Why pray the Rosary every day for a year?
Each time the Blessed Virgin has appeared-- whether it be to Saint Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes; to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco at Fatima; or to Mariette Beco at Banneux-- she has asserted the importance, saving grace, and power of praying the Holy Rosary on a daily basis. Based upon her words, the Rosary is penance and conversion for sinners, a pathway to peace, an end to war, and a powerful act of faith in Jesus Christ. Pope Paul VI presented the Rosary as a powerful means to reach Christ "not merely with Mary but indeed, insofar as this is possible to us, in the same way as Mary, who is certainly the one who thought about Him more than anyone else has ever done."
To show us how this is done, perhaps no one has been more eloquent than the great Cardinal Newman, who wrote: "The great power of the Rosary consists in the fact that it translates the Creed into Prayer. Of course, the Creed is already in a certain sense a prayer and a great act of homage towards God, but the Rosary brings us to meditate again on the great truth of His life and death, and brings this truth close to our hearts. Even Christians, although they know God, usually fear rather than love Him. The strength of the Rosary lies in the particular manner in which it considers these mysteries, since all our thinking about Christ is intertwined with the thought of His Mother, in the relations between Mother and Son; the Holy Family is presented to us, the home in which God lived His infinite love."
As Mary said at Fatima, "Jesus wants to use you to make Me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to My Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it; these souls will be dear to God, like flowers put by Me to adorn his throne."
We continue our celebration of
Mary’s month of May with a poem written by P.J. Coleman entitled “
Our Lady of May.” In this verse, we are reminded that all of creation praises Our Lady, imitating her beauty and grace with the dawning of spring.
Pray for us, Our Peerless Rose of Paradise, Our Lady of May!
OUR LADY OF MAY
How like a timid virgin comes the May,
In verdure robed and crown'd with chaplets sweet
Rifling earth's choicest treasures, to lay
Rich spoils of beauty at Our Lady's feet!
And, her to honor, from her teeming stores
Of leaf and bud, in greening garths and bowers,
Nature her lavish offering outpours
Of delicate blossoms and of fragile flowers.
The south wind whispers and young grasses stir,
Renascent blooms from crypts of winter rise,
Lily and rose awake to worship her
Who is the peerless Rose of Paradise.
Spirits of Spring - crocus and daffodil
And violet and lilac fresh and frail -
At Mary's shrine their fragrance sweet distill
And in her praise their passionate souls exhale.
Madonna! Mother of our Christ and Lord!
Now in the opening year's auroral prime
Heaven and earth in rapturous accord
Hail thee and hymn with canticles sublime.
All innocent things, and all things pure and fair,
Hasten their homage at thy throne to pay;
And we, thy children, come with love and pray'r-
Oh, hear and help us, Lady of the May!
Touch us to harmony with the gracious hours,
And from our lives all discords harsh efface!
Help us to grow in beauty, like the flowers,
Responsive to the Godhead's quickening grace!
Oh, fill us with the season's peace and love,
And guide our feet in virtue's arduous way
That we may tread the paths that lead above
To thy dear Son, O Lady of the May!
(P.J. Coleman in Robert, Cyril. Mary Immaculate: God's Mother and Mine. New York: Marist Press, 1946)
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