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APOSTOLIC LETTER
INTRODUCTION
1. The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form
in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer
loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet
profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of
great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends
easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two
thousand years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels
drawn by the Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” (duc in altum!) in
order once more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus
Christ is Lord and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6),
“the goal of human history and the point on which the desires of history and
civilization turn”.1
The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart
a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth
of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a
compendium.2 It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat
for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal
womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the
The Popes and the Rosary
2. Numerous predecessors of mine attributed great importance
to this prayer. Worthy of special note in this regard is Pope Leo XIII who on
With these words, dear brothers and sisters, I set the
first year of my Pontificate within the daily rhythm of the Rosary. Today, as
I begin the twenty-fifth year of my service as the Successor of Peter, I
wish to do the same. How many graces have I received in these years from the
Blessed Virgin through the Rosary: Magnificat anima mea Dominum! I wish
to lift up my thanks to the Lord in the words of his Most Holy Mother, under
whose protection I have placed my Petrine ministry: Totus Tuus!
October 2002 – October 2003: The Year of the Rosary
3. Therefore, in continuity with my reflection in the
Apostolic Letter
Novo
Millennio Ineunte, in which, after the experience of the Jubilee, I
invited the people of God to “start afresh from Christ”,6 I have
felt drawn to offer a reflection on the Rosary, as a kind of Marian complement
to that Letter and an exhortation to contemplate the face of Christ in union
with, and at the school of, his Most Holy Mother. To recite the Rosary is
nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ. As a way
of highlighting this invitation, prompted by the forthcoming 120th anniversary
of the aforementioned Encyclical of Leo XIII, I desire that during the course
of this year the Rosary should be especially emphasized and promoted in the
various Christian communities. I therefore proclaim the year from October 2002
to October 2003 the Year of the Rosary.
I leave this pastoral proposal to the initiative of each
ecclesial community. It is not my intention to encumber but rather to complete
and consolidate pastoral programmes of the Particular Churches. I am confident
that the proposal will find a ready and generous reception. The Rosary, reclaimed
in its full meaning, goes to the very heart of Christian life; it offers a
familiar yet fruitful spiritual and educational opportunity for personal
contemplation, the formation of the People of God, and the new evangelization.
I am pleased to reaffirm this also in the joyful remembrance of another
anniversary: the fortieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council on
Objections to the Rosary
4. The timeliness of this proposal is evident from a number
of considerations. First, the urgent need to counter a certain crisis of the
Rosary, which in the present historical and theological context can risk being
wrongly devalued, and therefore no longer taught to the younger generation.
There are some who think that the centrality of the Liturgy, rightly stressed
by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, necessarily entails giving lesser
importance to the Rosary. Yet, as Pope Paul VI made clear, not only does this
prayer not conflict with the Liturgy, it sustains it, since it serves as
an excellent introduction and a faithful echo of the Liturgy, enabling people
to participate fully and interiorly in it and to reap its fruits in their daily
lives.
Perhaps too, there are some who fear that the Rosary is
somehow unecumenical because of its distinctly Marian character. Yet the Rosary
clearly belongs to the kind of veneration of the Mother of God described by the
Council: a devotion directed to the Christological centre of the Christian
faith, in such a way that “when the Mother is honoured, the Son ... is duly
known, loved and glorified”.8 If properly revitalized, the Rosary is
an aid and certainly not a hindrance to ecumenism!
A path of contemplation
5. But the most important reason for strongly encouraging
the practice of the Rosary is that it represents a most effective means of
fostering among the faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the
Christian mystery which I have proposed in the Apostolic Letter
Novo
Millennio Ineunte as a genuine “training in holiness”: “What is needed
is a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer”.9
Inasmuch as contemporary culture, even amid so many indications to the
contrary, has witnessed the flowering of a new call for spirituality, due also
to the influence of other religions, it is more urgent than ever that our
Christian communities should become “genuine schools of prayer”.10
The Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy
traditions of Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a typically
meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the “prayer of the heart” or
“Jesus prayer” which took root in the soil of the Christian East.
Prayer for peace and for the family
6. A number of historical circumstances also make a revival
of the Rosary quite timely. First of all, the need to implore from God the
gift of peace. The Rosary has many times been proposed by my predecessors
and myself as a prayer for peace. At the start of a millennium which began with
the terrifying attacks of 11 September 2001, a millennium which witnesses every
day innumerous parts of the world fresh scenes of bloodshed and violence, to
rediscover the Rosary means to immerse oneself in contemplation of the mystery
of Christ who “is our peace”, since he made “the two of us one, and broke down
the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14). Consequently, one cannot
recite the Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear commitment to advancing
peace, especially in the
A similar need for commitment and prayer arises in relation
to another critical contemporary issue: the family, the primary cell of
society, increasingly menaced by forces of disintegration on both the
ideological and practical planes, so as to make us fear for the future of this
fundamental and indispensable institution and, with it, for the future of
society as a whole. The revival of the Rosary in Christian families, within the
context of a broader pastoral ministry to the family, will be an effective aid
to countering the devastating effects of this crisis typical of our age.
“Behold, your Mother!” (Jn 19:27)
7. Many signs indicate that still today the Blessed Virgin
desires to exercise through this same prayer that maternal concern to which the
dying Redeemer entrusted, in the person of the beloved disciple, all the sons
and daughters of the Church: “Woman, behold your son!” (Jn19:26).
Well-known are the occasions in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries on
which the Mother of Christ made her presence felt and her voice heard, in order
to exhort the People of God to this form of contemplative prayer. I would
mention in particular, on account of their great influence on the lives of
Christians and the authoritative recognition they have received from the
Church, the apparitions of Lourdes and of Fatima;11 these shrines
continue to be visited by great numbers of pilgrims seeking comfort and hope.
Following the witnesses
8. It would be impossible to name all the many Saints who
discovered in the Rosary a genuine path to growth in holiness. We need but
mention Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, the author of an excellent work
on the Rosary,12 and, closer to ourselves, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina,
whom I recently had the joy of canonizing. As a true apostle of the Rosary,
Blessed Bartolo Longo had a special charism. His path to holiness rested on an
inspiration heard in the depths of his heart: “Whoever spreads the Rosary is saved!”.13
As a result, he felt called to build a Church dedicated to Our Lady of
the Holy Rosary in Pompei, against the background of the ruins of the ancient
city, which scarcely heard the proclamation of Christ before being buried in 79
A.D. during an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, only to emerge centuries later from
its ashes as a witness to the lights and shadows of classical civilization. By
his whole life's work and especially by the practice of the “Fifteen
Saturdays”, Bartolo Longo promoted the Christocentric and contemplative heart
of the Rosary, and received great encouragement and support from Leo XIII, the
“Pope of the Rosary”.
CHAPTER I
CONTEMPLATING CHRIST WITH
MARY
A face radiant as the sun
9. “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone
like the sun” (Mt 17:2). The Gospel scene of Christ's transfiguration,
in which the three Apostles Peter, James and John appear entranced by the
beauty of the Redeemer, can be seen as an icon of Christian contemplation.
To look upon the face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events
and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the divine splendour
definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the right hand of
the Father: this is the task of every follower of Christ and therefore the task
of each one of us. In contemplating Christ's face we become open to receiving
the mystery of Trinitarian life, experiencing ever anew the love of the Father
and delighting in the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Mary, model of contemplation
10. The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model
in Mary. In a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her
womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which
points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself
to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of
her heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she conceived him by
the power of the Holy Spirit. In the months that followed she began to sense
his presence and to picture his features. When at last she gave birth to him in
Bethlehem, her eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she
“wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger” (Lk2:7).
Thereafter Mary's gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder,
would never leave him. At times it would be a questioning look, as in
the episode of the finding in the
Mary's memories
11. Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his
every word: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk
Even now, amid the joyful songs of the heavenly
The Rosary, a contemplative prayer
12. The Rosary, precisely because it starts with Mary's own
experience, is an exquisitely contemplative prayer. Without this
contemplative dimension, it would lose its meaning, as Pope Paul VI clearly
pointed out: “Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and
its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas,
in violation of the admonition of Christ: 'In praying do not heap up empty
phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many
words' (Mt 6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a
quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the
mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to
the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are
disclosed”.14
It is worth pausing to consider this profound insight of
Paul VI, in order to bring out certain aspects of the Rosary which show that it
is really a form of Christocentric contemplation.
Remembering Christ with Mary
13. Mary's contemplation is above all a remembering.
We need to understand this word in the biblical sense of remembrance (zakar)
as a making present of the works brought about by God in the history of salvation.
The Bible is an account of saving events culminating in Christ himself. These
events not only belong to “yesterday”; they are also part of the “today” of
salvation. This making present comes about above all in the Liturgy: what
God accomplished centuries ago did not only affect the direct witnesses of
those events; it continues to affect people in every age with its gift of
grace. To some extent this is also true of every other devout approach to those
events: to “remember” them in a spirit of faith and love is to be open to the
grace which Christ won for us by the mysteries of his life, death and
resurrection.
Consequently, while it must be reaffirmed with the Second
Vatican Council that the Liturgy, as the exercise of the priestly office of Christ
and an act of public worship, is “the summit to which the activity of the
Church is directed and the font from which all its power flows”,15 it
is also necessary to recall that the spiritual life “is not limited solely to
participation in the liturgy. Christians, while they are called to prayer in
common, must also go to their own rooms to pray to their Father in secret (cf. Mt
6:6); indeed, according to the teaching of the Apostle, they must pray without
ceasing (cf.1Thes 5:17)”.16 The Rosary, in its own particular
way, is part of this varied panorama of “ceaseless” prayer. If the Liturgy, as
the activity of Christ and the Church, is a saving action par excellence,
the Rosary too, as a “meditation” with Mary on Christ, is a salutary
contemplation. By immersing us in the mysteries of the Redeemer's life, it
ensures that what he has done and what the liturgy makes present is profoundly
assimilated and shapes our existence.
Learning Christ from Mary
14. Christ is the supreme Teacher, the revealer and the one
revealed. It is not just a question of learning what he taught but of “learning
him”. In this regard could we have any better teacher than Mary? From the
divine standpoint, the Spirit is the interior teacher who leads us to the full
truth of Christ (cf. Jn
The first of the “signs” worked by Jesus – the changing of
water into wine at the marriage in
This school of Mary is all the more effective if we consider
that she teaches by obtaining for us in abundance the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
even as she offers us the incomparable example of her own “pilgrimage of
faith”.17 As we contemplate each mystery of her Son's life, she
invites us to do as she did at the Annunciation: to ask humbly the questions
which open us to the light, in order to end with the obedience of faith:
“Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word”
(Lk 1:38).
Being conformed to Christ with Mary
15. Christian spirituality is distinguished by the
disciple's commitment to become conformed ever more fully to his Master (cf. Rom
In the spiritual journey of the Rosary, based on the
constant contemplation – in Mary's company – of the face of Christ, this
demanding ideal of being conformed to him is pursued through an association
which could be described in terms of
In this process of being conformed to Christ in the Rosary,
we entrust ourselves in a special way to the maternal care of the Blessed
Virgin. She who is both the Mother of Christ and a member of the Church, indeed
her “pre-eminent and altogether singular member”,19 is at the same
time the “Mother of the Church”. As such, she continually brings to birth
children for the mystical Body of her Son. She does so through her
intercession, imploring upon them the inexhaustible outpouring of the Spirit.
Mary is the perfect icon of the motherhood of the Church.
The Rosary mystically transports us to Mary's side as she is
busy watching over the human growth of Christ in the home of
Praying to Christ with Mary
16. Jesus invited us to turn to God with insistence and the
confidence that we will be heard: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and
you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). The basis
for this power of prayer is the goodness of the Father, but also the mediation
of Christ himself (cf. 1Jn 2:1) and the working of the Holy Spirit who
“intercedes for us” according to the will of God (cf. Rom 8:26-27). For
“we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Rom
In support of the prayer which Christ and the Spirit cause
to rise in our hearts, Mary intervenes with her maternal intercession. “The
prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary”.23 If
Jesus, the one Mediator, is the Way of our prayer, then Mary, his purest and
most transparent reflection, shows us the Way. “Beginning with Mary's unique
cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their
prayer to the Holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ
manifested in his mysteries”.24 At the wedding of Cana the Gospel
clearly shows the power of Mary's intercession as she makes known to Jesus the
needs of others: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).
The Rosary is both meditation and supplication. Insistent
prayer to the Mother of God is based on confidence that her maternal
intercession can obtain all things from the heart of her Son. She is
“all-powerful by grace”, to use the bold expression, which needs to be properly
understood, of Blessed Bartolo Longo in his Supplication to Our Lady.25
This is a conviction which, beginning with the Gospel, has grown ever
more firm in the experience of the Christian people. The supreme poet Dante
expresses it marvellously in the lines sung by Saint Bernard: “Lady, thou art
so great and so powerful, that whoever desires grace yet does not turn to thee,
would have his desire fly without wings”.26 When in the Rosary we
plead with Mary, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35), she
intercedes for us before the Father who filled her with grace and before the
Son born of her womb, praying with us and for us.
Proclaiming Christ with Mary
17. The Rosary is also a path of proclamation and
increasing knowledge, in which the mystery of Christ is presented again and
again at different levels of the Christian experience. Its form is that of a
prayerful and contemplative presentation, capable of forming Christians
according to the heart of Christ. When the recitation of the Rosary combines
all the elements needed for an effective meditation, especially in its communal
celebration in parishes and shrines, it can present a significant
catechetical opportunity which pastors should use to advantage. In this way
too Our Lady of the Rosary continues her work of proclaiming Christ. The
history of the Rosary shows how this prayer was used in particular by the
Dominicans at a difficult time for the Church due to the spread of heresy.
Today we are facing new challenges. Why should we not once more have recourse
to the Rosary, with the same faith as those who have gone before us? The Rosary
retains all its power and continues to be a valuable pastoral resource for
every good evangelizer.
CHAPTER II
MYSTERIES OF CHRIST –
The Rosary, “a compendium of the Gospel”
18. The only way to approach the contemplation of Christ's
face is by listening in the Spirit to the Father's voice, since “no one knows
the Son except the Father” (Mt
The Rosary is one of the traditional paths of Christian
prayer directed to the contemplation of Christ's face. Pope Paul VI described
it in these words: “As a Gospel prayer, centred on the mystery of the
redemptive Incarnation, the Rosary is a prayer with a clearly Christological
orientation. Its most characteristic element, in fact, the litany- like
succession of Hail Marys, becomes in itself an unceasing praise of
Christ, who is the ultimate object both of the Angel's announcement and of the
greeting of the Mother of John the Baptist: 'Blessed is the fruit of your womb'
(Lk 1:42). We would go further and say that the succession of Hail
Marys constitutes the warp on which is woven the contemplation of the
mysteries. The Jesus that each Hail Mary recalls is the same Jesus whom
the succession of mysteries proposes to us now as the Son of God, now as the
Son of the Virgin”.28
A proposed addition to the traditional pattern
19. Of the many mysteries of Christ's life, only a few are
indicated by the Rosary in the form that has become generally established with
the seal of the Church's approval. The selection was determined by the origin
of the prayer, which was based on the number 150, the number of the Psalms in
the Psalter.
I believe, however, that to bring out fully the
Christological depth of the Rosary it would be suitable to make an addition to
the traditional pattern which, while left to the freedom of individuals and
communities, could broaden it to include the mysteries of Christ's public
ministry between his Baptism and his Passion. In the course of those
mysteries we contemplate important aspects of the person of Christ as the
definitive revelation of God. Declared the beloved Son of the Father at the
Baptism in the
Consequently, for the Rosary to become more fully a
“compendium of the Gospel”, it is fitting to add, following reflection on the
Incarnation and the hidden life of Christ (the joyful mysteries) and
before focusing on the sufferings of his Passion (the sorrowful mysteries)
and the triumph of his Resurrection (the glorious mysteries), a
meditation on certain particularly significant moments in his public ministry (the
mysteries of light). This addition of these new mysteries, without
prejudice to any essential aspect of the prayer's traditional format, is meant
to give it fresh life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary's place
within Christian spirituality as a true doorway to the depths of the Heart of
Christ, ocean of joy and of light, of suffering and of glory.
The Joyful Mysteries
20. The first five decades, the “joyful mysteries”, are
marked by the joy radiating from the event of the Incarnation. This is
clear from the very first mystery, the Annunciation, where Gabriel's greeting
to the Virgin of Nazareth is linked to an invitation to messianic joy:
“Rejoice, Mary”. The whole of salvation history, in some sense the entire
history of the world, has led up to this greeting. If it is the Father's plan
to unite all things in Christ (cf. Eph
Exultation is the keynote of the encounter with
The final two mysteries, while preserving this climate of
joy, already point to the drama yet to come. The Presentation in the
To meditate upon the “joyful” mysteries, then, is to enter
into the ultimate causes and the deepest meaning of Christian joy. It is to
focus on the realism of the mystery of the Incarnation and on the obscure
foreshadowing of the mystery of the saving Passion. Mary leads us to discover
the secret of Christian joy, reminding us that Christianity is, first and
foremost, euangelion, “good news”, which has as its heart and its whole
content the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the one Saviour of the
world.
The Mysteries of Light
21. Moving on from the infancy and the hidden life in
Each of these mysteries is a revelation of the Kingdom
now present in the very person of Jesus. The Baptism in the
In these mysteries, apart from the miracle at
The Sorrowful Mysteries
22. The Gospels give great prominence to the sorrowful
mysteries of Christ. From the beginning Christian piety, especially during the
Lenten devotion of the Way of the Cross, has focused on the individual
moments of the Passion, realizing that here is found the culmination of the
revelation of God's love and the source of our salvation. The Rosary
selects certain moments from the Passion, inviting the faithful to contemplate
them in their hearts and to relive them. The sequence of meditations begins
with Gethsemane, where Christ experiences a moment of great anguish before the
will of the Father, against which the weakness of the flesh would be tempted to
rebel. There Jesus encounters all the temptations and confronts all the sins of
humanity, in order to say to the Father: “Not my will but yours be done” (Lk
22:42 and parallels). This “Yes” of Christ reverses the “No” of our first
parents in the Garden of Eden. And the cost of this faithfulness to the
Father's will is made clear in the following mysteries; by his scourging, his
crowning with thorns, his carrying the Cross and his death on the Cross, the
Lord is cast into the most abject suffering: Ecce homo!
This abject suffering reveals not only the love of God but
also the meaning of man himself.
Ecce homo: the meaning,
origin and fulfilment of man is to be found in Christ, the God who humbles
himself out of love “even unto death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). The
sorrowful mysteries help the believer to relive the death of Jesus, to stand at
the foot of the Cross beside Mary, to enter with her into the depths of God's
love for man and to experience all its life-giving power.
The Glorious Mysteries
23. “The contemplation of Christ's face cannot stop at the
image of the Crucified One. He is the Risen One!”29 The Rosary has
always expressed this knowledge born of faith and invited the believer to pass
beyond the darkness of the Passion in order to gaze upon Christ's glory in the
Resurrection and Ascension. Contemplating the Risen One, Christians rediscover
the reasons for their own faith (cf. 1Cor 15:14) and relive the joy
not only of those to whom Christ appeared – the Apostles, Mary Magdalene and
the disciples on the road to Emmaus – but also the joy of Mary, who must
have had an equally intense experience of the new life of her glorified Son. In
the Ascension, Christ was raised in glory to the right hand of the Father,
while Mary herself would be raised to that same glory in the Assumption,
enjoying beforehand, by a unique privilege, the destiny reserved for all the
just at the resurrection of the dead. Crowned in glory – as she appears in the
last glorious mystery – Mary shines forth as Queen of the Angels and Saints,
the anticipation and the supreme realization of the eschatological state of the
Church.
At the centre of this unfolding sequence of the glory of the
Son and the Mother, the Rosary sets before us the third glorious mystery,
Pentecost, which reveals the face of the Church as a family gathered together
with Mary, enlivened by the powerful outpouring of the Spirit and ready for the
mission of evangelization. The contemplation of this scene, like that of the
other glorious mysteries, ought to lead the faithful to an ever greater
appreciation of their new life in Christ, lived in the heart of the Church, a
life of which the scene of Pentecost itself is the great “icon”. The glorious
mysteries thus lead the faithful to greater hope for the eschatological goal
towards which they journey as members of the pilgrim People of God in
history. This can only impel them to bear courageous witness to that “good
news” which gives meaning to their entire existence.
From “mysteries” to the “Mystery”: Mary's way
24. The cycles of meditation proposed by the Holy Rosary are
by no means exhaustive, but they do bring to mind what is essential and they
awaken in the soul a thirst for a knowledge of Christ continually nourished by
the pure source of the Gospel. Every individual event in the life of Christ, as
narrated by the Evangelists, is resplendent with the Mystery that surpasses all
understanding (cf. Eph 3:19): the Mystery of the Word made flesh, in
whom “all the fullness of God dwells bodily” (Col 2:9). For this reason
the
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
places great emphasis on the mysteries of
Christ, pointing out that “everything in the life of Jesus is a sign of his
Mystery”.30 The “duc in altum” of the Church of the third
millennium will be determined by the ability of Christians to enter into the
“perfect knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, in whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:2-3). The Letter to the
Ephesians makes this heartfelt prayer for all the baptized: “May Christ dwell
in your hearts through faith, so that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have power... to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that
you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:17-19).
The Rosary is at the service of this ideal; it offers the
“secret” which leads easily to a profound and inward knowledge of Christ. We
might call it Mary's way. It is the way of the example of the Virgin of
Nazareth, a woman of faith, of silence, of attentive listening. It is also the
way of a Marian devotion inspired by knowledge of the inseparable bond between
Christ and his Blessed Mother: the mysteries of Christ are also in some
sense the mysteries of his Mother, even when they do not involve her
directly, for she lives from him and through him. By making our own the words
of the Angel Gabriel and Saint Elizabeth contained in the Hail Mary, we
find ourselves constantly drawn to seek out afresh in Mary, in her arms and in
her heart, the “blessed fruit of her womb” (cf Lk 1:42).
Mystery of Christ, mystery of man
25. In my testimony of 1978 mentioned above, where I
described the Rosary as my favourite prayer, I used an idea to which I would
like to return. I said then that “the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the
rhythm of human life”.31
In the light of what has been said so far on the mysteries
of Christ, it is not difficult to go deeper into this anthropological significance
of the Rosary, which is far deeper than may appear at first sight. Anyone
who contemplates Christ through the various stages of his life cannot fail to
perceive in him the truth about man. This is the great affirmation of
the Second Vatican Council which I have so often discussed in my own teaching
since the Encyclical Letter
Redemptor
Hominis: “it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the
mystery of man is seen in its true light”.32 The Rosary helps to
open up the way to this light. Following in the path of Christ, in whom man's
path is “recapitulated”,33 revealed and redeemed, believers come
face to face with the image of the true man. Contemplating Christ's birth, they
learn of the sanctity of life; seeing the household of Nazareth, they learn the
original truth of the family according to God's plan; listening to the Master
in the mysteries of his public ministry, they find the light which leads them
to enter the Kingdom of God; and following him on the way to Calvary, they
learn the meaning of salvific suffering. Finally, contemplating Christ and his
Blessed Mother in glory, they see the goal towards which each of us is called,
if we allow ourselves to be healed and transformed by the Holy Spirit. It could
be said that each mystery of the Rosary, carefully meditated, sheds light on
the mystery of man.
At the same time, it becomes natural to bring to this
encounter with the sacred humanity of the Redeemer all the problems, anxieties,
labours and endeavours which go to make up our lives. “Cast your burden on the
Lord and he will sustain you” (Ps 55:23). To pray the Rosary is to hand
over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother. Twenty-five
years later, thinking back over the difficulties which have also been part of
my exercise of the Petrine ministry, I feel the need to say once more, as a
warm invitation to everyone to experience it personally: the Rosary does indeed
“mark the rhythm of human life”, bringing it into harmony with the “rhythm” of
God's own life, in the joyful communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's destiny
and deepest longing.
CHAPTER III
“FOR ME, TO LIVE IS CHRIST”
The Rosary, a way of assimilating the mystery
26. Meditation on the mysteries of Christ is proposed in the
Rosary by means of a method designed to assist in their assimilation. It is a
method based on repetition. This applies above all to the Hail Mary,
repeated ten times in each mystery. If this repetition is considered
superficially, there could be a temptation to see the Rosary as a dry and
boring exercise. It is quite another thing, however, when the Rosary is thought
of as an outpouring of that love which tirelessly returns to the person loved
with expressions similar in their content but ever fresh in terms of the
feeling pervading them.
In Christ, God has truly assumed a “heart of flesh”. Not
only does God have a divine heart, rich in mercy and in forgiveness, but also a
human heart, capable of all the stirrings of affection. If we needed evidence
for this from the Gospel, we could easily find it in the touching dialogue
between Christ and Peter after the Resurrection: “Simon, son of John, do you
love me?” Three times this question is put to Peter, and three times he gives
the reply: “Lord, you know that I love you” (cf. Jn 21:15-17). Over and
above the specific meaning of this passage, so important for Peter's mission,
none can fail to recognize the beauty of this triple repetition, in which the
insistent request and the corresponding reply are expressed in terms familiar
from the universal experience of human love. To understand the Rosary, one has
to enter into the psychological dynamic proper to love.
One thing is clear: although the repeated Hail Mary is
addressed directly to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love is ultimately
directed, with her and through her. The repetition is nourished by the desire
to be conformed ever more completely to Christ, the true programme of the
Christian life. Saint Paul expressed this project with words of fire: “For me
to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). And again: “It is no
longer I that live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). The Rosary helps
us to be conformed ever more closely to Christ until we attain true holiness.
A valid method...
27. We should not be surprised that our relationship with
Christ makes use of a method. God communicates himself to us respecting our
human nature and its vital rhythms. Hence, while Christian spirituality is
familiar with the most sublime forms of mystical silence in which images, words
and gestures are all, so to speak, superseded by an intense and ineffable union
with God, it normally engages the whole person in all his complex
psychological, physical and relational reality.
This becomes apparent in the Liturgy. Sacraments and
sacramentals are structured as a series of rites which bring into play all the
dimensions of the person. The same applies to non-liturgical prayer. This is
confirmed by the fact that, in the East, the most characteristic prayer of
Christological meditation, centred on the words “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy on me, a sinner”34 is traditionally linked to the rhythm
of breathing; while this practice favours perseverance in the prayer, it also
in some way embodies the desire for Christ to become the breath, the soul and
the “all” of one's life.
... which can nevertheless be improved
28. I mentioned in my Apostolic Letter
Novo
Millennio Ineunte that the West is now experiencing a renewed demand
for meditation, which at times leads to a keen interest in aspects of other
religions.35 Some Christians, limited in their knowledge of the
Christian contemplative tradition, are attracted by those forms of prayer.
While the latter contain many elements which are positive and at times compatible
with Christian experience, they are often based on ultimately unacceptable
premises. Much in vogue among these approaches are methods aimed at attaining a
high level of spiritual concentration by using techniques of a psychophysical,
repetitive and symbolic nature. The Rosary is situated within this broad gamut
of religious phenomena, but it is distinguished by characteristics of its own
which correspond to specifically Christian requirements.
In effect, the Rosary is simply a method of contemplation.
As a method, it serves as a means to an end and cannot become an end in itself.
All the same, as the fruit of centuries of experience, this method should not
be undervalued. In its favour one could cite the experience of countless
Saints. This is not to say, however, that the method cannot be improved. Such
is the intent of the addition of the new series of mysteria lucis to the
overall cycle of mysteries and of the few suggestions which I am proposing in
this Letter regarding its manner of recitation. These suggestions, while
respecting the well-established structure of this prayer, are intended to help
the faithful to understand it in the richness of its symbolism and in harmony
with the demands of daily life. Otherwise there is a risk that the Rosary would
not only fail to produce the intended spiritual effects, but even that the
beads, with which it is usually said, could come to be regarded as some kind of
amulet or magic object, thereby radically distorting their meaning and
function.
Announcing each mystery
29. Announcing each mystery, and perhaps even using a
suitable icon to portray it, is as it were to open up a scenario on
which to focus our attention. The words direct the imagination and the mind
towards a particular episode or moment in the life of Christ. In the Church's
traditional spirituality, the veneration of icons and the many devotions
appealing to the senses, as well as the method of prayer proposed by Saint
Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises, make use of visual and imaginative
elements (the compositio loci), judged to be of great help in
concentrating the mind on the particular mystery. This is a methodology,
moreover, which corresponds to the inner logic of the Incarnation: in
Jesus, God wanted to take on human features. It is through his bodily reality
that we are led into contact with the mystery of his divinity.
This need for concreteness finds further expression in the
announcement of the various mysteries of the Rosary. Obviously these mysteries
neither replace the Gospel nor exhaust its content. The Rosary, therefore, is
no substitute for lectio divina; on the contrary, it presupposes and
promotes it. Yet, even though the mysteries contemplated in the Rosary, even
with the addition of the mysteria lucis, do no more than outline the
fundamental elements of the life of Christ, they easily draw the mind to a more
expansive reflection on the rest of the Gospel, especially when the Rosary is
prayed in a setting of prolonged recollection.
Listening to the word of God
30. In order to supply a Biblical foundation and greater
depth to our meditation, it is helpful to follow the announcement of the
mystery with the proclamation of a related Biblical passage, long or
short, depending on the circumstances. No other words can ever match the
efficacy of the inspired word. As we listen, we are certain that this is the
word of God, spoken for today and spoken “for me”.
If received in this way, the word of God can become part of
the Rosary's methodology of repetition without giving rise to the ennui derived
from the simple recollection of something already well known. It is not a
matter of recalling information but of allowing God to speak. In certain
solemn communal celebrations, this word can be appropriately illustrated by a
brief commentary.
Silence
31. Listening and meditation are nourished by silence.
After the announcement of the mystery and the proclamation of the word, it is
fitting to pause and focus one's attention for a suitable period of time on the
mystery concerned, before moving into vocal prayer. A discovery of the
importance of silence is one of the secrets of practicing contemplation and
meditation. One drawback of a society dominated by technology and the mass
media is the fact that silence becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. Just
as moments of silence are recommended in the Liturgy, so too in the recitation
of the Rosary it is fitting to pause briefly after listening to the word of
God, while the mind focuses on the content of a particular mystery.
The “Our Father”
32. After listening to the word and focusing on the mystery,
it is natural for the mind to be lifted up towards the Father. In each
of his mysteries, Jesus always leads us to the Father, for as he rests in the
Father's bosom (cf. Jn 1:18) he is continually turned towards him. He
wants us to share in his intimacy with the Father, so that we can say with him:
“Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). By virtue of his relationship
to the Father he makes us brothers and sisters of himself and of one another,
communicating to us the Spirit which is both his and the Father's. Acting as a
kind of foundation for the Christological and Marian meditation which unfolds
in the repetition of the Hail Mary, the Our Father makes meditation
upon the mystery, even when carried out in solitude, an ecclesial experience.
The ten “Hail Marys”
33. This is the most substantial element in the Rosary and
also the one which makes it a Marian prayer par excellence. Yet when the
Hail Mary is properly understood, we come to see clearly that its Marian
character is not opposed to its Christological character, but that it actually
emphasizes and increases it. The first part of the Hail Mary, drawn from
the words spoken to Mary by the Angel Gabriel and by Saint Elizabeth, is a
contemplation in adoration of the mystery accomplished in the Virgin of
Nazareth. These words express, so to speak, the wonder of heaven and earth;
they could be said to give us a glimpse of God's own wonderment as he contemplates
his “masterpiece” – the Incarnation of the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
If we recall how, in the Book of Genesis, God “saw all that he had made” (Gen
1:31), we can find here an echo of that “pathos with which God, at the dawn
of creation, looked upon the work of his hands”.36The repetition of
the Hail Mary in the Rosary gives us a share in God's own wonder and
pleasure: in jubilant amazement we acknowledge the greatest miracle of history.
Mary's prophecy here finds its fulfilment: “Henceforth all generations will
call me blessed” (Lk 1:48).
The centre of gravity in the Hail Mary, the hinge as
it were which joins its two parts, is the name of Jesus. Sometimes, in
hurried recitation, this centre of gravity can be overlooked, and with it the
connection to the mystery of Christ being contemplated. Yet it is precisely the
emphasis given to the name of Jesus and to his mystery that is the sign of a
meaningful and fruitful recitation of the Rosary. Pope Paul VI drew attention,
in his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, to the custom in certain
regions of highlighting the name of Christ by the addition of a clause
referring to the mystery being contemplated.37 This is a
praiseworthy custom, especially during public recitation. It gives forceful
expression to our faith in Christ, directed to the different moments of the
Redeemer's life. It is at once a profession of faith and an aid in
concentrating our meditation, since it facilitates the process of assimilation
to the mystery of Christ inherent in the repetition of the Hail Mary.
When we repeat the name of Jesus – the only name given to us by which we may
hope for salvation (cf. Acts 4:12) – in close association with the name
of his Blessed Mother, almost as if it were done at her suggestion, we set out
on a path of assimilation meant to help us enter more deeply into the life of
Christ.
From Mary's uniquely privileged relationship with Christ,
which makes her the Mother of God, Theotókos, derives the forcefulness
of the appeal we make to her in the second half of the prayer, as we entrust to
her maternal intercession our lives and the hour of our death.
The “Gloria”
34. Trinitarian doxology is the goal of all Christian
contemplation. For Christ is the way that leads us to the Father in the Spirit.
If we travel this way to the end, we repeatedly encounter the mystery of the
three divine Persons, to whom all praise, worship and thanksgiving are due. It
is important that the Gloria, the high-point of contemplation, be
given due prominence in the Rosary. In public recitation it could be sung, as a
way of giving proper emphasis to the essentially Trinitarian structure of all
Christian prayer.
To the extent that meditation on the mystery is attentive
and profound, and to the extent that it is enlivened – from one Hail Mary to
another – by love for Christ and for Mary, the glorification of the Trinity at
the end of each decade, far from being a perfunctory conclusion, takes on its
proper contemplative tone, raising the mind as it were to the heights of heaven
and enabling us in some way to relive the experience of Tabor, a foretaste of
the contemplation yet to come: “It is good for us to be here!” (Lk
9:33).
The concluding short prayer
35. In current practice, the Trinitarian doxology is
followed by a brief concluding prayer which varies according to local custom.
Without in any way diminishing the value of such invocations, it is worthwhile
to note that the contemplation of the mysteries could better express their full
spiritual fruitfulness if an effort were made to conclude each mystery with a
prayer for the fruits specific to that particular mystery. In this way the
Rosary would better express its connection with the Christian life. One fine
liturgical prayer suggests as much, inviting us to pray that, by meditation on
the mysteries of the Rosary, we may come to “imitate what they contain and
obtain what they promise”.38
Such a final prayer could take on a legitimate variety of
forms, as indeed it already does. In this way the Rosary can be better adapted to
different spiritual traditions and different Christian communities. It is to be
hoped, then, that appropriate formulas will be widely circulated, after due
pastoral discernment and possibly after experimental use in centres and shrines
particularly devoted to the Rosary, so that the People of God may benefit from
an abundance of authentic spiritual riches and find nourishment for their
personal contemplation.
The Rosary beads
36. The traditional aid used for the recitation of the
Rosary is the set of beads. At the most superficial level, the beads often
become a simple counting mechanism to mark the succession of Hail Marys.
Yet they can also take on a symbolism which can give added depth to
contemplation.
Here the first thing to note is the way the beads
converge upon the Crucifix, which both opens and closes the unfolding
sequence of prayer. The life and prayer of believers is centred upon Christ.
Everything begins from him, everything leads towards him, everything, through
him, in the Holy Spirit, attains to the Father.
As a counting mechanism, marking the progress of the prayer,
the beads evoke the unending path of contemplation and of Christian perfection.
Blessed Bartolo Longo saw them also as a “chain” which links us to God. A
chain, yes, but a sweet chain; for sweet indeed is the bond to God who is also
our Father. A “filial” chain which puts us in tune with Mary, the “handmaid of
the Lord” (Lk 1:38) and, most of all, with Christ himself, who, though
he was in the form of God, made himself a “servant” out of love for us (Phil
2:7).
A fine way to expand the symbolism of the beads is to let
them remind us of our many relationships, of the bond of communion and
fraternity which unites us all in Christ.
The opening and closing
37.At present, in different parts of the Church, there are
many ways to introduce the Rosary. In some places, it is customary to begin
with the opening words of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste
to help me”, as if to nourish in those who are praying a humble awareness of
their own insufficiency. In other places, the Rosary begins with the recitation
of the Creed, as if to make the profession of faith the basis of the
contemplative journey about to be undertaken. These and similar customs, to the
extent that they prepare the mind for contemplation, are all equally
legitimate. The Rosary is then ended with a prayer for the intentions of the
Pope, as if to expand the vision of the one praying to embrace all the needs of
the Church. It is precisely in order to encourage this ecclesial dimension of
the Rosary that the Church has seen fit to grant indulgences to those who
recite it with the required dispositions.
If prayed in this way, the Rosary truly becomes a spiritual
itinerary in which Mary acts as Mother, Teacher and Guide, sustaining the
faithful by her powerful intercession. Is it any wonder, then, that the soul
feels the need, after saying this prayer and experiencing so profoundly the
motherhood of Mary, to burst forth in praise of the Blessed Virgin, either in that
splendid prayer the Salve Regina or in the Litany of Loreto? This
is the crowning moment of an inner journey which has brought the faithful into
living contact with the mystery of Christ and his Blessed Mother.
Distribution over time
38. The Rosary can be recited in full every day, and there
are those who most laudably do so. In this way it fills with prayer the days of
many a contemplative, or keeps company with the sick and the elderly who have
abundant time at their disposal. Yet it is clear – and this applies all the
more if the new series of mysteria lucis is included – that many people
will not be able to recite more than a part of the Rosary, according to a
certain weekly pattern. This weekly distribution has the effect of giving the
different days of the week a certain spiritual “colour”, by analogy with the
way in which the Liturgy colours the different seasons of the liturgical year.
According to current practice, Monday and Thursday are
dedicated to the “joyful mysteries”, Tuesday and Thursday to the “sorrowful
mysteries”, and Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday to the “glorious mysteries”.
Where might the “mysteries of light” be inserted? If we consider that the
“glorious mysteries” are said on both Saturday and Sunday, and that Saturday
has always had a special Marian flavour, the second weekly meditation on the
“joyful mysteries”, mysteries in which Mary's presence is especially
pronounced, could be moved to Saturday. Thursday would then be free for
meditating on the “mysteries of light”.
This indication is not intended to limit a rightful freedom
in personal and community prayer, where account needs to be taken of spiritual
and pastoral needs and of the occurrence of particular liturgical celebrations
which might call for suitable adaptations. What is really important is that the
Rosary should always be seen and experienced as a path of contemplation. In the
Rosary, in a way similar to what takes place in the Liturgy, the Christian
week, centred on Sunday, the day of Resurrection, becomes a journey through the
mysteries of the life of Christ, and he is revealed in the lives of his
disciples as the Lord of time and of history.
CONCLUSION
“Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain linking us to God”
39. What has been said so far makes abundantly clear the
richness of this traditional prayer, which has the simplicity of a popular
devotion but also the theological depth of a prayer suited to those who feel
the need for deeper contemplation.
The Church has always attributed particular efficacy to this
prayer, entrusting to the Rosary, to its choral recitation and to its constant
practice, the most difficult problems. At times when Christianity itself seemed
under threat, its deliverance was attributed to the power of this prayer, and
Our Lady of the Rosary was acclaimed as the one whose intercession brought
salvation.
Today I willingly entrust to the power of this prayer – as I
mentioned at the beginning – the cause of peace in the world and the cause of the
family.
Peace
40. The grave challenges confronting the world at the start
of this new Millennium lead us to think that only an intervention from on high,
capable of guiding the hearts of those living in situations of conflict and
those governing the destinies of nations, can give reason to hope for a
brighter future.
The Rosary is by its nature a prayer for peace, since it consists in the contemplation of Christ, the
Prince of Peace, the one who is “our peace” (Eph 2:14). Anyone who
assimilates the mystery of Christ – and this is clearly the goal of the Rosary
– learns the secret of peace and makes it his life's project. Moreover, by
virtue of its meditative character, with the tranquil succession of Hail
Marys, the Rosary has a peaceful effect on those who pray it, disposing
them to receive and experience in their innermost depths, and to spread around
them, that true peace which is the special gift of the Risen Lord (cf. Jn 14:27;
20.21).
The Rosary is also a prayer for peace because of the fruits
of charity which it produces. When prayed well in a truly meditative way, the
Rosary leads to an encounter with Christ in his mysteries and so cannot fail to
draw attention to the face of Christ in others, especially in the most
afflicted. How could one possibly contemplate the mystery of the Child of
Bethlehem, in the joyful mysteries, without experiencing the desire to welcome,
defend and promote life, and to shoulder the burdens of suffering children all
over the world? How could one possibly follow in the footsteps of Christ the
Revealer, in the mysteries of light, without resolving to bear witness to his
“Beatitudes” in daily life? And how could one contemplate Christ carrying the
Cross and Christ Crucified, without feeling the need to act as a “Simon of Cyrene”
for our brothers and sisters weighed down by grief or crushed by despair?
Finally, how could one possibly gaze upon the glory of the Risen Christ or of
Mary Queen of Heaven, without yearning to make this world more beautiful, more
just, more closely conformed to God's plan?
In a word, by focusing our eyes on Christ, the Rosary also
makes us peacemakers in the world. By its nature as an insistent choral
petition in harmony with Christ's invitation to “pray ceaselessly” (Lk
18:1), the Rosary allows us to hope that, even today, the difficult “battle”
for peace can be won. Far from offering an escape from the problems of the
world, the Rosary obliges us to see them with responsible and generous eyes,
and obtains for us the strength to face them with the certainty of God's help
and the firm intention of bearing witness in every situation to “love, which
binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14).
The family: parents...
41. As a prayer for peace, the Rosary is also, and always
has been, a prayer of and for the family. At one time this prayer was
particularly dear to Christian families, and it certainly brought them closer
together. It is important not to lose this precious inheritance. We need to
return to the practice of family prayer and prayer for families, continuing to
use the Rosary.
In my Apostolic Letter
Novo
Millennio Ineunte I encouraged the celebration of the Liturgy of the
Hours by the lay faithful in the ordinary life of parish communities and
Christian groups;39 I now wish to do the same for the Rosary. These
two paths of Christian contemplation are not mutually exclusive; they
complement one another. I would therefore ask those who devote themselves to
the pastoral care of families to recommend heartily the recitation of the
Rosary.
The family that prays together stays together.
The Holy Rosary, by age-old tradition, has shown itself
particularly effective as a prayer which brings the family together. Individual
family members, in turning their eyes towards Jesus, also regain the ability to
look one another in the eye, to communicate, to show solidarity, to forgive one
another and to see their covenant of love renewed in the Spirit of God.
Many of the problems facing contemporary families,
especially in economically developed societies, result from their increasing
difficulty in communicating. Families seldom manage to come together, and the
rare occasions when they do are often taken up with watching television. To
return to the recitation of the family Rosary means filling daily life with
very different images, images of the mystery of salvation: the image of the
Redeemer, the image of his most Blessed Mother. The family that recites the
Rosary together reproduces something of the atmosphere of the household of
Nazareth: its members place Jesus at the centre, they share his joys and
sorrows, they place their needs and their plans in his hands, they draw from
him the hope and the strength to go on.
... and children
42. It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this
prayer the growth and development of children. Does the Rosary not
follow the life of Christ, from his conception to his death, and then to his
Resurrection and his glory? Parents are finding it ever more difficult to
follow the lives of their children as they grow to maturity. In a society of
advanced technology, of mass communications and globalization, everything has
become hurried, and the cultural distance between generations is growing ever
greater. The most diverse messages and the most unpredictable experiences
rapidly make their way into the lives of children and adolescents, and parents
can become quite anxious about the dangers their children face. At times
parents suffer acute disappointment at the failure of their children to resist
the seductions of the drug culture, the lure of an unbridled hedonism, the
temptation to violence, and the manifold expressions of meaninglessness and
despair.
To pray the Rosary for children, and even more, with
children, training them from their earliest years to experience this daily
“pause for prayer” with the family, is admittedly not the solution to every
problem, but it is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated. It could
be objected that the Rosary seems hardly suited to the taste of children and
young people of today. But perhaps the objection is directed to an impoverished
method of praying it. Furthermore, without prejudice to the Rosary's basic
structure, there is nothing to stop children and young people from praying it –
either within the family or in groups – with appropriate symbolic and practical
aids to understanding and appreciation. Why not try it? With God's help, a pastoral
approach to youth which is positive, impassioned and creative – as shown by the
World Youth Days! – is capable of achieving quite remarkable results. If the
Rosary is well presented, I am sure that young people will once more surprise
adults by the way they make this prayer their own and recite it with the
enthusiasm typical of their age group.
The Rosary, a treasure to be rediscovered
43. Dear brothers and sisters! A prayer so easy and yet so
rich truly deserves to be rediscovered by the Christian community. Let us do
so, especially this year, as a means of confirming the direction outlined in my
Apostolic Letter
Novo
Millennio Ineunte, from which the pastoral plans of so many particular
Churches have drawn inspiration as they look to the immediate future.
I turn particularly to you, my dear Brother Bishops, priests
and deacons, and to you, pastoral agents in your different ministries: through
your own personal experience of the beauty of the Rosary, may you come to
promote it with conviction.
I also place my trust in you, theologians: by your sage and
rigorous reflection, rooted in the word of God and sensitive to the lived
experience of the Christian people, may you help them to discover the Biblical
foundations, the spiritual riches and the pastoral value of this traditional
prayer.
I count on you, consecrated men and women, called in a
particular way to contemplate the face of Christ at the school of Mary.
I look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every state of
life, to you, Christian families, to you, the sick and elderly, and to you,
young people: confidently take up the Rosary once again. Rediscover the Rosary
in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the Liturgy, and in the context of
your daily lives.
May this appeal of mine not go unheard! At the start of the
twenty-fifth year of my Pontificate, I entrust this Apostolic Letter to the
loving hands of the Virgin Mary, prostrating myself in spirit before her
image in the splendid Shrine built for her by Blessed Bartolo Longo, the
apostle of the Rosary. I willingly make my own the touching words with which he
concluded his well-known Supplication to the Queen of the Holy Rosary:
“O Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain which unites us to God, bond of love
which unites us to the angels, tower of salvation against the assaults of Hell,
safe port in our universal shipwreck, we will never abandon you. You will be
our comfort in the hour of death: yours our final kiss as life ebbs away. And
the last word from our lips will be your sweet name, O Queen of the Rosary of
Pompei, O dearest Mother, O Refuge of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the
Afflicted. May you be everywhere blessed, today and always, on earth and in
heaven”.
From the Vatican, on the 16th day of October in the year
2002, the beginning of the twenty- fifth year of my Pontificate.
JOHN PAUL II
1
Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 45.
2
Pope Paul VI,
Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2 February 1974), 42: AAS 66
(1974), 153.
3
Cf. Acta Leonis
XIII, 3 (1884), 280-289.
4
Particularly worthy
of note is his Apostolic Epistle on the Rosary Il religioso convegno (29
September 1961): AAS 53 (1961), 641-647.
5
Angelus: Insegnamenti
di Giovanni Paolo II, I (1978): 75-76.
6
AAS 93 (2001), 285.
7
During the years of
preparation for the Council, Pope John XXIII did not fail to encourage the
Christian community to recite the Rosary for the success of this ecclesial
event: cf. Letter to the Cardinal Vicar (28 September 1960): AAS 52 (1960),
814-816.
8
Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 66.
9
No. 32: AAS 93
(2001), 288.
10
Ibid., 33: loc. cit., 289.
11 It is well-known
and bears repeating that private revelations are not the same as public
revelation, which is binding on the whole Church. It is the task of the
Magisterium to discern and recognize the authenticity and value of private
revelations for the piety of the faithful.
12
The Secret of
the Rosary.
13
Blessed Bartolo
Longo, Storia del Santuario di Pompei, Pompei, 1990, 59.
14
Apostolic
Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2 February 1974), 47: AAS (1974), 156.
15
Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10.
16
Ibid., 12.
17
Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium,
58.
18
I Quindici
Sabati del Santissimo Rosario, 27th ed.,
Pompei, 1916, 27.
19
Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium,
53.
20
Ibid., 60.
21
Cf. First Radio
Address Urbi et Orbi (17 October 1978): AAS 70 (1978), 927.
22
Treatise on True
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
23
Catechism of the
Catholic Church, 2679.
24
Ibid., 2675.
25
The Supplication
to the Queen of the Holy Rosary was composed by Blessed Bartolo Longo in
1883 in response to the appeal of Pope Leo XIII, made in his first Encyclical
on the Rosary, for the spiritual commitment of all Catholics in combating
social ills. It is solemnly recited twice yearly, in May and October.
26
Divina Commedia, Paradiso XXXIII, 13-15.
27
John Paul II,
Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (
28
Apostolic
Exhortation Marialis Cultus (
29
John Paul II,
Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (
30
No. 515.
31
Angelus Message of
32
Second
33
Cf. Saint Irenaeus
of Lyons, Adversus Haereses, III, 18, 1: PG 7, 932.
34
Catechism of the
Catholic Church, 2616.
35
Cf. No. 33: AAS 93
(2001), 289.
36
John Paul II,
Letter to Artists (
37
Cf. No. 46: AAS 66
(1974), 155. This custom has also been recently praised by the Congregation for
Divine Worship and for the Discipline of the Sacraments in its Direttorio su
pietà popolare e liturgia. Principi e orientamenti (
38
“...concede,
quaesumus, ut haec mysteria sacratissimo beatae Mariae Virginis Rosario
recolentes, et imitemur quod continent, et quod promittunt assequamur”.
Missale Romanum 1960, in festo B.M. Virginis a 39 Cf. No. 34: AAS 93 (2001), 290
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