Silence
31. Listening and meditation are nourished by
silence. After the announcement of the mystery
and the proclamation of the word, it is fitting to
pause and focus one's attention for a suitable
period of time on the mystery concerned, before
moving into vocal prayer. A
discovery of the
importance of silence is one of the
secrets of
practicing contemplation and meditation.
One
drawback of a society dominated by technology
and the mass media is the fact that silence becomes
increasingly difficult to achieve. Just as moments
of silence are recommended in the Liturgy, so too
in the recitation of the Rosary it is fitting to pause
briefly after listening to the word of God, while
the mind focuses on the content
of a particular
mystery.
The "Our Father"
32. After listening to the word and focusing on
the mystery, it is
natural for the mind to be lifted
up towards the Father. In
each of his mysteries,
Jesus always leads us to the
Father, for as he
rests in the Father's bosom
(cf. Jn 1:18) he is
continually turned towards him. He
wants us to
share in his intimacy with the Father, so that we
can say with him: "Abba, Father" (Rom 8:15;
Gal
4:6). By virtue of his relationship to the
Father
he makes us brothers and sisters of himself and
of one another, communicating to us the Spirit
which is both his and the Father's. Acting as a
kind of foundation for the Christological and
Marian meditation which unfolds in
the
repetition of the Hail Mary, the
Our
Father makes
meditation upon the mystery, even when carried
out in solitude, an
ecclesial experience.
The ten "Hail Marys"
33. This is the most substantial element in the
Rosary and also the one
which makes it a Marian
prayer par
excellence. Yet when the Hail Mary is
properly understood, we come to see clearly that
its Marian character is not opposed to its
Christological
character, but that it actually
emphasizes and increases it. The first part of the
Hail Mary,
drawn from the words spoken to Mary
by the Angel Gabriel and by
Saint Elizabeth, is a
contemplation in
adoration of the mystery
accomplished in the Virgin of Nazareth. These
words express, so to speak, the wonder of
heaven
and earth; they could be said to give us a glimpse
of God's own wonderment as
he contemplates his
"masterpiece" � the Incarnation of the Son
in the
womb of the Virgin Mary. If we
recall how, in the
Book of Genesis, God "saw all that he had
made"
(Gen 1:31), we can find here an echo of that
"
pathos with which God, at the dawn of
creation,
looked upon the work of his hands".36The
repetition
of the Hail Mary in
the Rosary gives us a share
in
God's own wonder and
pleasure: in jubilant
amazement we acknowledge the greatest miracle
of history. Mary's prophecy here
finds its fulfilment:
"Henceforth all generations will call me blessed"
(Lk 1:48). The centre of gravity in the Hail Mary, the
hinge as it were which joins its two parts, is the
name of Jesus. Sometimes, in hurried recitation,
this
centre of gravity can be overlooked, and with it the
connection to the mystery of Christ being
contemplated.
Yet it is precisely the emphasis given to the name
of Jesus and to his mystery that is the sign of a
meaningful and fruitful recitation of the
Rosary. Pope
Paul VI drew attention, in his Apostolic Exhortation
Marialis Cultus, to the custom in certain regions
of
highlighting the name of Christ by the addition of a
clause referring to the mystery being contemplated.37
This is a praiseworthy custom, especially
during public
recitation. It gives forceful expression to our
faith
in Christ, directed to the
different moments of the
Redeemer's life. It is
at once a profession of faith
and an aid in concentrating our meditation, since it
facilitates the process of assimilation to the mystery
of Christ inherent in the
repetition of the Hail Mary.
When we repeat the name of Jesus � the only name
given to us by which we may hope for salvation (cf.
Acts 4:12) � in close association with the name
of
his Blessed Mother, almost
as if it were done at her
suggestion, we set out on a path of assimilation
meant to help us enter more deeply into the
life of
Christ.
From Mary's uniquely
privileged relationship
with Christ, which makes her
the Mother of God,
Theot�kos, derives the forcefulness of the appeal
we make to her in the second half of the
prayer,
as we entrust to her maternal intercession our lives
and the hour of our death.
The "Gloria"
34. Trinitarian doxology is the goal of all
Christian
contemplation. For
Christ is the way that
leads us
to the Father in the
Spirit. If we travel
this way to
the end, we repeatedly encounter the mystery of
the three divine Persons, to whom all praise, worship
and thanksgiving are due. It is important that the
Gloria, the
high-point of contemplation,
be given due
prominence in the Rosary. In public
recitation it
could be sung, as a way of giving proper emphasis
to the essentially Trinitarian structure of all
Christian
prayer.To the
extent that meditation on the mystery
is attentive and profound, and to the extent that it
is enlivened � from one Hail Mary to
another � by
love for Christ and for
Mary, the glorification
of the
Trinity at the end of
each decade, far from being a
perfunctory conclusion, takes on its proper
contemplative tone,
raising the mind as it were to
the heights of heaven and enabling us
in some way
to relive the experience of Tabor, a foretaste of
the
contemplation yet to
come: "It is good for us to be
here!" (Lk 9:33).
The concluding short prayer
35. In current practice, the Trinitarian doxology is
followed
by a brief concluding prayer which varies
according to
local custom. Without in any way diminishing the value
of such invocations, it is worthwhile to note that the
contemplation of the
mysteries could better express
their full spiritual fruitfulness if an effort were made
to
conclude each mystery with a prayer for the
fruits
specific to that particular mystery. In this way
the
Rosary would better
express its connection with the
Christian life. One fine liturgical prayer
suggests as
much, inviting us to pray that, by meditation on the
mysteries of the Rosary, we may come to
"imitate what
they contain and obtain what they
promise".38
Such a final prayer could take on a
legitimate variety
of forms, as indeed it already does. In this way the
Rosary can be better
adapted to different spiritual
traditions and different Christian communities. It is to
be
hoped, then, that appropriate formulas will be widely
circulated, after due pastoral discernment and possibly
after experimental use in centres and shrines
particularly
devoted to the Rosary, so that the
People of God may
benefit from an abundance of authentic spiritual riches
and find nourishment for their personal
contemplation.
The Rosary beads
36. The traditional aid used for the recitation of the
Rosary is the set of
beads. At the most
superficial level,
the beads often become a
simple counting mechanism to
mark the succession of Hail Marys.
Yet they can also
take on a symbolism which can give added depth to
contemplation.
Here the first thing to note is the way
the beads converge
upon the Crucifix, which both opens
and closes the unfolding sequence of prayer. The life and
prayer of believers is
centred upon Christ. Everything
begins
from him, everything leads towards him, everything,
through
him, in the Holy Spirit, attains to
the Father.
As a counting mechanism, marking the progress of the
prayer, the
beads evoke the unending
path of
contemplation and of
Christian perfection. Blessed
Bartolo Longo saw them also as a "chain" which links us
to
God. A chain, yes, but a
sweet chain; for sweet indeed is
the bond to God who is also our
Father. A "filial" chain
which puts us in tune with Mary, the "handmaid of
the
Lord" (Lk 1:38) and, most of all, with
Christ himself,
who, though he was in the form of God, made himself
a "servant" out of love for us (Phil
2:7).A fine way to
expand the symbolism of the beads is to let them
remind
us of our many relationships, of the bond of communion
and fraternity which unites us all in Christ.
The opening and closing
37. At present, in different parts of the
Church, there are many
ways to introduce the Rosary. In some places,
it is customary to begin with the opening words of Psalm 70: "O
God, come to my aid; O
Lord, make haste to help me", as if to nourish in those who are praying a humble
awareness of their own insufficiency. In other places, the
Rosary begins with the
recitation of the Creed, as if to
make the profession of faith the basis of the
contemplative journey
about to be undertaken. These and similar customs, to the extent that they
prepare the
mind for contemplation, are all
equally legitimate. The
Rosary is then ended
with a prayer for the
intentions of
the Pope, as if to expand
the vision of the one praying to embrace all the needs of the Church. It is precisely
in
order to encourage this ecclesial dimension of the
Rosary that the
Church has seen fit to
grant indulgences to those who recite it with the required
dispositions.
If prayed in this way, the Rosary truly becomes a
spiritual itinerary in which Mary acts as Mother,
Teacher and Guide, sustaining the faithful by her powerful
intercession. Is it any
wonder, then, that the soul feels
the need, after saying this prayer and experiencing so
profoundly the motherhood of Mary, to burst forth in
praise of the Blessed Virgin, either
in that splendid
prayer the
Salve Regina or in
the Litany of Loreto?
This
is the crowning moment of an inner journey which has
brought the faithful into living
contact with the mystery of Christ and his
Blessed Mother.
Distribution over time
38. The Rosary can be recited in
full every day, and there are those who most laudably do so. In this way it
fills
with prayer the days of many
a contemplative, or keeps
company with the sick and the elderly who have
abundant time at their disposal. Yet it is clear and
this applies all the more if the new series of mysteria lucis is
included � that many people will not be able to recite
more than a part of the Rosary, according to a
certain weekly pattern. This weekly distribution has the effect of
giving the different days of the week a
certain spiritual "colour", by analogy with the way in which the
Liturgy
colours the
different seasons of the liturgical year.
According to current practice, Monday and Thursday are
dedicated to the "joyful mysteries", Tuesday and
Thursday to the "sorrowful mysteries", and Wednesday,
Saturday and Sunday to the "glorious mysteries". Where might the "mysteries of
light" be inserted? If we
consider that the "glorious mysteries" are said on both
Saturday and Sunday, and that Saturday has always had a
special Marian flavour, the second weekly meditation
on the "joyful mysteries", mysteries in which
Mary's
presence is especially pronounced, could be moved to
Saturday. Thursday would then be free for meditating on
the "mysteries of light".This indication is
not intended to limit a rightful freedom in personal and community
prayer, where account
needs to be taken of spiritual and pastoral needs and of the occurrence of
particular
liturgical celebrations
which might call for suitable
adaptations. What is really important is that the
Rosary
should always be seen and experienced as a path of
contemplation. In the
Rosary, in a way similar
to what
takes place in the Liturgy, the
Christian week, centred
on Sunday, the day of Resurrection, becomes a
journey
through the mysteries of the life of Christ, and he
is
revealed in the lives of his disciples as the Lord of
time
and of history.
CONCLUSION
"Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain linking us to
God"
39. What has been said so far makes abundantly clear
the richness of this traditional prayer, which has the
simplicity of a popular devotion but
also the theological depth of a prayer suited to those
who feel the need for
deeper contemplation.The Church has always
attributed particular efficacy to this prayer, entrusting to
the
Rosary, to its choral
recitation and to its constant
practice, the most difficult problems. At times when
Christianity itself seemed under threat, its deliverance
was attributed to the power of this prayer, and Our Lady of
the Rosary was acclaimed as the one whose
intercession brought
salvation.Today I willingly entrust
to the power of this prayer � as I mentioned
at the beginning � the cause of peace in the world and the cause of
the family.
Peace
40. The grave challenges confronting the world at the
start of this new Millennium lead us to think that only
an intervention from on high, capable of guiding the hearts of those living in
situations of conflict and those
governing the destinies of nations, can give reason to
hope for a brighter future.The Rosary is by its nature
a
prayer for
peace, since it consists in the
contemplation
of Christ, the Prince of
Peace, the one who is "our
peace" (Eph 2:14). Anyone who assimilates the
mystery of Christ � and this is
clearly the goal of the Rosary
learns the secret of peace and makes it his life's
project. Moreover, by virtue of its meditative character, with the tranquil
succession of Hail Marys,
the Rosary has a peaceful
effect on those who pray it, disposing them to receive and experience in their
innermost depths, and to spread around them, that true peace which is the
special gift of
the Risen Lord (cf. Jn 14:27;
20.21).The Rosary is also
a prayer for peace because
of the fruits of charity which
it produces. When prayed well in a truly meditative way,
the Rosary leads to an
encounter with Christ in his
mysteries and so cannot fail to draw attention to the
face of Christ in others,
especially in the most afflicted. How
could one possibly contemplate the mystery
of the Child of Bethlehem, in the joyful
mysteries, without
experiencing the desire to welcome, defend and promote
life, and to shoulder the burdens of suffering children all over the world? How
could one possibly follow in the
footsteps of Christ the Revealer, in
the mysteries of light, without resolving to bear witness to his
"Beatitudes" in daily
life? And how could one contemplate
Christ
carrying the Cross and Christ Crucified,
without feeling
the need to act as a "Simon of Cyrene" for our brothers
and sisters weighed down by grief or crushed by
despair? Finally, how could one possibly gaze upon the
glory of the Risen Christ or of Mary Queen of Heaven,
without yearning to make this world more beautiful,
more just, more closely conformed to God's
plan?
In a word, by focusing our eyes on Christ, the
Rosary
also makes us peacemakers in the world. By its nature as
an insistent choral petition in harmony with Christ's
invitation to "pray ceaselessly" (Lk 18:1), the
Rosary allows us to hope
that, even today, the difficult "battle" for peace can be won. Far from offering
an escape from the problems of the world, the Rosary obliges us to see
them with responsible and generous eyes, and obtains for us
the strength to face them with the certainty of
God's
help and the firm intention of bearing witness in every
situation to "love, which binds everything together in
perfect harmony" (Col 3:14).
The family: parents...
41. As a prayer for peace, the
Rosary is also, and
always has been, a prayer of and for
the family. At one time this prayer was particularly
dear to Christian families, and
it certainly brought them closer together. It is important
not to lose this precious inheritance. We need to return
to the practice of family prayer and
prayer for
families,
continuing to use the Rosary.In my Apostolic Letter
Novo Millennio Ineunte I encouraged the
celebration of
the Liturgy of the Hours
by the lay faithful in the
ordinary life of parish communities and Christian
groups;39 I now wish to do the same for the
Rosary. These two paths
of Christian contemplation
are not mutually exclusive; they complement one another. I would
therefore ask those who devote themselves to the
pastoral care of families to recommend
heartily the recitation
of the Rosary.The family that prays
together stays
together. The Holy Rosary, by age-old
tradition, has
shown itself particularly effective as a
prayer which
brings the family together. Individual family members,
in turning their eyes towards Jesus, also regain the
ability to look one another in the eye, to communicate,
to show solidarity, to forgive one another and to see their
covenant of love renewed in the Spirit of God.
Many of the problems facing contemporary
families,
especially in economically developed societies, result
from their increasing difficulty in communicating.
Families seldom manage
to come together, and the
rare occasions when they do are often taken up with
watching television. To return to the recitation of the
family Rosary means filling daily life with very
different
images, images of the mystery of salvation: the image
of the Redeemer, the image of
his most Blessed Mother. The
family that recites the Rosary together
reproduces
something of the atmosphere of the household of
Nazareth: its members
place Jesus at the centre,
they
share his joys and sorrows, they place their needs and
their plans in his hands, they draw from him the hope
and the strength to go on.... and children
42. It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this
prayer the growth and
development of children. Does the
Rosary not follow the
life of Christ, from his
conception
to his death, and then to his Resurrection and his
glory? Parents are finding it ever more difficult to follow the
lives of their children as they grow to maturity. In a
society of advanced technology, of mass communications
and globalization, everything has become hurried, and
the cultural distance between generations is growing
ever greater. The most diverse messages and the most
unpredictable experiences rapidly make their way into
the lives of children and adolescents, and parents can
become quite anxious about the dangers their children
face. At times parents suffer acute disappointment at
the failure of their children to resist the seductions of the
drug culture, the lure of an unbridled hedonism, the
temptation to violence, and the
manifold expressions
of meaninglessness and despair.To pray the Rosary for
children, and even more, with children,
training them
from their earliest years to experience this daily
"pause
for prayer" with the family,
is admittedly not the solution to every problem, but it is a spiritual aid which
should not be underestimated. It could be objected that the Rosary seems hardly
suited to the taste of children and young people of today. But perhaps the
objection is directed to an impoverished method of praying it. Furthermore,
without prejudice to the Rosary's basic
structure, there is nothing to stop children and young people from praying it �
either within the family or in groups � with appropriate
symbolic and practical aids to understanding and
appreciation. Why not try it? With God's help, a pastoral
approach to youth which is positive, impassioned and
creative � as shown by the World Youth Days! � is
capable of achieving quite remarkable results. If the
Rosary is well
presented, I am sure that young people
will once more surprise adults by the way they make this
prayer their own and
recite it with the enthusiasm typical of their age group.
The Rosary, a treasure to be
rediscovered
43. Dear brothers and sisters! A prayer so easy and yet
so rich truly deserves to be rediscovered by the
Christian community. Let us do so, especially this year, as a means of
confirming the direction outlined in my Apostolic
LetterNovo Millennio Ineunte, from which the
pastoral
plans of so many particular Churches have drawn
inspiration as they look to the immediate
future.
I turn particularly to you, my dear Brother
Bishops,
priests and
deacons, and to you,
pastoral agents in your different ministries: through your own personal
experience of the beauty of the Rosary, may you come to
promote it with conviction.I also place my
trust in you,
theologians: by your sage and rigorous reflection,
rooted in the word of God and sensitive to the lived experience of the Christian
people, may you help them to discover
the Biblical foundations,
the spiritual riches and the
pastoral value of this traditional prayer.I count on you,
consecrated men and women, called in a particular way
to contemplate the face of
Christ at the school of
Mary.
I look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every
state of life, to you, Christian families, to
you, the sick and
elderly, and to you, young people: confidently take
up
the Rosary once again.
Rediscover the Rosary in the light of
Scripture, in harmony
with the Liturgy, and in the
context of your daily lives.May this appeal of mine not go unheard! At the start of the
twenty-fifth year of my
Pontificate, I entrust this Apostolic Letter to the
loving
hands of the Virgin Mary,
prostrating myself in spirit
before her image in the splendid Shrine built for her
by
Blessed Bartolo Longo, the apostle of the
Rosary. I
willingly make my own the touching words with which
he concluded his well-known Supplication to the Queen
of the Holy Rosary: "O Blessed Rosary of
Mary, sweet
chain which unites us to God, bond of love which
unites us to the angels, tower of
salvation against the assaults of Hell, safe port in our
universal shipwreck, we will
never abandon you. You will be our comfort in the hour
of death: yours our final kiss as life ebbs away. And
the
last word from our lips will be your sweet name, O
Queen of the Rosary of Pompei, O dearest Mother, O
Refuge of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the
Afflicted. May you be everywhere blessed, today and always, on
earth and in heaven".From the Vatican, on
the 16th day
of October in the year 2002, the beginning of the
twenty-fifth year of my Pontificate.
JOHN PAUL II