers, but for prayers AND sacrifices. Similarly, at Lourdes, we have Our Lady’s insistence upon “Penance! Penance! Penance!”

7. We should pray with CONFIDENCE — Our Lord praised the faith and confidence of persons on many occasions, saying: “Go, thy faith has made thee whole” (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52; Luke 17:19; 18:42). He also told us that “all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). Do we have that confidence in prayer? Lord, I believe, but increase my belief!

8. We should pray with PERSEVERANCE — “He defers the granting to increase our desire and appreciation” says St. Augustine. Our Lord Himself said: “Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:8-9).

If we would only pray in the above manner, we would be amazed at the response our prayers would bring from heaven! Keep in mind the words of the Little Flower: “The power of prayer is really tremendous.”   

The devil knows the dangers of letting us improve our prayer life, and so there will ALWAYS be a battle to fight in that regard.  It is an everyday battle and tiresome battle, and it can even be discouraging if we are not humble in our failures and wary of our successes. It reminds us of one particular part of the Front Line in the First World War. The French and the Germans fought over a strategic position (a farmhouse on a hill) with each army repeatedly advancing and then having to retreat as it was driven back. It is said that Front Line, in that particular war zone, never shifted more than a few hundred yards in either direction. The death toll was in the high hundreds of thousands. Our prayer life is so very precious! Let us fight for it! Let us improve it! Ave Maria!

Many people look upon the Rosary as an optional accessory in their spiritual life. It is something that they will get around to—if they have time!  There are others who look upon the Rosary as an essential and very important part of their day.  Somehow, I don’t think that Heaven intended the Rosary to be an option, a table decoration, or a mantelpiece ornament.  

There are two ways to look at the Rosary—(a) from Heaven’s point of view, and (b) from our point of view.

FROM HEAVEN’S POINT OF VIEW

1. The Rank of the Rosary
 After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the liturgical prayer of the Divine Office, there is neither a prayer more pleasing nor more efficacious than that of the Holy Rosary. St. Louis de Montfort tells us that “the Rosary is the rose of devotions and the most important one.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Seventh Rose”).  “This mode of prayer … has always been highly cherished and widely used in private and in public … for there has seemed to be no better means … of obtaining protection and favors” (Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Octobre Mense, 1891).

2. The Rosary is God-made, not man-made
"The Rosary, made up of the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary, is a clear and ever‑flowing water which comes from the fountain of grace, whereas other prayers which they look for in books are nothing but tiny streams which spring from this fountain." (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twelfth Rose”).

Tradition tells us that the Rosary, as we have it in our present form, did not come from man, but it came from God. The prayers themselves are God’s word—the Our Father was the prayer composed by Our Lord Himself (Matthew 6:9-13); the first part of the Hail Mary was God’s word spoken to Mary through angel: “the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin whose name was Mary. And the angel said unto her: ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.’” (Luke 1:26-28) and the word of the Holy Ghost spoken through St. Elizabeth: “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost, and she cried out: ‘Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.’”  (Luke 1:41-42). The one, true, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church added the second part of the Hail Mary in later years.

The Glory Be is one of the most basic religious concepts found in the Bible—that of giving glory to God. The angels at Bethlehem sang out: “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14). The Psalms command us to give glory to God:  “The heavens show forth the glory of God” (Ps. 18:12) … “Give ye glory to God” (Ps. 67:35) … “Give glory to the God of Heaven” (Ps. 135:26). Our Lord Himself gives glory to His Father Jesus also foretells St. Peter’s death, by which Peter will glorify God: “And this He said, signifying by what death he [Peter] should glorify God” (John 21:19).   Yet, Jesus complained that “There is no one found to return and give glory to God” (Luke 17:18). The Old Testament tells us to “Give glory to God with a good heart” (Eccles. 35:10).

3. The Rosary is Mary’s favorite prayer
“Our Lady … has revealed to several people that each time they say a Hail Mary, they are giving her a beautiful rose, and that each complete Rosary makes her a crown of roses.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Seventh Rose”).

When St. Mechtilde was praying and was trying to think of some way in which she could express her love of the Blessed Virgin better than before, she fell into ecstasy. Our Lady appeared to her with the Angelic Salutation written in letters of gold upon her breast and said to her, "My daughter, I want you to know that no one can please me more than by saying the greeting which the most adorable Trinity presented to me and by which I was raised to the dignity of the Mother of God"  (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Sixteenth Rose”).

4. Our Lady both hinted and demanded that she wanted the Rosary be prayed
The first apparition at Lourdes starts out with Our Lady praying a Rosary with St. Bernadette. At a later apparition, Pauline Sans, an acquaintance of Bernadette’s, had asked Bernadette to pray usiing Pauline’s Rosary at the grotto during the next apparition. When Bernadette prayed the Rosary with it, in the presence of Our Lady, she was interrupted by Our Lady, who said, with a smile: "You have made a mistake, that Rosary is not yours."

At Fatima, each of the six times that Our Lady appeared, she insisted on the Rosary being said every day AS A MINIMUM—for she says of 8 year old Francisco that he would not go to Heaven until he had prayed MANY Rosaries.

5. Popes and Saints endorse the Rosary more than any other prayer
Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903) wrote 13 encyclicals on the Rosary! Has any pope ever written just even one encyclical on some other prayer? No! Furthermore, he was not the only Pope to write on the Rosary—there are many papal documents, that fill books, on the Holy Rosary, but nothing of the sort is found on other prayers.

St. Padre Pio, who was born 1887 and was aged 30 when Our Lady appeared at Fatima. When asked what legacy he wished to leave to his spiritual children, Padre Pio's only answer was, "My child, the Rosary!"  As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the Rosary as many as 30, 40 and even 50 times per day. The Rosary, for him, was like background music for his day, or like the air that surrounds us wherever we go and whatever we do. In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to "love the Madonna and pray the Rosary; for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world."

THE ROSARY FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW

1. The Rosary is a solution to all our problems
Sr. Lucia, one of the children of Fatima said to Fr. Fuentes, (Dec. 26, 1957) regarding the Rosary: “The most holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the holy Rosary.”

2. The Rosary helps us overcome sin
"The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin" (Pope Pius XI).  "When people love and recite the Rosary they find it makes them better.” (St. Anthony Mary Claret). Our Lady herself said to St. Dominic: "I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter [the Rosary], which is the foundation‑stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter." (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Second Rose”).

3. The Rosary brings about our Salvation
In her 1957 conversation with Fr. Fuentes, Sister Lucy said: "Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already, very often, used these means and the world has not paid attention. That is why now it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform ourselves spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul, but also the souls that God has placed on our path."

"If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory.  Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death, for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins"  (St. Louis De Montfort).

4. The Rosary is the Ark of Salvation for the End Times
Sister Lucia, in an interview with Fr. Fuentes in 1957, said: "Father, the Most Holy Virgin did not tell me [explicitly] that we are in the last times, but she made me understand this for three reasons. 

The first reason is as follows: The devil is about to wage a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin, and a decisive battle is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat.

The second reason is as follows: she said to my cousins as well as to myself, that God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies, which signify that there will be no others.

The third reason is as follows: God, before He is about to chastise, exhausts all other remedies.

With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves; we will sanctify ourselves; we will console our Lord, and obtain the salvation of many souls” (Sr. Lucia, to Fr. Fuentes, Dec. 26, 1957).

Concluding Thoughts

“So please do not scorn this beautiful and Heavenly tree, but plant it with your own hands in the garden of your soul, by making the resolution to say your Rosary every day.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).

“Therefore let all men, the learned and the ignorant, the just and the sinners, the great and the small, praise and honor Jesus and Mary night and day, by saying the Holy Rosary.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).

With each day, the chastisements, that Our Lady has often warned us about, draw ever nearer. She goes throughout the world, like the master of the vineyard, trying to recruit workers for her cause, even at this late stage: “About the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: ‘Why stand you here all the day idle?’” (Matthew 20:6). 

Let us think less of surrounding ourselves with amusements, of which Our Lady complained at La Salette, and surround ourselves with the mysteries of the Rosary. We might not be up to saying 30, 40 or 50 Rosaries a day, like St. Padre Pio, but we certainly pray much more than one—if we a serious! Let's face it, a bare-bones Rosary (5 decades and no other prayers) takes less than 20 minutes!

While we have time, let us build our Ark of Salvation. But to build that Ark, Noe had to put far more than one plank in place per day, otherwise he would have ended up floating in the water, clinging to his single plank. The Rosary is our Ark of Salvation; it is our defense; it is our weapon. Start to use it properly; use it well and use it often. Ave Maria!

There is one aspect of the Rosary that most people do not even realize exists. The result, for them, could be catastrophic! Much like a man who is unaware of his property sitting on top of a gold mine while he lives in poverty; or his property being full of herbs that could cure him of a disease from which he is suffering; or it might sit over a well and he is dying of thirst.

What aspect of the Rosary are we talking about? It is the fact that the Rosary is a road-map to Heaven—a spiritual road-map, one that shows the paths that have to be taken and how we are to tackle those different and varied paths.

All Roads May Lead to Rome, but not Heaven

We have all heard of the saying “All roads lead to Rome!”  Well, not all roads lead to Heaven.  Our Lord Himself points this out: “Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:14).

There is also the danger that we may think we are on the road to Heaven, whereas, in reality, we are on the road elsewhere. We see this in the parable of the Goats and the Sheep (Matthew, chapter 25), where the “Goats” thought they were on the right road:

“And all nations shall be gathered together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. Then shall the King say to them that shall be on His right hand: ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in: naked, and you covered Me: sick, and you visited Me: I was in prison, and you came to Me.’

“Then He shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me not in: naked, and you covered Me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’

“Then they shall answer Him, saying: ‘Lord, when did we see Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee? Then He shall answer them, saying: ‘Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me. And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting” (Matthew 25:32-46).

“Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father, who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.  Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’  And then will I profess unto them:  ‘I never knew you!  Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’” (Matthew 7:21-25).

Presumption and Despair

Over confidence leads to presumption. Lack of confidence leads to despair. Over confidence can be based upon too much confidence in our own abilities, and/or a rash confidence that God will do everything for us and we have no need to worry. Lack of confidence can arise from an exaggerated undervaluing of what we are capable of, and/or a pessimistic view of God’s desire to help the miserable sinners that we are.

Virtue stands in the middle between excess and neglect.  True and healthy confidence, puts little trust in ourselves and a lot of trust in God, who loves the sinner and is willing to help him, if he wants to be helped out the sinful state in which he finds himself. Yet God helps those who help themselves and God expects us to play our part, even though He grants us His help. If we are stuck in a boat, in the middle of a massive lake, having lost our oars; God will give us some oars, point us in the right direction, but He won’t row the boat to shore for us—nor will he pluck us out of the boat and miraculously transport back to shore. Likewise, with the state of the sinner, God will give him the tools, advice and a map; but He will not miraculously grant him an effortless path to Heaven.

“Okay! I can see that.” you will say, “But where does the Rosary come into all of this?”

The Rosary is a Tool and a Weapon

Well, the Rosary is all of these things—tool, advice and map—that God gives to us in order to reach Heaven. First of all, it is a tool, and more than just a tool. It is a tool and a weapon. A tool for building our spiritual edifice or temple (for, as St. Paul says, we are all temples of the Holy Ghost), and a weapon for defending that temple against all attacks. 

Rebuilding and Defending the Walls of Jerusalem

As a result of the fall of Babylon to the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, in 538 BC, the exiled and captive Jews began to return to the land of Judah. After 70 years of exile, the Jews, led by Ezra, rebuild the temple, but the city walls are still in ruin—which meant the city was vulnerable to attack. Those walls would remain in ruin for another 50 or 60 years until Nehemiah hears about the sad state of Jerusalem and God puts it on his heart to lead the Jews to begin the great work of rebuilding the walls. When he arrives at Jerusalem, he writes: 

“I viewed the wall of Jerusalem which was broken down, and the gates thereof which were consumed with fire … Then I said to them: ‘You know the affliction wherein we are, because Jerusalem is desolate, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire: come, and let us build up the walls of Jerusalem, and let us be no longer a reproach … The God of Heaven, He helpeth us, and we are His servants: let us rise up and build.’” (Nehemiah, chapter 2).

As we come to chapter four we see some serious challenges to the work emerging, namely the work is long and hard and the enemies of the Jews begin to openly oppose the work. The Jews are building, but it’s slow, hard work and there’s a lot of rubble to work around and they don’t have much in the way of good materials. They are tired and discouraged. On top of that, their enemies are mocking them and threatening them, in order to get the Jews to give up and quit. On top of that, the Jews from the surrounding regions, start encouraging them over and over again to quit and go back to their lives (with encouragement like that, who needs discouragement?). So there’s a lot of pressure to quit.

Nehemiah addresses this by breaking the job up into manageable portions (many, many Rosaries can be said in manageable portions of one decade at a time, like one brick at a time), stationing the people by their clans (the Rosary clans are the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries) in front of their own sections and then reminding them the Lord is with them—so fight! Keep building, and fight! Fight for your brothers and sons and daughters and wives and homes! And so they keep building, but now they carry bricks with one hand and a sword in the other (TOOL & WEAPON).

In Nehemiah 4:1-20, we read: “So we built the wall, and the heart of the people was excited to work. And it came to pass, when Sanaballat, and Tobias, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Azotians heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and the breaches began to be closed, that they were exceedingly angry. And they all assembled themselves together, to come, and to fight against Jerusalem, and to prepare ambushes. And we prayed to our God, and set watchmen upon the wall day and night against them ... And it came to pass from that day forward, that half of their young men did the work, and half were ready for to fight, with spears, and shields, and bows, and coats of mail, and the rulers were behind them in all the house of Juda. [Much like the active religious orders and contemplative religious orders]. Of them that built on the wall and that carried burdens, and that laded: with one of his hands he did the work, and with the other he held a sword. For every one of the builders was girded with a sword about his reins” (TOOL & WEAPON).

Rebuilding and Defending the Spiritual Walls of Our Soul

Likewise, we have to build our wall—a wall that separates us from the world and keeps out the spirit of the world, and a wall that encloses the Spirit of God within us. The walls of Jerusalem would have required thousands upon thousands of stones—similarly, our spiritual wall will require thousands of Rosaries. Again, we may not be able to pray 40 or 50 Rosaries a day like St. Padre Pio, but we can pepper the day with many, many decades—which will, by the end of the day, constitute many Rosaries.  Don't wait for the right moment to pray a whole Rosary, but use as many moments as you can to pray decades.  One brick or stone at a time, one decade at a time.

This reminds us a little of St. Louis de Montfort’s depiction of the Saints of the End Times, which we find in his True Devotion to Mary with the following passage: “They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the Word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the Cross, the Crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, the sacred Names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts.”  

This is partially echoed by St. Padre Pio, when he says: “The Rosary is the weapon!”  The Rosary is both a weapon and a tool to take with us on the road to Heaven—or should we use Our Lord’s distinction here, between road and path. He says the broad road leads to perdition and many are on it, but the narrow path leads to Heaven, and few find it (Matthew 7:13). Few find the narrow string of beads that is the Rosary and which leads us to Heaven. Fewer still, use the Rosary as the weapon and tool that it is meant to be!

Tomorrow we continue our look at the Rosary as a tool, advice and a road map. Ave Maria!

In Part One of this mini-series on the benefits of the Rosary, we said that the Rosary is, for us, a triple-aid: (1) it is a tool and a weapon; (2) it is a manual of advice and instruction; and (3) it is a road-map to Heaven.

Yesterday, we spoke of the Rosary as a tool for building or rebuilding the walls of our souls—building a temple for the Holy Ghost within our soul. Each Rosary, that we pray, is like a solid stone that we lay down in the edifice of our temple. That temple will require thousands of stones, but no building was built in a day, and we steadily lay one brick or stone upon another, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. The more stones we lay, the stronger are our walls—and they need to be strong!  For while we build our temple, we are under attack from the devil, the world, and the flesh; and so the Rosary is also our weapon to defend our souls and overcome these attacks. Each Rosary, prayed well, is like a wound inflicted upon our attackers. Each Rosary, prayed badly, is like a wound we receive, or, more correctly, a wound we inflict upon ourselves.

The Rosary is a Source of Advice and Instruction

In our journey towards Heaven, carrying God in our soul, we need the tool of the Rosary to rebuild the walls of our soul that have been breached by sin, and we need the weapon of the Rosary to protect us from attacks that seek to weaken us, or even destroy us.

Today, let us look at the second of the three aspects of the Rosary—that of giving sound advice and instruction. What better words can be found than the words of Our Lord, Our Lady and the Saints? Therefore, I will let them take over with the following selection of quotes taken from different parts of the book The Secret of the Rosary, which amply show the wonderful advice and instruction that can be found in the mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

“The Rosary is a blessed blending of mental and vocal prayer, by which we honour and learn to imitate the mysteries and the virtues of the life, death, passion and glory of Jesus and Mary” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “First-Rose”).

The Vocal Prayers are rich in Teachings

Even the vocal prayers are books full of wonderful teachings, as is shown by the following quotes:

“The Our Father is a short prayer, but can teach us so very much ... The Our Father contains all the duties we owe to God, the acts of all the virtues and the petitions for all our spiritual and corporal needs. Thomas a Kempis says that it is a condensation of all the beautiful sayings of all the psalms and canticles.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twelfth-Rose”).

“The Angelic Salutation is a most concise summary of all that Catholic theology teaches about the Blessed Virgin. It is divided into two parts, that of praise and that of petition. The first shows all that goes to make up Mary's greatness; and the second, all that we need to ask her for, and all that we may expect to receive through her goodness. The most Blessed Trinity revealed the first part of it to us; St. Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Ghost, added the second; and the Church gave us the conclusion in the year 430, when she condemned the Nestorian heresy at the Council of Ephesus and defined that the Blessed Virgin is truly the Mother of God. At this time, she ordered us to pray to Our Lady, under this glorious title, by saying, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death’" (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Fifteenth-Rose”).

“The Angelic Salutation is the remedy for all ills that we suffer as long as we say it devoutly in honour of Our Lady.”  (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Nineteenth-Rose”).

Meditation is the Rosary's Heart and Soul

“Dear reader, if you practice and preach this devotion, you will learn more, by your own experience, than from spiritual books, and you will have the happiness of being rewarded by Our Lady, in accordance with the promises she made to St. Dominic, to Blessed Alan de la Roche, and to those who encourage this devotion, which is so dear to her. For the Rosary teaches people about the virtues of Jesus and Mary, and leads them to mental prayer, to the imitation of Jesus Christ, to the frequentation of the sacraments, the practice of genuine virtue and of all kinds of good works.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Fortieth-Rose”).

“The works of Our Lord and of his Blessed Mother can rightly be called mysteries, because they are so full of wonders, of all kinds of perfections, and of deep and sublime truths, which the Holy Ghost reveals to the humble and simple souls who honour these mysteries ... These are fifteen pictures whose every detail must rule and inspire our lives. They are fifteen flaming torches to guide our steps throughout this earthly life; fifteen shining mirrors to help us to know Jesus and Mary, to know ourselves and to light the fire of their love in our hearts” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-First-Rose”).

“Our Lady taught Saint Dominic this excellent method of praying and ordered him to preach it far and wide, so as to reawaken the fervour of Christians and to revive, in their hearts, a love for our Blessed Lord. She also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche and said to him in a vision, ‘When people say 150 Hail Marys, that prayer is very helpful to them and a most pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me more, if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.’  For the Rosary, said without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation, would almost be a body without a soul, excellent matter, but without the form, which is the meditation”  (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-First-Rose”).

“It was because Our Lady wanted to help us in the great task of working out our salvation, that she ordered Saint Dominic to teach the faithful to meditate upon the sacred mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ. She did this, not only that they might adore and glorify Him, but chiefly that they might pattern their lives and actions on His virtues.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Second-Rose”).

Meditation is the Common Catholic Problem

For most Catholics, the problem with the Rosary is in the area of meditation—most people say it, fewer pray it, and even fewer meditate it. Our Lady has said that the heart and soul of the Rosary is the meditation. It is this that we have drum into our heads and then make the necessary changes—cost what they may—to our Rosary routines so that we begin to meditate the mysteries. 

“A Christian who does not meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary is very ungrateful to Our Lord and shows how little he cares for all that our divine Saviour has suffered to save the world. This attitude seems to show that he knows little or nothing of the life of Jesus Christ, and that he has never taken the trouble to find out what He has done and what He went through in order to save us” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Third-Rose”).

“Never will anyone be able to understand the marvelous riches of sanctification which are contained in the prayers and mysteries of the Holy Rosary. This meditation on the mysteries of the life and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the source of the most wonderful fruits for those who make use of it.”  (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Fifth-Rose”).

“Today people want things that strike and move them, that leave deep impressions on the soul. Now has there ever been anything in the history of the world more moving than the wonderful story of the life, death, and glory of our Saviour, which is contained in the Holy Rosary? In the fifteen tableaux, the principal scenes or mysteries of His life unfold before our eyes.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Twenty-Fifth-Rose”).

St. Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise more fruitful, or more useful, than the frequent reflection on the sufferings of Our Lord. The advice of Saint Thomas Aquinas, is that, before going on the battlefield, one must first of all practice the virtues of that we see in the mysteries of the Rosary. 

Solutions to the Meditation Problem

Even though we may be failing in the manner we pray the Rosary, by not meditating on its mysteries properly (or rarely), let us take heart. Knowing where the problem lies is halfway towards fixing the problem. The Rosary mysteries are so rich in advice and instruction; let us take the time to open the package and READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!  

If meditation is difficult, then use a book to help you. Read as little or as much as you like before each mystery and then reflect upon it as you then pray the Our Father and the Hail Marys. A simple book could be used where young children are involved. Another idea would be to discuss the mystery among those present, limiting the time of discussion to whatever is practical. Remember, that it is not necessary to meditate all five mysteries in “one-sitting”. 

Read or discuss one mystery at length, and then pray the five decades on that mystery. Or read a little of one mystery before each of the five decades. That way, I am sure you will find your Rosaries to be more interesting, more fervent, more profitable as a source of learning and more meritorious before God.

As for what books to use—there are many good accounts of the lives of Our Lord and Our Lady that come from various authors. Some that spring to mind are:

►The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich.
►The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich.
►The Mystical City of God, by Venerable Mary of Agreda
►The Life of Mary as seen by the Mystics, by Raphael Brown.

In addition to these are many other books on the Passion and Death of Our Lord. 

Ave Maria!

The Road Away from Sin to Sanctity
The road to Heaven is a road that leads us away from sin.  It leads us away from worldliness and it leads us to virtue, which is a prerequisite for entrance to Heaven.  There is no unrepentant sinner in Heaven; nor is there any lukewarm soul in Heaven—for only saints go to Heaven. This is exactly where the Rosary leads us: away from sin, into virtue and finally to sanctity.

As Our Lady herself said, in the Fifteen Promises Concerning the Rosary that she gave to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche: “The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell; it will destroy vice, decrease sin; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; and will lift men to the desire of eternal things. O, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.”

This was echoed by Our Lord’s own words: “Our Lord said to Blessed Alan de la Roche: ‘You need to preach my Mother's Rosary, and you are not doing it! If you only did that, you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin!’” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Fourth-Rose”).

St. Dominic said, in a vision, to Blessed Alan de la Roche: “By means of this holy practice of the Rosary, you may draw all people to the real science of the virtues." (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Fourth-Rose”).

“One day Our Lady said to Blessed Alan, ‘Just as God chose the Angelic Salutation to bring about the incarnation of his Word and the redemption of mankind, so those who want to bring about moral reforms and regenerate them in Jesus Christ must honour me and greet me with the same salutation. I am the channel by which God came to men, and so, next to Jesus Christ, it is through me that men must obtain grace and virtue.’” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Ninth-Rose”).

Marvelous Results
The preaching and praying the Rosary brought marvelous results for many souls, whether they were saints or not.

“I (St. Louis de Montfort), who write this, have learnt from my own experience that the Rosary has the power to convert even the most hardened hearts. I have known people who have gone to missions and heard sermons on the most terrifying subjects without being in the least moved; and yet, after they had, on my advice, started to say the Rosary every day. They eventually became converted and gave themselves completely to God. When I have gone back to parishes where I had given missions, I have seen tremendous differences between them; in those parishes where the people had given up the Rosary, they had generally fallen back into their sinful ways, whereas in places where the Rosary was said faithfully I found the people were persevering in the grace of God and advancing in virtue day by day.” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Ninth-Rose”).

EXAMPLE #1: 
“So fervently and compellingly did St. Dominic explain the importance and value of the Rosary that almost all the people of Toulouse embraced it ...  In a very short time a great improvement was seen in the town; people began leading Christian lives and gave up their former bad habits” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Second-Rose”).

EXAMPLE #2: 
“A nobleman who had several daughters placed one of them in a lax monastery where the nuns were concerned only with vanity and pleasures. Their confessor, on the other hand, was a zealous priest with a great devotion to the Holy Rosary. Wishing to guide this nun into a better way of life, he ordered her to say the Rosary every day in honour of the Blessed Virgin, while meditating on the life, passion and glory of Jesus Christ.

“She joyously undertook this devotion, and little by little she grew to have a repugnance for the wayward habits of her sisters in religion. She developed a love of silence and prayer, in spite of the fact that the others despised and ridiculed her and called her a fanatic.

“It was at this time that a holy priest, who was making the visitation of the convent, had a strange vision during his meditation: he saw a nun in her room, rapt in prayer, kneeling in front of a Lady of great beauty who was surrounded by angels. The latter had flaming spears with which they repelled a crowd of devils who wanted to come in. These evil spirits then fled to the other nuns' rooms under the guise of vile animals.

“By this vision the priest became aware of the lamentable state of that monastery and was so upset that he thought he might die of grief. He sent for the young religious and exhorted her to persevere. As he pondered on the value of the Rosary, he decided to try and reform the Sisters by means of it. He bought a supply of beautiful Rosaries and gave one to each nun, imploring them to say it every day and promising them that, if they would only say it faithfully, he would not try to force them to alter their lives. Wonderful and strange though it may seem, the nuns willingly accepted the Rosaries and promised to say the prayer on that condition. Little by little they began to give up their empty and worldly pursuits, letting silence and recollection come into their lives. In less than a year they all asked that the monastery be reformed. The Rosary worked more changes in their hearts than the priest could have done by exhorting and commanding them.”  (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Seventh-Rose”). 


EXAMPLE #3: 
“A Spanish countess who had been taught the Holy Rosary by St. Dominic used to say it faithfully every day, with the result that she was making marvelous progress in her spiritual life. Since her only desire was to attain to perfection, she asked a bishop who was a renowned preacher for some practices that would help her to become perfect. The bishop told her that, before he could give her any advice, she would have to let him know the state of her soul and what her religious exercises were. She answered that her most important exercise was the Rosary, which she said every day, meditating on the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries, and that she had profited greatly by so doing.

“The Bishop was overjoyed to hear her explain what priceless lessons the mysteries contain. ‘I have been a doctor of theology for twenty years,’ he exclaimed, ‘and I have read many excellent books on various devotional practices. But never before have I come across one better than this or more conformed to the Christian life. From now on I shall follow your example, and I shall preach the Rosary.’

“He did so with such success that in a short while he saw his diocese changed for the better. There was a notable decline in immorality and worldliness of all kinds as well as in gambling. There were several instances of people being brought back to the faith, of sinners making restitution for their crimes, and of others sincerely resolving to give up their lives of vice. Religious fervour and Christian charity began to flourish. These changes were all the more remarkable because this bishop had been striving to reform his diocese for some time but with hardly any results.”  (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Eighth-Rose”).

EXAMPLE #4: 
“A Danish priest used to love to tell how the very same improvement that the Spanish bishop noticed in his diocese had occurred in his own parish. He always told his story with great joy of heart because it gave such glory to God. “‘I had,’ he said, ‘preached as compellingly as I could, touching on many aspects of our holy Faith, and using every argument I could possibly think of to get people to amend their way of life, but in vain. Finally, I decided to preach the Holy Rosary. I told my congregations how precious it was and taught them how to say it, and I affirm that having taught them to appreciate this devotion, I saw a manifest change within six months. How true it is that this God‑given prayer has a divine power to touch our hearts and inspire them with a horror of sin and a love of virtue!’” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, “Thirty-Ninth-Rose”).

We cannot repeat too often the words of Lucia dos Santos, one of the three seers at Fatima: "The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls" (December 26, 1957, in an interview with Fr. Fuentes).

Let us never weary of praying the Holy Rosary, though the devil will certainly try to make that happen by hook or by crook. He knows that it is, as St. Padre Pio said, the weapon.  Let us use that weapon with care and with confidence! Ave Maria!   

Three plus Three equals Heaven
The spiritual life is the cream of milk of theology. We have DOGMATIC theology which teaches us that we must believe; then we have MORAL theology which teaches us what we must do and not do; finally we have ASCETICAL & MYSTICAL theology which teaches us how to love God and leads us into a relationship with God. To put it in a very simplistic way, Dogmatic and Moral Theology are like two crutches that we lean on our way to God; or like two wheels of the bicycle on which we ride to God.

We can also say that they correspond to the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. Dogmatic Theology feeds our faith; Moral Theology gives us hope of a reward for living morally; while Ascetical and Mystical Theology feeds our love of God and neighbor.

We can also relate it to the Catechism question of "Why did God make me?" Than answer, of course, is to KNOW, LOVE and SERVE God. 

Going further with this, we can also relate the three theologies to the three stages of the spiritual life that every soul, without exception, must pass through successfully before they enter Heaven: 
(1) The Way of Beginners or the Purgative Way (Dogmatic Theology).
(2) The Way of the Proficients or the Illuminative Way (Moral Theology).
(3) The Way of the Perfect or the Unitive Way (Ascetical and Mystical Theology).

In turn, these three stages of the Spiritual Life can also be related to the three chief sets of mysteries of the Holy Rosary:
(1) The Way of Beginners or the Purgative Way (to the Joyful Mysteries).
(2) The Way of the Proficients or the Illuminative Way (to the Sorrowful Mysteries).
(3) The Way of the Perfect or the Unitive Way (to the Glorious Mysteries).

Beginnings Are Often Joyful
The beginning or start of some undertaking is often full of JOYFUL enthusiasm. We are optimistic and full of hope and expectation: the birth of a child; starting a new school or a new job; a marriage; a new business venture; a new season for a sports team; the start of a race for an athlete, etc. etc. We hope for the best; we dream of the outcome; we are determined to succeed; and we do our best.

Beginnings are usually not disastrous—but there are no guarantees. However, in the beginning it is, as they say, "too early to tell".  Much like Our Lord's parable of the Cockle and the Wheat—in the beginning both look alike and so there was little concern or worry on the part of the workers.

 In the early years of infancy, it is too early to tell how the baby will turn out as a child, adolescent and adult. The honeymoon and early months of a marriage rarely manifest any cracks that may be waiting to appear a few years down the road. In the early days of a new job, we haven't been able to fully evaluate all our colleagues, their characters and motives—only time will tell. A new business is expected to require high maintenance and attention in its early days and business trends are naturally unstable and unreliable. In a race, the first lap or two does not always give an indication of the final outcome. At the start of a season, each team, if it has real hopes of winning the championship, each team at least has hopes of a good season—winning more games than it loses.

We see this same enthusiasm and optimism in the lives of the Apostles. When they first encounter Jesus, there is no talk about suffering and dying and martyrdom—it is all positive talk, supported by enthusiastic crowds (sometimes numbering many thousands) and peppered by miracles. Their hopes and dreams for the future would have been extremely positive and joyful. 

To be asked to follow Him was a great honor and privilege, far removed from any shame or ignominy that the future would bring. They became too busy casting-out devils to even think that one day they themselves would be cast out and rejected by the Jewish religion and society, and Roman civil authorities. The triumphant entry into Jerusalem, days before the Passion, inflated their dreams and hopes to even higher levels. Their beginnings with Our Lord were markedly joyful—like a spiritual honeymoon of sorts.

Joys Often Turn Into Suffering
It is only as things progress that we realize that everything is not going to be a bed of roses, and that we are going to have separate the wheat from the chaff, make modifications, undergo some stresses and strains, suffer and sacrifice, work harder, etc., etc. 

This was also true for the Apostles. Days after that triumphal entry and hours before His Passion would begin, Our Lord tried to bring them down to earth by introducing them—first of all in theory and then hours later in practice—to the other side of life, the side of suffering. Already towards the end of Our Lord's public life, they had seen that some of the Pharisees and people had wanted to kill Jesus, but given the power of miracles that He had, they never thought such plots could ever succeed—surely God would protect Him! 

If God would not protect Him, then St. Peter swore that he himself would—to which Jesus answered: "Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto Me: because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men." As God says to Isaias: "My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways ... For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.” (Isaias 55:8-9).

At the Last Supper, Our Lord tries to puncture their unrealistic human aspirations and prepare them for some reality, saying: "Every one that beareth fruit, the Father will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit" (John 15:2).  "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).  "If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:18-19).  "These things have I spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God" (John 16:1-2).  "Because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart" (John 16:6).  “Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” (John 16:20). 

The honeymoon was over, the suffering was about to start. All the sweet and nice parts of their life with Our Lord before, all the miracles and teachings, were supposed to fuel and strengthen them for what lay ahead—His Passion and Death, as well as their future sufferings and martyrdom. For there is no other way to Heaven than the road of suffering and death to ourselves. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).

The new born child; the spouse, family and relatives; friends and work colleagues; the school or workplace; the business; the race or the season; the climate; our health, etc., will at one point or another, for a greater or lesser period of time, give us pain and suffering. Just as nature rebelled against Adam and Eve, and gave them pains and sufferings, because they had rebelled against God; so, too, will similar things happen to us because we, too, have many times rebelled against God, to a greater or lesser degree, and for a longer or shorter period of time. Suffering tests and proves love. As St. Augustine so truly says, the same sufferings lead some souls to Heaven and other souls to Hell. It all depends upon how we look upon our sufferings—much like the two thieves crucified along with Jesus. One ended up in Heaven, the other in Hell.

The End Can Be Glorious
That brings us to the GLORIOUS part of the suffering. Suffering is not without its reward if it is borne humbly, perseveringly and well. As St. Paul writes: "I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). "Furthermore I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8). St. Peter adds: "Wherein you shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in divers temptations" (1 Peter 1:6). Which is essentially what Our Lady said to St. Bernadette: "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next."  

So let us not place our eggs in the basket of this world, seeking to please ourselves and please those who surround us. This is what the Pharisees did and Our Lord said they had already received their reward in this world. We work for God, He is our master and rewarder. The world is no friend of God's, and God is no friend of the world. We cannot serve God and the world. As St. James says: "Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God" (James 4:4).

And we will even find enemies among the Catholics that surround us, as Our Lord warned: "And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household ... Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me.  He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it" (Matthew 10:334-39).

The mysteries of the Holy Rosary guide us along and through this roller-coaster ride to Heaven. Just like the riders on the roller-coaster are strapped into their seats and cling to the safety bar in front of them, as they alternate from laughing to screaming and back to laughing again when the ride is over, so, too do we chain ourselves to our Rosaries and cling onto the beads which are our safety bar, knowing that, if we don't let go, no matter how scary the ride may become, we will arrive safely at our destination. Perhaps a little traumatized, but nonetheless gloriously happy! Ave Maria!

Do you ever get the feeling that your prayers are getting you nowhere fast?  You pray, day-in-day-out, but nothing seems to happen; nobody appears to be listening; there is no answer at the other end!  Has everyone in Heaven gone on vacation?  Is there nobody left to answer the ‘prayer-phones’?  I keep trying to call, but I get no answer!  What on earth (or what in Heaven) is going on?  Didn’t Our Lady, in her Fifteen Promises to those who recite the Rosary, say things like:

“Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces ... I promise the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary … The Rosary shall destroy vice and decrease sin … It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things ... You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.”

Well, those things don’t seem to be happening in my life!  Did she really mean those things?  Were they applicable only to some and not all people? Why doesn’t the Rosary do those things for me?

St. Augustine puts it in a nutshell when speaking of the problem of seemingly ‘unanswered’ or ‘sterile’ prayers. He says that our prayers are unanswered because (1) we ask for things that will be bad for us, (2) we ask badly, or (3) we ourselves are bad. It could be one, two, or all three of these things that are behind our unanswered prayers.

(1) We ask for things that are bad for us

In this regard, we can take the thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas on prayer to clarify the matter, when he says that prayer will never change the mind or will of God; but prayer is meant to bend our mind and our will to the mind and will of God: “Our motive in praying is, not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that, by our prayers, we may obtain what God has appointed” (Summa Theologica, II-IIae, question 83, article 2). Again, in a nutshell, God's words to the prophet Isaias sum it up perfectly:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts. So shall My word be, which shall go forth from My mouth: it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it.” (Isaias 55:8-11).

We must understand and acknowledge that our own wishes and desires are—more often than not—quite different than God's wishes and desires for us. In this life, we are incapable of fully seeing or understanding God's will, and that is why—in good faith—we often pray for something that is opposed to God’s will for us. We even see this in case of Our Lord Himself. In His agony, in the Garden of Gethsemane, two opposing wills emerge—that of Our Lord and that of His Father. Our Lord says to His Father: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt ... Again the second time, He went and prayed, saying: ‘My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done!’ … And He prayed the third time, saying the self-same word” (Matthew 26:39-44).

The Saints also show us how "man proposes, but God disposes." After much persuasion by the faithful of Rome, St. Peter thought it best to flee Rome during the severe Roman persecution, but he meets Our Lord on the road out of Rome. He asks Our Lord where He is going, and Our Lord replies that He is going to Rome to be crucified in Peter’s place. Peter no doubt had prayed upon what to do, and followed the path that seemed best to him, but it was a different path to what Our Lord wanted for him.

This means that when we pray for something that we think is good for us, we must always be prepared to admit that something else might be better for us, and end our request for what we want with the words of Our Lord from Gethsemane: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt!”

So when we pray for a specific intention, God will arrange things according to His holy will—whether it be in union with our desires and intentions, or not. In this way He always answers our prayers—but not always in the way we had hoped for.  Why so?  Because God, in His all-perfect wisdom, always does what is best for our souls, most particularly for the salvation of our souls, and He will not grant any prayer that will harm our souls, or the souls of those whom we pray for.

St. Padre Pio said that "every grace must be paid for" –which means that great graces have grate prices; and that price is usually paid by suffering. In His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Our Lord, in His humanity, did not quite like the idea of having to go through the suffering that was laid in store for Him. The fact that He eventually did go through with it, was one of the reasons why the graces He earned were so extraordinarily powerful. If, in our weakness we cannot handle great sacrifices or sufferings, or if great sufferings would draw us away from Jesus instead of closer to Him, then of course He will not grant the great grace(s) that we are asking for, because it is not beneficial for our souls.  Heaven rarely gives anything away for free—if we don’t pay beforehand, we must pay afterwards.

Heaven listens to all the prayers that come in, even we only get to mention them on Heaven’s ‘voice-mail’ or Heaven’s ‘answering-machine.’ God hears all of our prayers and He arranges things in our lives (more often quietly and without our being aware of it) according to His holy will and what is best for our souls. And looking over our lives, if we are attentive we will see His actions in the small, little everyday things. He opens a door here, and He closes another door there—all for the good of our souls. 

Rarely in our lives will Jesus work extraordinary miracles or give us extraordinary graces, because we cannot handle the extraordinary sufferings or sacrifices that often accompany them as a necessary payment for them—which is what St. Padre Pio stated, when pointing out that extraordinary graces—such as miraculous cures or conversions—have to be "paid" for through much suffering.

But God, Our Lord and Our Lady are always there alongside us, to help us, encourage us and watch over us, although we do not see them, nor recognize their work and action in our daily lives. 

Our problem is that our view of things and judgment of things, is far too worldly and human. We fail to see grace where grace exists. We expect grace to be human instead of the supernatural entity that is really is. Perhaps the words of Our Lord from Scripture could be applied here: "Thou hast not known the time of thy visitation!"

(2) We ask badly

Even if our will was aligned to the will of God, and the thing that we are praying for is something that God is willing to grant, we still have the duty to ask in a correct, fitting, reverential and persevering manner. In practice, people too often ask in a manner that makes it look as though they are telling God what to do, rather than humbly asking Him to do something. They pray too quickly, too distractedly, too half-heartedly, too superficially, too proudly—as Our Lord says: "This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me" (Matthew 15:8). Or, if they ask correctly and reverentially, they do not ask perseveringly, and give up after a relatively short time—discouraged and convinced that God will not answer their prayers; an attitude that we must criticize, quoting the words of Our Lord Himself: “As thou hast believed, so be it done to thee” (Matthew 8:13).

Jesus gives us an example of that perseverance in the parable of the widow who ceaselessly begged a judge to intervene against one of her adversaries. Jesus “spoke a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint, saying: ‘There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man. And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: ‘Avenge me of my adversary!’ And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: ‘Although I fear not God, nor regard man; yet, because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me!’” (Luke 18:1-5).

“And Jesus said to them: ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: “Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!” And he, from within, should answer, and say: “Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee!” Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth. And I say to you, “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you!” For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened!’” (Luke 11:5-10).

St. Monica prayed for many years before she obtained from God the conversion of her son, the future St. Augustine (though he was far from being a saint at that time). He was living with a mistress with whom he had fathered a child. Yet, despite all contrary indications and temptations to discouragement, St. Monica continued to pray with perseverance and confidence. Her prayer was granted in a manner that must have ‘blown her mind’ and which went beyond her wildest expectations—Augustine would not only convert, but he would be become a priest, a bishop, a saint and a Doctor of the Church!

(3) We ourselves are bad

“We know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth His will, him He heareth.” (John 9:31). God will not answer the prayers of His enemies, nor succumb to their wishes and grant their requests: "He that turneth away his ears from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination" (Proverbs 28:9). 

However, St. Augustine says: "If God were not to hear sinners, the publican would have vainly said: 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner'!" And St. John Chrysostom says: "Everyone that asketh shall receive, that is to say whether he be righteous or sinful."

St. Thomas Aquinas steps in here and says: “I answer that, in the sinner, two things are to be considered: (1) his nature, which God loves, and (2) the sin, which God hates. Therefore, when a sinner prays for something as sinner, that is to say, in accordance with a sinful desire, God hears him, not through mercy, but sometimes through vengeance, as in the case  when He allows the sinner to fall yet deeper into sin. For "God refuses in mercy what He grants in anger," as St. Augustine declares.  On the other hand, God hears the sinner's prayer if it proceed from a good natural desire, not out of justice—because in justice the sinner does not merit to be heard—but out of pure mercy, provided, however, that the sinner fulfill the four conditions given above, namely, that (1) he beseech for himself, (2) things necessary for salvation, (3) piously and (4) perseveringly” (Summa Theologica, II-IIae, question 83, article 16).

Therefore, the sinner’s prayers will be heard for himself only and for his own salvation—in other words, for his conversion, for only through conversion can he be saved. God does not wish the death of a sinner, but that be converted and live: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die … But if the wicked do penance for all his sins, which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations, which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices, which he hath done, shall not be remembered: in the prevarication, by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin, which he hath committed, in them he shall die.” (Ezechiel 18:20-23).

God, thereby, hears the sinner’s prayers out of mercy, for, in justice, the sinner does not deserve to be heard, since, by sin, he has declared himself to be an enemy of God’s. If he does not wish to be extracted from his sins and leave them behind, then he remains an enemy of God. But once he is converted and brought or restored to a state of grace, then his prayers are efficacious for others and causes other than himself.

 As Our Lord said at the Last Supper: “If you love Me, keep My commandments ... He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father … If any one love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make our abode with him. He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words.” (John 14:15; 14:21; 14:23).

Let us therefore pray for what we think is good, but ever resigned to God’s will, which sees beyond the limits of our weak-sighted desires and humble ourselves before his all-wise Providence.  Let us ask with faith; with confidence; with respect and with perseverance.  Finally, let us improve our lives and cast aside, not only mortal sin, but also deliberate venial sin. Then our prayers will take on a new look, a new power and a new efficacy, as they pierce the vaults of Heaven and penetrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His most Holy Mother!  Ave Maria!

Sometimes you have to wonder if the Catholic world is really serious or not!  For those who have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear,” have turned them towards the idol of the world,  as Psalm 113 says: “The idols are … silver and gold, the works of the hands of men. They have mouths and speak not [pray not]: they have eyes and see not. They have ears and hear not.” (Psalm 113:12-14). Our Lady of La Salette puts it this way: “Man's only thought will be upon diversions and amusements!”

What are eyes and ears for?
“Jesus saith to them: ‘…Do you not yet know nor understand? Have you still your heart blinded? Having eyes, see you not? And having ears, hear you not? Neither do you remember!” (Mark 8:17-18).  Do we not yet see and understand what is coming our way very soon? Is our heart blinded by the preoccupation with the trivialities of this world? Do we not hear Our Lady’s multiple messages and warnings? Do we not remember them? Do we no longer remember how God has chastised in history?

For those who have not stopped-up their ears and not shut their eyes, Our Lord could well say what He said before: “But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them” (Matthew 13:16-17).

But for the worldly ones, the fun-seekers, the trivia followers, it can be said: “As it is written: God hath given them the spirit of insensibility; eyes that they should not see; and ears that they should not hear … Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see” (Romans 11:8, 11:10).

“For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears have they heard heavily, and their eyes they have shut; lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Acts of the Apostles 28:27).

Jerusalem would not see, nor listen
“And when Jesus drew near [to Jerusalem], seeing the city, He wept over it, saying: ‘If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19:41-44).

Because Jerusalem would not listen to Christ, and rejected His message, Jerusalem was destroyed and flattened; its inhabitants were all massacred in the year 70 A.D. by the Romans. The blood, of over one million of God’s Chosen People, trickled down the overturned stone walls and drained into the sand and soil.

“Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting. And in doing good, let us not fail. For in due time we shall reap, not failing. Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Galatians 6:7-10).

Our Lady is not being listened to
But we are failing, badly failing!  Sister Lucy relayed to us, through Fr. Fuentes, the complaints of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Father, the most Holy Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid any attention to her message, neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on their way, but without giving any importance to her message. The bad, not seeing the punishment of God actually falling upon them, continue their life of sin, without even caring about the message. But believe me, Father, God will chastise the world and this will be in a terrible manner. The punishment from Heaven is imminent ... Tell them, Father, that MANY TIMES the Most Holy Virgin told my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that Russia will be the instrument of chastisement, chosen by Heaven, to punish the whole world, if we do not, beforehand, obtain the conversion of that poor nation."

In 1973, in Akita, Japan, Our Lady appeared to a nun who was going deaf (which is symbolic of what is happening to the world since Fatima—growing increasingly deaf). Our Lady said to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa: “My daughter, my novice, you have obeyed me well in abandoning all to follow me. Is the infirmity of your ears painful? Your deafness will be healed, be sure. Pray in reparation for the sins of men ... In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened, so many times, to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him, forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father's anger.” (July 3rd and August 6th, 1973).

The terrible consequences of our blindness and deafness
Later, in October of 1973, Our Lady warned: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms, which will remain for you, will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.

"The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church, in such a way, that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me, will be scorned and opposed by their confreres...churches and altars will be sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.

"The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them."

Pope Benedict XV said that Our Lady’s message, at her apparitions at Akita, Japan, in 1973, is essentially the same message as Fatima.

Open your eyes and ears...
“Jesus stood and said: ‘What will ye that I do to you?’  They said to Him: ‘Lord, that our eyes be opened!’  And Jesus, having compassion on them, touched their eyes. And immediately they saw, and followed Him” (Matthew 20:32-34).

Let us open our eyes and ears! Let us pull our heads out of the sand and pull out our Rosaries from our pockets—or more to the point, let us pull out of all the amusements that take up so much of our time, and of which Our Lady bitterly complained of at La Salette: “Man's only thought will be upon diversions and amusements!”  Time spent on amusements, pleasure and socializing would bebetter spent in prayer and in penance—which is essentially what Our Lady has been trying to say at most of her modern day apparitions.

...and get serious!
Let us get serious about our life, our Faith and our fate! Let us follow the example of Noe, and start building the best ark we possibly can in the time that we have left. That ark is made up of hundreds and thousands of Rosaries, glued together by a sincere and true devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary—which are the two last remedies that God has given us! As Lucy said to Fr. Fuentes: “God is giving two last remedies to the world. These are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies which signify that there will be no others."

Sr. Lucy continues:  "Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come--from Rome on the part of the Holy Father--to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call to penance to come from our bishops in our dioceses, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already very often used these means, and the world has not paid attention. That is why, now, it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform himself spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul, but also help to save all the souls that God has placed on our path."  

Let us get serious! Seriously serious! Let us not fall into the trap of amusements that Our Lady so bitterly complained about at La Salette.  As St Paul warns us: “Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play’” (1 Corinthians 10:7).  Which is essentially the same thing that St. Lucy said: “Father, the most Holy Virgin is very sad, because no one has paid any attention to her message, neither the good nor the bad.”  

Let us, at least, be of the few that please her, by listening to her! But once we have listened, once we see, once our ears and eyes are opened, then we have to DO something about it!  “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22), for as St. Paul adds: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law.”  “Be not deceived, God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7).  Take up your Rosaries more often! Learn, make and live the True Devotion consecration to Mary. That is you ark! Become familiar with it and seal all the leaks! Ave Maria!     

What do a little nine-year-old boy and old man have in common? Or should we say a young Francisco and an old Franciscan. The answer is, of course, the Rosary. The little boy that we are thinking of is Blessed Francisco Marto of Fatima fame.  The old Franciscan is Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.  The thing that they had in common was that they both gave Our Lady many, many Rosaries.

Here are some quotes concerning Blessed Francisco as written by Sr. Lucy herself, in her memoirs:

Our Lady spoke to us:
“Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.”
“Where are you from?”
“I am from Heaven.”
“What do you want of me?”
“I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13th day, at this same hour. Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards, I will return here yet a seventh time.”
“Shall I go to Heaven too?”
“Yes, you will”
“And Jacinta?”
“She will go also.”
“And Francisco?”
“He will go there too, but he must say many Rosaries.”

“Afterwards, we told Francisco all that Our Lady had said. He was overjoyed and expressed the happiness he felt when he heard of the promise that he would go to Heaven. Crossing his hands on his breast, he exclaimed, “Oh, my dear Our Lady! I’ll say as many Rosaries as you want!” And from then on, he made a habit of moving away from us, as though going for a walk. When we called him and asked him what he was doing, he raised his hand and showed me his Rosary. If we told him to come and play, and say the Rosary with us afterwards, he replied: “I’ll pray then as well. Don’t you remember that Our Lady said I must pray many Rosaries?”

“I made some requests, but I cannot recall now just what they were. What I do remember is that Our Lady said it was necessary for such people to pray the Rosary in order to obtain these graces during the year.” (Apparition of July 13th, 1917).

“A poor woman and her son, seeing that they could not manage to speak to us personally, as they wished, went and knelt down in front of Francisco. They begged him to obtain from Our Lady the grace that the father of the family would be cured and that he would not have to go to the war. Francisco knelt down also, took off his cap and asked if they would like to pray the Rosary with him. They said they would, and began to pray. Very soon, all those people stopped asking curious questions, and also went down on their knees to pray. After that, they went with us to the Cova da Iria, reciting a Rosary along the way. Once there, we said another Rosary, and then they went away, quite happy.”

[See how wonderfully Francisco ‘ropes’ these people into his desire to say many Rosaries a day!]

St. Padre Pio also had a great love for our Blessed Mother and he prayed the Rosary almost continually. When asked what legacy he wished to leave to his spiritual children, Padre Pio's only answer was, "My child—the Rosary." 

Father Alessio Parente said: “I was at his side for six years, and in all that time I never saw him without the Rosary in his hands night and day. Our Lady never refused him anything through the Rosary. The Rosary was his constant link with Our Lady.”  Another priest, Father Marcellino, testified that he had to help Padre Pio wash his hands one at a time "because he didn't want to leave the Rosary beads, and passed the Rosary from one hand to the other."

As a true son of Our Lady, Padre Pio loved the Rosary and is reputed to have said the Rosary as many as 30, 40 or even 50 times per day. In many photographs, he is shown with his right hand hidden within the pocket where he always kept his Rosary beads. Indeed, he urged all Catholics to "love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world." 

Padre Pio’s great love for Our Lady was clearly evident as he prayed the Rosary whenever there was a free moment in his busy day; and when there were no free moments, he found a way to pray the Rosary even then. He preferred the Rosary above all other prayers and asked his spiritual children to carry a Rosary with them at all times and to pray it. To Enedina Mori: "When you get tired reciting the Rosary, rest a bit, and then restart again."

In February  of 1954, Padre Pio said to Father Carmelo: "I still have 2 Rosaries to pray today. I said only 34 so far. Then I will go to bed."

Answering a question of Father Michelangelo’s about the quantity of Rosaries he had said one day, Padre Pio replied: "Today I said 32 or 33 Rosaries. Maybe 1 or 2 more."

Answering a similar question of Father Mariano’s, he said: "About 30. Maybe some more, but not less.”  “How do you do it?” asked Father Mariano. Padre Pio replied: “What is the night for?”

Answering another person he said: “Some days I say 40 Rosaries, some other days 50 ... How do I do it?  How do you manage not so say any?”

Perhaps we have to ask ourselves the question, before Padre Pio asks it, of “How is that we manage to say so few Rosaries?” When you love to do something, you force yourself to find the time to do it. When you love someone, you force yourself to find the time to speak to them and do things for them.  Do we love Our Lady? If so, let us force ourselves to find time, or make time, like Francisco and Padre Pio, to speak to her many times a day—a decade at a time! A decade only takes about three minutes! Ave Maria.
 

The Rosary is the answer! The Rosary is the key!  Saints have said this; visionaries have told us this; even Our Lady herself has confirmed this!  

St. Dominic

Our Lady appeared St. Dominic, accompanied by three angels, and she said, "Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?"

"Oh, my Lady," answered Saint Dominic, "you know far better than I do, because, next to your Son Jesus Christ, you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation."

Then Our Lady replied, "I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter, which is the foundation‑stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter."

St. Padre Pio

What was true then, is also true now!  St. Padre Pio is of the same opinion. St. Padre Pio not only said this, he also lived this and thereby proved the truth of this.  The Rosary was rarely out of his hands. He prayed it almost continually.   Father Alessio Parente said, “I was at his side for six years, and in all that time I never saw him without the Rosary in his hands night and day. Our Lady never refused him anything through the Rosary. The Rosary was his constant link with Our Lady.”

St. Padre Pio said that the Rosary was the legacy he wished to leave to his spiritual children. As for the Rosary being the key and answer to our problems, the following quotes manifest that to be his viewpoint:

"We can't live without the Rosary."

"Say the Rosary, and pray it every day."

"Always recite the Rosary and recite it as often as possible."

“Love the Madonna and make her loved. Always recite her Rosary. That is an armor against the evils of the world today.”

"Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world."

"The Rosary is the weapon given us by Mary to use against the tricks of the infernal enemy."

“Mary has recommended the Rosary at Lourdes and Fatima because of its exceptional value for us and our times.”

"The Rosary is the prayer of the Madonna, the one that triumphs over everything and everybody."

"The Rosary is the weapon of defense and salvation."

"With this, one wins the battles."

“The Rosary is THE weapon!”

Padre Pio died on September 23, 1968. Padre Pelegrino Funicelli, his brother in religion, assisted him in his last moments on earth. He said that a short time before Padre Pio’s death, Padre Pio gazed at a picture of Our Lady Liberatrix, as he died with his Rosary. His last words were Gésu, Maria (Jesus, Mary), which he repeated over and over as he had done in his countless Rosaries, until he breathed his last.

Sister Lucia of Fatima

As Sister Lucia of Fatima has said: "The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls"(December 26, 1957).

In a letter to Dom Umberto Maria Pasquale, an Italian Salesian priest, Sister Lucia of Fatima wrote:

"The decadence which exists in the world is without doubt the consequence of a lack the spirit of prayer. It was in anticipation of this confusion that the Blessed Virgin recommended the recitation of the Rosary with such insistence. And, as the Rosary is, after the Mass, the most appropriate prayer for preserving the Faith in souls, the devil has unleashed his struggle against it.  Unfortunately, we see the disasters he has caused ... We must defend souls against errors which can make them stray from the good road. I cannot help them other than by my poor and humble prayers and my sacrifices; but you, Fr. Umberto, you have a much more extended field of action to develop your apostolate. We cannot and we must not stop ourselves, nor allow, as Our Lord says, the sons of darkness to be more wise than the children of Light ... The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending ourselves on the field of battle."

Our Lady

Our Lady herself has pointed out some of the marvelous effects that Heaven has bestowed upon the Rosary, which Our Lady promises to those who pray the Rosary:

“Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces ...  I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary ...  The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies ...  It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things ... The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish ...  Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune ...  You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.” (some of the Fifteen Promises made by Our Lady to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche).

Blessed Alan de la Roche

Of course, most of know all these things already!  But then what do we do with that knowledge?  Perhaps little or nothing!  We are like the man, in the Parable of the Talents, who buries the talent that the master gave him. This was the case with Blessed Alan de la Roche, who received a severe rebuke from Our Lord for doing little or nothing with the knowledge he had of the Rosary and its power. We read the following account of the incident in St. Louis de Montfort’s book, The Secret of the Rosary:

“Our Lady told Blessed Alan to revive the former Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Blessed Alan was one of the Dominican Fathers at the monastery at Dinan, in Brittany. He was an eminent theologian and a famous preacher. Our Lady chose him because, since the Confraternity had originally been started in that province, it was fitting that a Dominican from the same province should have the honor of re‑establishing it. Blessed Alan began this great work in 1460, after a special warning from Our Lord. This is how he received that urgent message, as he himself tells it:

“One day when he was offering Mass, Our Lord, who wished to spur him on to preach the Holy Rosary, spoke to him in the Sacred Host. "How can you crucify Me again so soon?" Jesus said. "What did you say, Lord?" asked Blessed Alan, horrified. "You crucified Me once before by your sins," answered Jesus, "and I would willingly be crucified again rather than have My Father offended by the sins you used to commit. You are crucifying Me again now, because you have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach My Mother's Rosary, and you are not doing it. If you only did that, you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin. But you are not doing it, and so you yourself are guilty of the sins that they commit.”  This terrible reproach made Blessed Alan solemnly resolve to preach the Rosary unceasingly … Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan as well and told him of the great results of his ministry when had preached the Rosary unceasingly.”  (The Secret of the Rosary, “Fourth Rose”).

The same could be said of us!  If we are aware of the need, power and efficacy of the Rosary, but are doing little or nothing to promote it and have it used correctly, then Our Lord could well use those same words against us: “You are crucifying Me again now, because you have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach My Mother's Rosary, and you are not doing it.”

Blessed Alan de la Roche responded to that ‘wake-up-call’ and the result was that he preached the Rosary unceasingly. What will our response be?  Ave Maria!

On this last day of the month of the Holy Rosary, which is also the eve of the feast of All Saints, let us be totally convinced of the power of the Rosary—not only to make us into saints—but also of bringing about many miracles here upon earth, whether in our own lives or in the lives of those around us.

Faith and the Rosary
Our Lord Himself said: “As thou hast believed, so be it done to thee” (Matthew 8:13) –and it was done to Our Lady as she had believed, as the Holy Ghost testified through the mouth of St. Elizabeth: “Blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord” (Luke 1:45).

Jesus encourages us in this belief: “All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21:22); and again, “Be not faithless, but believing” (John 20:27).  A lack of faith is not only a disappointment to God, but it is also an insult that deserves punishment.

Moses
Moses lacked this belief in God and doubted Him, which resulted in Moses having to strike the rock a second time, before the miracle of the rock producing water occurred. The first time he struck, say the commentators, he struck it with doubt in his mind as to whether or not the miracle would or could happen. Moses was punished by merely being allowed to see the Promised Land, but was condemned to die before he could enter it.

“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:  ‘Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink.’  Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as He had commanded him, And having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: ‘Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous!  Can we bring you forth water out of this rock?’  And when Moses had lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron:  ‘Because you have not believed me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not bring these people into the land, which I will give them!’”  (Numbers 20:7-12).

St. Zachary
Zachary, the father of St. John the Baptist, lacked belief in the words of the Archangel Gabriel and was punished for his doubts by being struck dumb: “Thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall come to pass, because thou hast not believed my words” (Luke 1:20).

Our Lady Promises
Our Lady has told us, much like God told Moses and Gabriel told Zachary, words that we should believe: “Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces ... I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all who shall recite the Rosary … The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies … It will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things ... The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish; shall never be conquered by misfortune; he shall not perish by an unprovided death [and] … shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church ... You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary” (some of the 15 Promises on the Rosary given by Our Lady to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche).

“Oh, that was centuries ago!” some may say, but Sister Lucia of Fatima essentially reiterates that same message when she says: "The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual … that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”

Miracles For You
Your miracles await you, but you must have faith and confidence in those promises, not doubting their words as Moses and Zachary doubted the words spoken to them. 

The month of the Holy Rosary comes to a close, but let us not close our minds and hearts to the Holy Rosary. Let this month be a springboard to a higher level of output in our Rosaries and greater quality in the way that we pray them (rather than merely “say” them). As you sow, so shall you reap—if you are generous in the way little Blessed Francisco of Fatima and St. Padre Pio were generous, those miracles of grace will most certainly happen, for as Father Alessio Parente said of his companion, Padre Pio: “I was at his side for six years, and in all that time I never saw him without the Rosary in his hands night and day. Our Lady never refused him anything through the Rosary. The Rosary was his constant link with Our Lady.” 

Encouragement of Padre Pio
So once again, let us take some of the quotes of Padre Pio to inspire us to persevere and also improve the both the quantity and quality of the Rosaries that we offer Our Lady.  Print out these quotes and make little banners of them to post around the house, the classroom, the work-place, etc. They will serve as a reminder and an encouragement to use often and well the weapon that Heaven has given us for our own ‘Lepantos’ that lie ahead.

"We can't live without the Rosary."

"Say the Rosary, and pray it every day."

"Always recite the Rosary and recite it as often as possible."

“Love the Madonna and make her loved. Always recite her Rosary. That is an armor against the evils of the world today.”

"Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world."

"The Rosary is the weapon given us by Mary to use against the tricks of the infernal enemy."

“Mary has recommended the Rosary at Lourdes and Fatima because of its exceptional value for us and our times.”

"The Rosary is the prayer of the Madonna, the one that triumphs over everything and everybody."

"The Rosary is the weapon of defense and salvation."

"With this, one wins the battles."

“The Rosary is THE weapon!”

As St. Louis de Montfort writes in his book, The Secret of the Rosary: "If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins "you shall receive a never‑fading crown of glory." Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if — and mark well what I say — if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins." 

We will interweave thoughts about the Rosary in our future DAILY THOUGHTS for the other months ahead, as now our main focus for the month of November will turn to the themes of Purgatory and the Miraculous Medal. Ave Maria!