And the other: “Darling!” And for a long while the dialogue between the two did not change: “Mama!” from above, “Darling!” from below. There was no need for other words.
Don’t we have the Bible? Certainly, and it is a quid summum, but not everyone is prepared to read it or has time to. For those who do read it, it will also be useful for them at times, while traveling, on the street, and in times of particular need, to talk with Our Lady, if they believe that she is our mother and sister. If the reading of the Bible is just beginning to be appreciated as mere study, the mysteries of the Rosary, when meditated on and savored, are the Bible studied in depth, and made spiritual flesh and blood.
A boring prayer? It depends. It can be, instead, a prayer full of joy and happiness. If you know how to say it, the Rosary becomes a lifting of the eyes to Mary, which increases in intensity as you go on. It can also turn out to be a refrain that springs from the heart and calms the soul like a song.
A poor prayer, the Rosary? And what kind of prayer, then, would be “rich”? The Rosary is a series of Our Fathers, a prayer taught by Jesus, of Hail Marys, God’s greeting of the Virgin through the Angel, of Glory Bes, the praise of the most Holy Trinity. Or would you like lofty theological ponderings instead? They wouldn’t be suitable for the poor, the old, the humble, and the simple. The Rosary expresses faith without invented complications, without evasions, and without many words, it helps us to abandon ourselves to God and to accept suffering generously. God also makes use of theologians, but in distributing his grace, he makes use above all of the littleness of the humble and those who abandon themselves to his will.
There is another thing to be considered: The family should be the first school of piety and religious spirituality for the children. Religious teaching that comes from the parents, [Pope] Paul VI has said recently, is difficult, authorized, and irreplaceable. Difficult because of the climate of permissiveness and secularism that surrounds us; authorized, because it is part of the mission entrusted by God to parents; and irreplaceable, because it is in the most tender age that we develop the inclination towards and the habit of religious piety. The recitation of the Rosary, although in a shortened and adapted form in the evening by the parents together with their children, is a kind of domestic liturgy. The writer Louis Veuillot used to confess that the beginning of his return to God was the sight of the Rosary that he saw being said with faith by a Roman family.
With these convictions in my heart, it has been a consolation for me to hear of the initiative of the celebrations of the past few days. The Dominican Fathers, already so worthy because of their spreading of the Rosary in our city, and the “Gesuati,” the parish of the Rosary par excellence, are planning the relaunching of this great and pious practice. Hoping that their work may be blessed by God, I have come to this liturgy as to a joyous religious festival.
Unfortunately, the joy is deeply disturbed by the rumblings of the ominous and senseless war that broke out yesterday in the Middle East. When, oh when, will men stop hating each other? When will they be willing to sacrifice their wretched dreams of an unstable national supremacy to the supreme and stable good of peace? When will we finally see an international body furnished with real powers for avoiding the outbreak of such disasters? We cannot help thinking at this moment with profound consternation of the impending harm to individuals, families, and entire nations; and of the anguish of so many of our brothers and sisters, who, for the most part, are helplessly suffering the consequences of decisions being taken at the top level of their nations. And the Middle East is also a tinderbox. We must pray to the Lord not only that the war, which has unfortunately broken out, may remain limited, but that it may be quickly put under control and extinguished. In the Rosary we are accustomed to invoke Our Lady by her title of “Queen of Peace.” Let us say to her fervently: Regina pacis, ora pro nobis!
Notes
1 Opera onium 6:199-202 (title by translator).
2 The Betrothed, chapters 20, 21.
3 Cf. Macbeth, II, ii, 37, 42.
4 On Italian trains, the baggage carrier is a bag or net hanging above and in front of the seat.
Chapter two
For a Deeper Devotion to the Church
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, now declared venerable by the Church, had a way with words. Whether writing, speaking, or occasionally singing them, he captivated millions with his intellect and his passion. His vast theological knowledge, paired with his ability to clearly and succinctly explain the Church’s teachings, has earned him a place among the preeminent evangelists of the twentieth century. Archbishop Sheen also had a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, one that he worked tirelessly to share with others. In The World’s First Love: Mary, Mother of God, first published in 1952, Archbishop Sheen described Mary as a “dream,” a “mother,” and a “spouse.” In a talk titled “The Woman I Love,” he indicated how Mary and the Church are intertwined because, he said, “as we discontinue our devotion to the Blessed Mother, there is always a decline in the love of the Church.”
Such an observation certainly resonates for twenty-first-century Catholics in the United States who are witnessing a massive decline of love of the Church. A Pew Survey on “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” released in May 2015, noted a significant drop in the number of American Catholics and a sharp increase in those who identified as “religiously unaffiliated” (also known as nones). Statistics have shown that one reason for these declining numbers is the growing discrepancy between the moral teachings of the Church and the evolution of our secular society. Developments in areas such as the legalization of same-sex marriage, abortion, and the increasing support for physician-assisted suicide—all of which are at odds with Church teaching—pit the Church more and more against the laws of the land. A lack of formation in the Faith of many baptized Catholics, a reality that was acknowledged and discussed openly at the 2014 and 2015 synods of bishops on the family in Rome, is another reason. As we experience this decline in the number of faithful, then, it follows that a decline also exists in the number of those who espouse a personal devotion to Mary—and through her to her Son.
According to Archbishop Sheen, praying with our Blessed Mother in the Rosary is the solution, and it can be the doorway through which we are led to love of Mary and, subsequently, to love of the Church. And this doorway is one that is open to all.
When seen in this light the following excerpt from The World’s First Love is tremendously powerful. It outlines how the Rosary makes both Mary and Jesus accessible to all people, regardless of educational status or mental or physical health. In particular, Archbishop Sheen says, it is of benefit to several groups, in particular the worried, the intellectual and the unlearned, and the sick—situations in life to which each of us can relate.
After all, who among us has not suffered from worry? The last century alone gave us two world wars, multiple genocides, the continued destruction of the Middle East (what Pope Francis has called a “piecemeal” third world war), the development of a culture of death that includes abortion and euthanasia, the spread of terrorism at home and abroad, a growing aggressive secularism, and the increase in the persecution of Christians.
In America, it is becoming more difficult for men and women of faith, as well as religious organizations, to effectively defend their deeply held religious beliefs. While permitted in the privacy of houses of worship and family life, religious beliefs and practices increasingly are being challenged in the public square. This troubling development calls into question our very freedom of religion, one of the basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution. While societal changes like these are naturally cause for great concern, the Rosary can ease such fears. The prayer is, as Archbishop Sheen writes, a place where
