CSD SELF-DIRECTED RECOLLECTION
October 13, 2019
REFLECTION ON THE ROSARY
DEVOTION WITH THE POPES AND
PRAYING WITH THE SAINTS
L: Lord, open my lips
A: And my mouth shall proclaim your
praise
L: God,  come to my assistance. A.
Lord, make haste to help us.
OPENING PRAYER
It is becoming for you, O Mary, to be mindful
of us, as you stand near Him who bestowed
upon you all graces, for you are the Mother
of God and our Queen. Come to our aid for
the sake of the King, the Lord God and
Master Who was born of you. For this reason
you are called “full of grace.” Be mindful of
us, most holy Virgin, and bestow on us gifts
from the riches of your graces, O Virgin, full
of grace.
Saint Athanasius
I. THE HOLY ROSARY
It has always been the habit of Catholics in
danger and in troublous times to fly for
refuge to Mary, and to seek for peace in her
maternal goodness; showing that the
Catholic Church has always, and with
justice, put all her hope and trust in the
Mother of God. And truly the Immaculate
Virgin, chosen to be the Mother of God and
thereby associated with Him in the work of
man's salvation, has a favor and power
with her Son greater than any human or
angelic creature has ever obtained, or ever
can gain. And, as it is her greatest pleasure
to grant her help and comfort to those who
seek her, it cannot be doubted that she
would deign, and even be anxious, to
receive the aspirations of the universal
Church.
This devotion, so great and so confident, to
the august Queen of Heaven, has never
shone forth with such brilliancy as when
the militant Church of God has seemed to
be endangered by the violence of heresy
spread abroad, or by an intolerable moral
corruption, or by the attacks of powerful
enemies. Ancient and modern history and
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the more sacred annals of the Church bear
witness to public and private supplications
addressed to the Mother of God, to the help
she has granted in return, and to the peace
and tranquility which she had obtained
from God. Hence her illustrious titles of
helper, consoler, mighty in war, victorious,
and peace-giver. And amongst these is
specially to be commemorated that
familiar title derived from the Rosary by
which the signal benefits she has gained for
the whole of Christendom have been
solemnly perpetuated.
Supremi Apostolatus Officio
Pope Leo XIII
PRAYER:
Virgin full of goodness, Mother of mercy,
I entrust to you my body and my soul, my
thoughts and my actions, my life and my
death.
My Queen, come to my aid and deliver me
from the snares of the devil. Obtain for me
the grace of loving my Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son, with a true and perfect love, and
after Him, O Mary, of loving you with all my
heart and above all things. Amen.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Hail Mary, full of Grace….
II. THE FAMILY ROSARY
We affirm that the custom of the family
recitation of the Holy Rosary is a most
efficacious means. What a sweet sight -
most pleasing to God - when, at eventide,
the Christian home resounds with the
frequent repetition of praises in honor of
the august Queen of Heaven! Then the
Rosary, recited in common, assembles
before the image of the Virgin, in an
admirable union of hearts, the parents and
their children, who come back from their
daily work. It unites them piously with
those absent and those dead. It links all
more tightly in a sweet bond of love, with
the most Holy Virgin, who, like a loving
mother, in the circle of her children, will be
there bestowing upon them an abundance
of the gifts of concord and family peace.
Then the home of the Christian family, like
that of Nazareth, will become an earthly
abode of sanctity, and, so to speak, a sacred
temple, where the Holy Rosary will not
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only be the particular prayer which every
day rises to heaven in an odor of
sweetness, but will also form the most
efficacious school of Christian discipline
and Christian virtue. This meditation on
the Divine Mysteries of the Redemption
will teach the adults to live, admiring daily
the shining examples of Jesus and Mary,
and to draw from these examples comfort
in adversity, striving towards those
heavenly treasures "where neither thief
draws near, nor moth destroys" (Luke 12,
33). This meditation will bring to the
knowledge of the little ones the main
truths of the Christian Faith, making love
for the Redeemer blossom almost
spontaneously in their innocent hearts,
while, seeing, their parents kneeling before
the majesty of God, they will learn from
their very early years how great before the
throne of God is the value of prayers said in
common. We do not hesitate to affirm
again publicly that We put great
confidence in the Holy Rosary for the
healing of evils which afflict our times. Not
with force, not with arms, not with human
power, but with Divine help obtained
through the means of this prayer, strong
like David with his sling, the Church
undaunted shall be able to confront the
infernal enemy, repeating to him the words
of the young shepherd: "Thou comest to
me with a sword, and a spear, and with a
shield; but I come to thee in the name of the
Lord of Hosts, the God of armies . . . and all
this assembly shall know that the Lord
saveth not with sword and spear, for this is
his battle, and he will deliver you into our
hands" (I Kings 17, 45-47)
For this reason, We earnestly desire,
Venerable Brethren, that all the faithful,
following your example and your
exhortation should respond solicitously to
Our paternal exhortation, uniting their
hearts and their voices with the same
ardor of charity. If the evils and the
assaults of the wicked increase, so likewise
must the piety of all good people increase
and become ever more vigorous. Let them
strive to obtain from our most loving
Mother, especially through this form of
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prayer, that better times may quickly
return for the Church and society.
Encyclical Ingruentium Malorum
Pope Pius XII
PRAYER:
Blessed Virgin Mary, who can worthily repay
you with praise and thanksgiving for
rescuing a fallen world by your generous
consent? What songs of praise can our weak
human nature offer in your honor, since it
was through you that it has found the way
to salvation?
Accept then such poor thanks as we have to
offer, unequal though they be to your merits.
Receive our gratitude and obtain by your
prayers the forgiveness of our sins. Take our
prayers into the sanctuary of heaven and
enable them to make our peace with God.
May the sins we repentantly bring before
Almighty God through you be forgiven. May
what we beg with confidence be granted
through you. Accept our offering and grant
our request; obtain pardon for what we fear,
for you are the sole hope of sinners. We hope
to obtain the pardon of our sins through you.
Blessed Lady, in you is our hope of reward.
Holy Mary, help those who are miserable,
strengthen those who are discouraged,
comfort those who are sorrowful, pray for
your people, plead for the clergy, intercede
for all women consecrated to God. May all
who venerate you experience your
assistance and protection.
Be ready to aid us when we pray, and bring
back to us the answers to our prayers. Make
it your continual concern to pray for the
People of God, for you were blessed by God
and were made worthy to bear the
Redeemer of the world, who lives and reigns
forever.
Saint Augustine
Hail Mary, full of Grace….
III. REMEMEBERING CHRIST WITH
MARY
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.
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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”, 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)”. 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.
Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae
Pope Saint John Paul II
PRAYER:
Mary, you are the vessel and tabernacle
containing all Mysteries. You know what the
patriarchs did not know; you experienced
what was not revealed to the Angels; you
heard what the prophets did not hear. In
short, everything that was hidden from
preceding generations was made known to
you; even more, most of these wonders
depended on you.
Saint Gregory the Wonderworker
Hail Mary, full of Grace…
IV. THE DEVOTION TO MARY
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Devotion to the Mother of the Lord
becomes for the faithful an opportunity for
growing in divine grace, and this is the
ultimate aim of all pastoral activity. For it
is impossible to honor her who is "full of
grace" (Lk. 1:28) without thereby honoring
in oneself the state of grace, which is
friendship with God, communion with Him
and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is
this divine grace which takes possession of
the whole man and conforms him to the
image of the Son of God (cf. Rom. 8:29; Col.
1:18). The Catholic
Church, endowed with centuries of
experience, recognizes in devotion to the
Blessed Virgin a powerful aid for man as he
strives for fulfillment. Mary, the New
Woman, stands at the side of Christ, the
New Man, within whose mystery the
mystery of man alone finds true light; she
is given to its as a pledge and guarantee
that God's plan in Christ for the salvation of
the whole man has already achieved
realization in a creature: in her.
Contemplated in the episodes of the
Gospels and in the reality which she
already possesses in the City of God, the
Blessed Virgin Mary offers a calm vision
and a reassuring word to modern man,
torn as he often is between anguish and
hope, defeated by the sense of his own
limitations and assailed by limitless
aspirations, troubled in his mind and
divided in his heart, uncertain before the
riddle of death, oppressed by loneliness
while yearning for fellowship, a prey to
boredom and disgust. She shows forth the
victory of hope over anguish, of fellowship
over solitude, of peace over anxiety, of joy
and beauty over boredom and disgust, of
eternal visions over earthly ones, of life
over death.
Let the very words that she spoke to the
servants at the marriage feast of Cana, "Do
whatever he tells you" (Jn. 2:5), be a seal on
our Exhortation and a further reason in
favor of the pastoral value of devotion to
the Blessed Virgin as a means of leading
men to Christ. Those words, which at first
sight were limited to the desire to remedy
an embarrassment at the feast, are seen in
the context of Saint John's Gospel to re-
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echo the words used by the people of Israel
to give approval to the Covenant at Sinai
(cf. Ex. 19:8, 24:3, 7; Dt. 5:27) and to renew
their commitments (cf. Jos. 24:24; Ezr.
10:12; Neh. 5:12). And they are words
which harmonize wonderfully with those
spoken by the Father at the theophany on
Mount Tabor: "Listen to him" (Mt. 17:5).
Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus
Pope Saint Paul VI
PRAYER:
Give us a heart as beautiful, pure, and
spotless as yours. A heart like yours, so full
of love and humility. May we be able to
receive Jesus as the Bread of Life, to love Him
as you loved Him, to serve Him under the
mistreated face of the poor. We ask this
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta
Hail Mary, full of Grace….
V. MARY, QUEEN OF PEACE Nothing
seems more appropriate and valuable to
Us than to have the prayers of the whole
Christian family rise to the Mother of God,
who is invoked as the Queen of Peace,
begging her to pour forth abundant gifts of
her maternal goodness in midst of so many
great trials and hardships. We want
constant and devout prayers to be offered
to her whom We declared Mother of the
Church, its spiritual parent, during the
celebration of the Second Vatican Council,
thereby winning the applause of the
Fathers and of the Catholic world, and
confirming a point of traditional doctrine.
For the Mother of the Savior is, as Saint
Augustine teaches, "surely the mother of
His members," and Saint Anselm, to
mention only one other, agrees with him in
these words: "What could ever be deemed
more suitable than for you to be the
mother of those whose father and brother
Christ deigned to become?" She was called
"most truly the mother of the Church" by
Our predecessor Leo XIII. Hence We have
good reason to place our trust in her in the
midst of this terrible disorder.
If evils increase, the devotion of the People
of God should also increase. And so,
venerable brothers, We want you to take
the lead in urging and encouraging people
to pray ardently to our most merciful
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mother Mary by saying the Rosary during
the month of October, as We have already
indicated. This prayer is well-suited to the
devotion of the People of God, most
pleasing to the Mother of God and most
effective in gaining heaven's blessings. The
Second Vatican Council recommended use
of the Rosary to all the sons of the Church,
not in express words but in unmistakable
fashion in this phrase: "Let them value
highly the pious practices and exercises
directed to the Blessed Virgin and
approved over the centuries by the
magisterium."
As the history of the Church makes clear,
this very fruitful way of praying is not only
efficacious in warding off evils and
preventing calamities, but is also of great
help in fostering Christian life. "It
nourishes the Catholic faith which readily
takes on new life from a timely
commentary on the sacred mysteries, and
it turns minds toward the truths that have
been taught us by God."
Christi Matri
Pope Saint Paul VI
PRAYER:
Mary, our Queen, Holy Mother of God, we
beg you to hear our prayer.
Make our hearts overflow with divine grace
and resplendent with heavenly wisdom.
Render them strong with your might and
rich in virtue.
Pour down upon us the gift of mercy so that
we may obtain the pardon of our sins. Help
us to live in such a way as to merit the glory
and bliss of heaven. May this be granted us
by your Son Jesus, who has exalted you
above the angels, has crowned you as Queen,
and has seated you with Him forever on his
refulgent throne. Amen.
Saint Anthony of Padua
Hail Mary, full of Grace….
CLOSING PRAYER
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of
God; despise not our petitions in our
necessities, but deliver us always from all
dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Amen.
May the Divine assistance  remain always
with us! Amen.
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