Today's Feast: Our Lady of the Rosary

Ave Maria! What a lovely feast we celebrate today! Our Lady of the Rosary! Mary's rosary is for us a lifeline to Jesus, her Beloved Son. It is our song of praise and our cry for help as we pray over and over again, "Hail Mary, full of grace...blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus!" Mary's rosary is a chain of love that binds us to her Son's heart and to hers as well.

Everyone and anyone can and should pray the rosary! It is the perfect prayer for both the child and the adult, the learned and the unlettered, the sophisticated and the simple. One does not have to be a theologian or Scripture scholar to grasp the tremendous depths and heights of the rosary. All that is required is faith and love -- faith in God who is Infinite Love and love for Him and His Holy Mother.

As always, Mary leads us to Jesus. The rosary is centered on Christ, not His mother. It is truly a Gospel prayer. As Pope Paul VI wrote his apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus: "As a Gospel prayer centered on the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, the Rosary is a prayer with a clear Christological orientation. Its characteristic element, the litany-like succession of Hail Mary's, becomes in itself an increasing prayer to Christ who is the ultimate object both of the Angels' announcement, and the greeting by Elizabeth, the Mother of the Baptist - 'the blessed fruit of your womb.'"

Pope John Paul II quoted Pope Paul VI in his own apostolic letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, calling the rosary "a compendium of the Gospel." A compendium is, of course, a short but complete summary, and the rosary contains the major events of Our Lord's life as they relate to our salvation and sanctification. Many years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas said that the mysteries of the rosary sum up our faith. The addition of the Luminous Mysteries by Pope John Paul II eight years ago makes this even clearer.

The rosary is a prayer for everyone and for all seasons. Let us take up our rosary often, daily even, with love and gratitude and in the blessed assurance that through Mary, our life, our sweetness and our hope, we will find Jesus, the way and the truth and the life.

O glorious Virgin Mary, may we always love and praise you!