Our Lady of the Rosary

 Our Lady of Fatima holy card

The feast day for Our Lady of the Rosary is coming up on Sunday, October 7.  Last night I participated in a "living rosary" with my child's religious education class. All of the kids from the 1st through 8th grades, their teachers, and some parents prayed the Joyful Mysteries together. Before we started, one teacher told how the Virgin Mary visited three children in Fatima, Poland in 1917 and asked them to pray the rosary daily for peace and the end of the war, which of course was WWI. Our Lady also gave the children a prayer to add after the Glory Be:

Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins,
save us from the fires of hell,
lead all souls to heaven, especially 
those most in need of thy mercy. Amen. 

Right now many Catholics in the United States are praying a novena to Our Lady for our nation, which will culminate on Oct. 7.  You can find the information for this novena at www.ewtn.com/novena. Prayer is powerful, and the rosary grants us innumerable graces. Some Catholics today think the rosary is too old-fashioned, a relic of past, less modern times. But Our Lady tells us it is a weapon against the devil, and there is no better meditation to keep us focused on the life of our Lord, as seen through the eyes, and with the guidance, of his Blessed Mother.

My daughter's religious education teacher told us about her grandmother, who used to have  rosaries placed in every room of her home, so that as she went about her daily round she could pray and meditate on them. This is an example of religion being a way of life, not merely a side note practiced on Sundays. The Rosary of Our Lady is simple but profoundly deep. I would go so far as to say it is life altering. Do not forget Mary on Sunday, and for the entire month of October dedicate some time in devotion to her and see how this enriches your spiritual being. Honor her request to the children of Fatima, and make praying the rosary a priority for each and every day.

Hail, Holy Queen

Early on when I began to attend Mass at a Catholic church, there was a bookmark pinned to the bulletin board which said, "How to Pray the Rosary".  The concluding prayer was the Salve Regina:

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.
To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping
in this vale of tears. Turn, then, most gracious Advocate
thine eyes of mercy toward us; and, after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, o pious, o sweet Virgin Mary;
Queen of the most Holy Rosary, pray for us,
that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.  

I have since learned from Charlene Spretnak's book, Missing Mary, that this prayer used to be said at the end of every Mass! At least where I live, this is no longer true, and from what Charlene says, it's generally not the case. Her book argues that since Vatican II, there has been a decline in Marian devotion, and the full spiritual presence and meaning of Mary was marginalized and removed from its once central place in Catholic theology. I was alarmed when I read this. Had I met Mary and found the Catholic Church too late? But no, she says, there is a strong, grassroots movement to restore Mary's honored place, not just based on her strictly biblical presence, but on the traditional, cosmological presence of what she calls Big Mary, the biblicalplus version that venerates both the Nazarene village woman of the Bible and the Queen of Heaven, divinized by virtue of her Son.

In this blog I will explore the theology of Mary as I understand it, the Christological and mystical dimensions, and her relationship to the Church. I wish to celebrate Mary, to allow her to lead me to Jesus, who is both the Word and Wisdom Incarnate, and to explore how she embodies the sacred feminine and enriches a living Catholicism. Marian devotion, I believe, is in fact indispensable to the practice of True Religion. I'm bringing Mary back! I hope you will join me on this journey.