Saturday, October 6, 2012

"We need the Virgin's help."

We need the Virgin’s help. A tormented, famous, spiritual, and realistic writer, Charles Péguy, compared the Our Father and the Hail Mary in the Rosary to ships sailing victoriously towards the Father (cf. Le mystère des Saints Innocents, 1912). We too should attempt that mystic voyage.

And let it not be said, that by doing so we are "only using" a prayer and devotion to Our Lady for our own temporal desires, that that sort of religion is just utilitarianism, the same that pervades modern life at all points. To begin with, there is nothing wrong in making prayer a confession of our limitations, of our needs, and of our trust in being able to obtain from on high that which our own powers are unable to obtain. Did not Christ himself teach us to do this? Did he not say, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you..." (Mt 7:7)?

But We can add two other observations about the Rosary. The prayer of petition in the ordinary intention of the person reciting the rosary fuses and, as it were, transfuses into contemplative prayer through the attention which the mind gives to the so-called "mysteries of the Rosary." These turn this pious Marian devotion into a meditation of Christ, and accustom us to look at him from the best possible viewpoint, that of Mary herself. The Rosary sets our gaze and our mind upon Christ, the scenes of his life and their theological meaning, and does this not only with Mary, but also in the same way as Mary, in so far as this is possible for us. There is no doubt that no one every gave more thought to him (cf. Lk 2:19; 2:51; 8:21; 11:28), understood him more, loved him more, and lived more like him."

~Pope Paul VI, 10/8/69 General Audience

Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee,
O Virgin of virgins, my mother;
To thee I come, before Thee I stand...

No comments:

Post a Comment