Nuestra Señora de Rosario de Chiquinquirá
Story here.
The rosary is our ladder to Heaven. Pray the rosary every day, and if you can, pray many rosaries - as best you can. Gently returning to meditation whenever distracted - as best you can. We don't know how to pray as we ought, on our own - therefore the rosary is a school of prayer. It seems to me the rosary is very much like the monastic ladder: Encompassing sacred reading, meditation, prayer-oration, contemplation - within one exercise of devotion. We announce and consider the mystery-the Word of God; meditate upon it; we ask in prayer; and are lifted out of ourselves in contemplation. The prayer of the rosary activating as if on it's own, as it were. The intellect suspended, the spirit elevated above the flesh. It seems to me this is a signal grace, promised by Our Lady: It is the Holy Spirit praying within us - because we do not know how to pray as we ought. It is the Holy Spirit who wills and accomplishes within us every good.
The Blessed Virgin, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, is the Gate of Heaven ... "Who is this gate (Ezekiel 44:1-4), if not Mary?" (St. Ambrose of Milan, The Consecration of a Virgin and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, 8:52; c. 391 AD) "For the Lord has created a new thing on the earth - A woman shall encompass the man." (Jeremiah 31:22).
Special note: Please pray for a priest friend of mine, who will have some serious surgery on this, Our Lady's feast day.
A beautiful image. Who are the two saints with our Lady and the baby Jesus? I like your advice on praying the rosary. I will be sure to re-read it so I may grow faithful to praying more often.
ReplyDeleteMy mother's name is Rosario so tomorrow is her feast day. ^^
I love the rosary.....never ever thought I would love it....yet now I do, what a grace ! It is indeed a mysterious way to step out of time and space and enter, with praises, the spiritual world. I knew a sister, now gone to God, whose chosen name: Gilmary: she told me that a Gilly is, I believe, a servant, in Ireland, Scotland (?): so she named herself thus, a servant of Mary. Lovely. I think of her often, now. A rare nun of humility....
ReplyDeleteand yes I am sure we who come here will all pray for your friend, Terry.
I said a rosary for your friend today. I thought that I had put a comment last night that I would, but I mustn't have clicked on publish.
ReplyDeleteThanks much - I haven't heard how he is yet - but no news is good news.
Delete