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
