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Pray the Rosary!
September 28, 2023
Dear Family of Mary!
Today we are encouraged by Fr. Shamon to pray the Rosary! Our Lady told us;
June
12, 1986 "Dear children! Today I call you to begin to pray the Rosary
with a living faith. That way I will be able to help you. You, dear
children, wish to obtain graces, but you are not praying. I am not able
to help you because you do not want to get started. Dear children, I am
calling you to pray the Rosary and that your Rosary be an obligation
which you shall fulfill with joy. That way you shall understand the
reason I am with you this long. I desire to teach you to pray. Thank you
for having responded to my call."
Fr. Shamon - Chapter 7, Teaching 7 - Pray the Rosary!!
Outside of the Mass, the prayer Our
Lady asks for above all other prayers is the Rosary! She asked for it
at Lourdes, at Fatima, and now at Medjugorje. Only here at Medjugorje,
she asked not only for the daily Rosary, but the family Rosary and the
complete Rosary: joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries.
On September 27, 1984, She said: "I beg the families of the parish to pray the family Rosary." Mary begs! "You must pray in your families..."(2/14/84). You must! It's imperative! It's mandatory! "Dear children," she said again, "let
all the prayers you say in your homes in the evening be for the
conversion of sinners, because the world is in great sin. Pray the
Rosary every evening" (10/8/84). You see, Our Lady again tells us
not only to pray the family Rosary, but she specifies the intention:
the conversion of sinners.
On the eve of the Feast of her Assumption (8/14/84), Our Lady appeared unexpectedly to Ivan in his home. "I ask the people," she told him, "to
pray with me these days. Pray all the more. Fast strictly on
Wednesdays and Fridays; pray with me every day at least one Rosary:
joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries."
If you pray the complete Rosary, you
can say the joyful mysteries sometime in the morning; the sorrowful in
the afternoon; and the glorious right after dinner in the evening,
before doing dishes, as a family group. The Creed, Our Father and three
Hail Mary's need be said only once--and the conclusion, the Hail holy
Queen, only after the glorious mysteries.
A man made a promise to say the
complete Rosary daily. Then he had qualms of conscience. He felt he
had made a promise he could not keep. He went to church and said, "What
have I done? I don't have time to say the complete Rosary." But he
started. A month later, he confessed, "How stupid I was to think I did
not have time for the complete Rosary. I have discovered that I could
say five Rosaries every day." When you make up your mind, God will give
you time!
Why does Our Lady stress the Rosary so much? There are many reasons.
One reason is that the Rosary is one
of the most powerful weapons there is against Satan and evil in the
world. This is true, because Our Lady always prays the Rosary with us.
Here is what Our Lady revealed to Fr. Stefano Gobbi."...it
is a prayer you say together with me. When you invite me to pray for
you, I accede to your request and mingle my voice with yours. I unite
my prayers to yours."
Fifty times at least, when you pray the Rosary, you say: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now..."
In a day of recollection that Father Gobbi was giving to us priests, he
got us all laughing when he said, in reference to this petition in the
Hail Mary, that Our Lady said to him: "Do you think I'm deaf? You ask me, your mother, to pray for you now... Don't you think I do?"
She eagerly solicits us to use her as our intercessor, our prayer companion.
The Rosary, then, is most powerful,
because it is Mary's prayer, too. Though a creature, she is omnipotent,
because her Son is omnipotent and He will refuse her nothing. Thus she
can say: "With this prayer, made by you together with me, you are able to influence all human events and even future events..." Isn't that remarkable?
But the Rosary imparts great benefits
even to you yourself when you pray it. The thoughts that enfold you
are the thoughts that mold you. You cannot think on the mysteries of
Our Lord's life each day and not be changed. As you think, so shall you
act.
The Rosary is not just saying one
hundred and fifty Hail Mary's. The Rosary means looking at the events
of Our Lord's life through the eyes of Mary. It means discovering how
these events can prod you to live them in your own life. Just thinking
about the Visitation, for instance could move you to visit a sick friend
waiting for you, wanting your visit, your words of comfort, your smile.
When God's word prods you to act, then your conversion is taking
place.
To meditate well on the Rosary mysteries, we must read the Bible each day. On October 18, 1984, Our Lady said: "Today
I ask you, dear children, to read the Bible. Put it in a prominent
place in your home so that it may be a stimulus to you to read and to
pray."
What a great idea: enthrone the Bible in the home!
Also,
October 18 is the Feast of St. Luke. He and St. Matthew wrote the
infancy Narratives of Our Lord's life which comprise the joyful
mysteries. Chapters one and two of both evangelists should be read
prayerfully and often. Then the joyful mysteries of the Rosary will
become alive to you and fill you with joy!
Perhaps
one of the greatest helps the Rosary can give you is to convince you of
the importance of ordinariness. When Ivanka told the people of
Medjugorje her mother, Jagoda, was in Heaven, the women of the village
who had known her mother said: "Thank God, there is hope for us. You
don't have to be a saint to get to Heaven."
That
in fact is what the mysteries of the Rosary mean. They are called
"mysteries," because they tell of great sanctity being achieved by
people just doing their ordinary, everyday duties, and the salvation of
the world being effected by One so ordinary that His own did not receive
Him. "Isn't this the carpenter's son?" His townsmen asked, "Isn't Mary...His mother?" Just ordinary, everyday people!
In an interview with Mirjana (January
10, 1983) A priest asked her; "What must one do to enter Heaven?"
Mirjana answered: "God is not looking for great believers but simply for
those who respect their faith and live peacefully, without malice,
meanness, falsehood." Mirjana said she came to that conclusion after
talking to the Madonna--"No one has to perform miracles or do great penances; merely live a simple, peaceful life." (Cp. Eph 4:29-32)
That is what the mysteries of the
Rosary tell us: each ordinary person is wonderful in the eyes of God and
the little ordinary things we do are extraordinary, for they can win
the salvation of the world and the conversion of sinners -- ordinary
things like saying the Rosary each day, the complete Rosary! Would you
believe it? That's a mystery indeed!
From: Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon; "Our Lady teaches about prayer at Medjugorje". p. 29-33
"Dear children! Today I call you to begin to pray the Rosary with a living faith...."
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
(c) Mary TV 2023
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