During times of great spiritual warfare, many Marian apparitions have centered around clinging to the Rosary. But why is our Blessed Mother so insistent in recommending this particular gift? Why is the Holy Rosary so singular in her mind as an act of reparation, a safeguard against tepidity, and a powerful weapon against evil and vice?
The Rosary and the Immaculate Heart
When Mary stands at the foot of the cross, she alone has a kind of right through her parental authority to demand that Jesus come down. Instead, though her Immaculate Heart aches with a depth of suffering we cannot comprehend, she takes up the role of mother to all of us and perfectly unifies herself to God’s desire for our salvation. Her Immaculate Heart’s singular movement is to unite completely to God’s will.
Mary’s immaculate heart is the symbol of purity that the ancient enemy can have no power over. The beauty of this heart so devoted to the will of God was formed throughout her life by constant meditation on the mysteries of Jesus. “She pondered all of these things in her heart,” the Gospels tell us and this deep prayer of Our Lady formed her interior into a palace of delight and a garden enclosed.
Mary invites us, her children, into the secrets of her heart through the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. As the apostles learned from her of Christ’s hidden life and were strengthened, we also can sit at her feet and listen as she teaches us of the life of her Son.
As Father Faber, in his Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects, writes:
“[The Rosary] is what [Mary] did all her life herself: she rose to great heights by incessant meditation of Jesus…Hence it is the truest means of loving her; for love consists in (1) obedience; and (2) in imitation.”
Powerful in its Attention
Mary knows we cannot love what we do not know, and the more we give our attention to the life and mysteries of Jesus, the more deeply we will recognize the goodness and beauty of the Lord. That’s why one of the Rosary’s great powers is that it draws our attention to holy things. Attention forms desire, and desire nurtured becomes Love.
Many saints report their growth in holiness rose drastically when they began praying the Holy Rosary daily. In The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis De Montfort credits the daily Rosary for growth in holiness in St. Francis de Sales, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Pius V, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Philip Neri.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux found it difficult to faithfully pray the Rosary, but when she gave an effort, any at all, she reported that the Blessed Mother met her where she was and showered her with graces. She left us this now-famous quote, “The rosary is a long chain that links Heaven and earth. One end of it is in our hands and the other end is in the hands of the Holy Virgin…the Rosary prayer rises like incense to the feet of the Almighty.” As she endured the darkness and depression of illness toward the end of her life, she rose in holiness, offering herself as a sacrifice for sinners, and surrendered all to God, clutching her rosary with ever-deepening faith.
Powerful in its Proximity
One of the Rosary’s special powers is its constant availability. The Rosary has offered the humble a way to pray without ceasing, keep the gospel always on their lips, and give glory and honor to God. Farmers could wrap belts of knots around their waist to pray as they worked the field. Children could meditate on the beads as they tended flocks. Women could pray while nursing babies. The elderly and disabled could clutch the Rosary as they suffered infirmities. Prisoners could pray from their prison cells. The meek and humble, the despondent and weak, now offered a new kind of dignity to their family, parish, and nation; they could be valued for their prayer, sacrifice, and surrender to God’s will.
Even in modern times, this proximity allows us to cling to our Mother. St. Maximilian Kolbe’s prayer army prayed the Holy Rosary in Nazi-occupied Poland. St. Padre Pio and St. Mother Teresa carried it no matter how seemingly in the way it was to their messy work. Immaculée Ilibagiza prayed the Rosary while hidden in a small bathroom with seven other women during the 91 days of the Rwandan genocide. In today’s world, it’s not hard to notice commuters praying as they drive, walkers fingering through the beads, or patients praying in waiting rooms.
Furthermore, Mary’s children offer a simple and constant devotion to her by simply keeping the Rosary with them. In 1978, a college girl fell asleep in her dorm clutching a Rosary and became the last person Ted Bundy tried to kill. He told a priest later that when he tried to kill her, a spiritual force prevented him from entering. In 2009, Private Glenn Hockton, serving in Afghanistan, felt a slight heat on his neck and his Rosary drop. When he bent for it, he discovered he was standing on a landmine. He attributed his rescue to Mary’s protection.
Powerful in its Source
The Rosary is powerful because it comes from the hands of Our Lady. Mary, the Queen of Heaven, gave the Rosary as a shield and a weapon against the three enemies of our salvation: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Because of its humility, Satan continually underestimates the Rosary’s five decades, just as Goliath underestimates David’s five stones.
Confident of her protection against Satan, St. Dominic, as he fought the heresy of Albigensianism in the 12th century, asked Our Queen for a weapon to fight against the Devil. Perhaps he envisioned something majestic and awe-inspiring like an army, an oratory, or a basilica. Instead, she told him to use the Rosary, the unassuming trinket in the hands of her poor humble children. She gave specific instructions against the heresies which were threatening to overrun the Church. Then, with this sword, she severed her children from this heresy and brought them back to the foundations of the faith.
Powerful in its Structure
Cyclical
The Rosary is powerful both in its cyclical and repetitive structure. It is significant that the Rosary moves us in a cycle of mental prayer. Consider that God created the patterns of nature as cycles. The Sun rises and sets and rises again, and the Moon waxes and wanes. Just as the seasons run their cycle, the Rosary follows a cycle of attention and devotion. This way of returning again and again to the mysteries of Christ, little by little develops in us deep roots of prayer and strength of soul.
Repetition
What about all the repetitive prayers? In Matthew 6:7-8 (NCB), Jesus tells us, “When you pray do not go on babbling endlessly as the pagans do, for they believe that they are more likely to be heard because of their many words. Do not imitate them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” He then gives us the Our Father. Other translations use the term “empty phrases” in place of “babbling endlessly.” These verses have been leveled against Catholics for our repetitive prayers, but the accusers forget these phrases are not empty. The prayers are scripture. They are not said mindlessly but are attached to considerations of the greatest mysteries of Divine Revelation.
Further still, the repetition is not for God’s sake (hoping he’ll hear us); it is for our own. Because, as the ancient Roman proverb states, “Repetition is the mother of learning.” Our Lady creates these layers of repetition in the Rosary for us, knowing that habits of the mind and heart are formed into virtue by repetition. Her goal is our transformation in Christ. As St. Paul tells us in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewal of your minds so that you will be able to discern the will of God and to know what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Powerful in its Words
The Rosary is powerful in the words of its prayers because they are almost all taken from Sacred Scripture.
The Our Father
The Our Father (Matthew 6:9-13) is prayed after the Apostle’s Creed and again after every decade. This prayer, given to us by Jesus, is drawn in its entirety from scripture and asks in substance for every blessing that God can give us. The point of repeating this scripture is to change our interior vision from a state of worry to trust, to change our own experience of striving to surrender to God. That is the point of the preceding verse, Matthew 6:8, when it states, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” In the next chapter, Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus emphasizes this Fatherly love of God again.
The Hail Mary
The Hail Mary, the most common prayer of the Rosary, is drawn from two scriptures essential to the Incarnation.
Luke 1:28 (Douay-Rheims)
And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
Luke 1:42 (Douay-Rheims)
…Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost and she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
When we say the Hail Mary we are repeating the direct words of Heaven’s messengers: the Archangel Gabriel and the Holy Spirit speaking through Elizabeth. The words impress in our minds the unique work of God, how He infused Mary with His grace in order to make her the Ark of the New Covenant, and brought Christ’s salvation to the world. When she states in Matthew 1:46, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she expressly states her life will be one that draws attention to God.
Furthermore, when we say the Rosary, we actively fulfill the prophecy Mary gives Elizabeth in Luke 1:46-55 (NRSVCE), specifically verses 48-49:
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is His name.
Powerful in its Petitions
The Rosary is powerful in what it asks for in each of its prayers.
The Petitions of the Hail Mary
In the second part of each Hail Mary, we ask Our Lady herself to pray for us. We ask for this help because we know in humility that we are weak and often falter. So we invoke her aid in fighting the enemy of our souls and she teaches us to look to Jesus’s example. As St. Paul writes In Hebrews 12:1-3, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.”
We also ask for her help specifically ”now and at the hour of our death”. This petition acknowledges that life is spiritual warfare (Job 7:1) against the accuser until the moment of death. It reminds us that our eternal destiny depends on what we do in the present moment and in death’s final struggle. That’s why it’s so important to ask for the help of Grace “now and at the hour of our death.”
The Petitions of the Our Father (“The Lord’s Prayer)
“The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers…In it, we ask not only for all the things we can rightly desire but also in the sequence that they should be desired.” – St. Thomas Aquinas
The Our Father petitions God even as it humbles us: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.” As we move through it, we ask for daily needs to be met, for spiritual protection, and for forgiveness as we forgive others. Repetition here forms our life of trust and holiness. We surrender our own will and acknowledge that He is providing for us in our daily lives; the Great I Am is giving us everything we need for the present moment.
The Praise of the Glory Be
At the end of each decade, we pray the Glory Be acknowledging the Eternal Presence of the Great I Am. The Glory Be is a doxology of praise and adoration to the Most Holy Trinity for the gift of each holy mystery.
The Petitions of the Fatima Prayer
Since 1917, we have also prayed the Fatima Prayer after each Glory Be. In it, we ask Jesus to forgive our sins, save us from hell, and take all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of His mercy. This prayer forms compassion and humility in our hearts, acknowledging the work of salvation is not something we deserve or achieve. It is the work of Christ.
The Petitions of the Hail Holy Queen
The Hail, Holy Queen acknowledges the qualities Mary shares with us through her life of grace: mercy, sweetness, gentleness, love, and hope. We acknowledge our own lowliness in our journey through this exile outside of Heaven. We end by begging her for help in her unique role to show us the fruit of her womb: Jesus.
Invoking the Name of Jesus
Throughout the Rosary, we invoke the name of Jesus, calling on the sheer power of His name. In Acts 3:16, Peter states, “And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong…has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.” Many healings have taken place through the Rosary including many who come to faith in Jesus through its power like Tammy Peterson who recently converted after she was miraculously cured of incurable cancer through a friend sharing the Rosary.
Powerful in its Sacrifice
Mary, knowing the great benefit gained for our soul (and the world) when we regularly turn to God in prayer, asks her children to offer at least one Rosary each day. This offering of time and attention to Christ is a real sacrifice. It is the willing offering of something precious to God. Namely, our own loving attention to the mysteries of the life of Christ. This sacrifice is powerful to obtain grace and make reparation for sin. This is why, in her many apparitions, Mary asked for the Rosary to be prayed as reparation for the sins offending God.
Again, Father Faber, in his Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects, writes:
“In consequence of all these blessings, the devil makes the Rosary the special subject of temptations, weariness, contempt and the like. Persevere in it, and it will itself be the chain of your own final perseverance.” (Pages 307-308)
Powerful as a Spiritual Weapon
Most religious orders carry the Rosary on their waists in place of a sword, referencing Matthew 10:34.
As the sword of spiritual warfare, the Holy Rosary is a concrete reminder of the battle we all fight against Satan as well as Mary’s role in crushing the head of the serpent in the spiritual realm around us.
Psalms 144:1-2(NRSVCE)
Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
my rock and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
who subdues the peoples under me.
In the early 1700s, St. Louis de Montfort prophetically wrote in his Treatise on True Devotion (Chpt 1:nos 56-59) about the times which will usher in the fullness of Christ’s Kingdom. He asked, “But what will they be like, these servants, these slaves, these children of Mary? They will be ministers of the Lord who, like a flaming fire, will enkindle everywhere the fires of divine love. They will become, in Mary’s powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her enemies.” He goes on to describe lives which imitate Christ and Mary, reveal the miraculous, and spread love, unruffled by surrounding disasters, willing to boldly proclaim the truth. He ends with, “They will have the two-edged sword of the word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole behavior.”
Just as Mary appeared to St. Dominic during a great crisis of heresy, she also appeared at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. There, the Blessed Mother urged the world to pray the Rosary daily. She warned that Russia’s errors (understood to be communism) would spread globally and there would be a second Great War. She also warned that the Final Battle against Satan would be fought for the family. The second war came and went just as she promised. Russia’s errors have spread globally, and we face the unprecedented breakdown of the family.
But the faithful continue to wield the spiritual sword.
Take Up the Gift
Since Fatima, Mary has repeatedly urged us to take up this gift with devotion and constancy to overcome the heretical crises of our age. When we take up the Rosary, we take up the symbol of our interaction with the Kingdom of God in the Gospel. As members of that Kingdom, Mary prepares our hands for war and our fingers for battle. Through the Rosary, she gifts us the life of Christ to imitate and blesses us with spiritual protection, an increase in the life of grace, and a deeper encounter with her Son, Jesus.
