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."
Earlier today, February 15, I wrote about Saint Claude la Colombière, a Jesuit priest and prolific writer devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Below is a translated prayer, written by Saint Claude, demonstrating his overwhelming love and reliance on Christ, and inspiring us to center our lives on Him.
Aspiration to Jesus, my Friend
Jesus! You are my true Friend, my only Friend. You take a part in all my misfortunes, You take them on Yourself; You know how to change them into blessings.
You listen to me with the greatest kindness when I relate my troubles to You, and You have always balm to pour on my wounds. I find You everywhere. You never go away! If I have to change my dwelling, I find You there wherever I go. You are never weary of listening to me. You are never tired of doing me good. I am certain of being beloved by You if I love You; my goods are nothing to You, and by bestowing Yours on me You never grow poor; however miserable I may be, no one more noble or holier can come between You and me and deprive me of Your friendship; and Death, which tears us away from all other friends, will unite me forever to You. All the humiliations attached to old age, or to the loss of honor, will never detach You from me; on the contrary, I shall never enjoy You more fully, and You will never be closer to me than when everything seems to conspire against me, to overwhelm me, and to cast me down.
You bear with all my faults with extreme patience, and even my want of fidelity and my ingratitude do not wound You to such a degree as to make You unwilling to receive me back when I return to You, or to come to me when I call on You. O Jesus! grant that I may die praising You, that I may die for the love of You.
Amen.
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