APOSTOLIC
LETTER
ROSARIUM VIRGINIS
MARIAE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY
AND FAITHFUL
ON THE MOST HOLY ROSARY
INTRODUCTION
1. The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second
millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by
countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it
still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great
significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends easily
into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand
years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the
Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” (duc in altum!) in order once
more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord
and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6), “the goal
of human history and the point on which the desires of history and civilization
turn”.1
The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric
prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel
message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium.2 It
is an echo of the prayerof Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work
of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the
Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to
contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of
his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though
from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.
The Popes and the Rosary
2. Numerous predecessors of mine attributed great importance to this prayer.
Worthy of special note in this regard is Pope Leo XIII who on 1 September 1883
promulgated the Encyclical Supremi
Apostolatus Officio,3 a document of great worth, the first
of his many statements about this prayer, in which he proposed the Rosary as an
effective spiritual weapon against the evils afflicting society. Among the more
recent Popes who, from the time of the Second Vatican Council, have
distinguished themselves in promoting the Rosary I would mention Blessed John
XXIII4 and above all Pope Paul VI, who in his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis
Cultus emphasized, in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, the
Rosary's evangelical character and its Christocentric inspiration. I myself
have often encouraged the frequent recitation of the Rosary. From my youthful
years this prayer has held an important place in my spiritual life. I was
powerfully reminded of this during my recent visit to Poland, and in particular
at the Shrine of Kalwaria. The Rosary has accompanied me in moments of joy and
in moments of difficulty. To it I have entrusted any number of concerns; in it
I have always found comfort. Twenty-four years ago, on 29 October 1978,
scarcely two weeks after my election to the See of Peter, I frankly admitted:
“The Rosary is my favourite prayer. A marvellous prayer! Marvellous in its
simplicity and its depth. [...]. It can be said that the Rosary is, in some
sense, a prayer-commentary on the final chapter of the Vatican II Constitution Lumen
Gentium, a chapter which discusses the wondrous presence of the Mother
of God in the mystery of Christ and the Church. Against the background of the
words Ave Maria the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass
before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the complete series of the
joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, and they put us in living communion
with Jesus through – we might say – the heart of his Mother. At the same time
our heart can embrace in the decades of the Rosary all the events that make up
the lives of individuals, families, nations, the Church, and all mankind. Our personal
concerns and those of our neighbour, especially those who are closest to us,
who are dearest to us. Thus the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of
human life”.5
With these words, dear brothers and sisters, I set the first year of my
Pontificate within the daily rhythm of the Rosary. Today, as I begin the
twenty-fifth year of my service as the Successor of Peter, I wish to do the
same. How many graces have I received in these years from the Blessed Virgin
through the Rosary: Magnificat anima mea Dominum! I wish to lift up my
thanks to the Lord in the words of his Most Holy Mother, under whose protection
I have placed my Petrine ministry: Totus Tuus!
October
2002 – October 2003: The Year of the Rosary
3. Therefore, in continuity with my reflection in the Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte, in which, after the experience of the Jubilee, I
invited the people of God to “start afresh from Christ”,6 I have
felt drawn to offer a reflection on the Rosary, as a kind of Marian complement
to that Letter and an exhortation to contemplate the face of Christ in union
with, and at the school of, his Most Holy Mother. To recite the Rosary is
nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ. As a
way of highlighting this invitation, prompted by the forthcoming 120th
anniversary of the aforementioned Encyclical of Leo XIII, I desire that during
the course of this year the Rosary should be especially emphasized and promoted
in the various Christian communities. I therefore proclaim the year from
October 2002 to October 2003 the Year of the Rosary.
I leave this pastoral proposal to the initiative of each ecclesial
community. It is not my intention to encumber but rather to complete and
consolidate pastoral programmes of the Particular Churches. I am confident that
the proposal will find a ready and generous reception. The Rosary, reclaimed in
its full meaning, goes to the very heart of Christian life; it offers a
familiar yet fruitful spiritual and educational opportunity for personal
contemplation, the formation of the People of God, and the new evangelization.
I am pleased to reaffirm this also in the joyful remembrance of another
anniversary: the fortieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council on October 11, 1962, the “great grace” disposed by the
Spirit of God for the Church in our time.7
Objections to the Rosary
4. The timeliness of this proposal is evident from a number of
considerations. First, the urgent need to counter a certain crisis of the
Rosary, which in the present historical and theological context can risk being
wrongly devalued, and therefore no longer taught to the younger generation.
There are some who think that the centrality of the Liturgy, rightly stressed
by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, necessarily entails giving lesser
importance to the Rosary. Yet, as Pope Paul VI made clear, not only does this
prayer not conflict with the Liturgy, it sustains it, since it serves as
an excellent introduction and a faithful echo of the Liturgy, enabling people
to participate fully and interiorly in it and to reap its fruits in their daily
lives.
Perhaps too, there are some who fear that the Rosary is somehow unecumenical
because of its distinctly Marian character. Yet the Rosary clearly belongs to
the kind of veneration of the Mother of God described by the Council: a
devotion directed to the Christological centre of the Christian faith, in such
a way that “when the Mother is honoured, the Son ... is duly known, loved and
glorified”.8 If properly revitalized, the Rosary is an aid and
certainly not a hindrance to ecumenism!
A path of contemplation
5. But the most important reason for strongly encouraging the practice of
the Rosary is that it represents a most effective means of fostering among the
faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the Christian mystery which
I have proposed in the Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte as a genuine “training in holiness”: “What is needed
is a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer”.9
Inasmuch as contemporary culture, even amid so many indications to the
contrary, has witnessed the flowering of a new call for spirituality, due also
to the influence of other religions, it is more urgent than ever that our
Christian communities should become “genuine schools of prayer”.10
The Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of
Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a typically meditative
prayer, corresponding in some way to the “prayer of the heart” or “Jesus
prayer” which took root in the soil of the Christian East.
Prayer for peace and for the family
6. A number of historical circumstances also make a revival of the Rosary
quite timely. First of all, the need to implore from God the gift of peace.
The Rosary has many times been proposed by my predecessors and myself as a
prayer for peace. At the start of a millennium which began with the terrifying
attacks of 11 September 2001, a millennium which witnesses every day innumerous
parts of the world fresh scenes of bloodshed and violence, to rediscover the
Rosary means to immerse oneself in contemplation of the mystery of Christ who
“is our peace”, since he made “the two of us one, and broke down the dividing
wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14). Consequently, one cannot recite the
Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear commitment to advancing peace,
especially in the land of Jesus, still so sorely afflicted and so close to the
heart of every Christian.
A similar need for commitment and prayer arises in relation to another
critical contemporary issue: the family, the primary cell of society,
increasingly menaced by forces of disintegration on both the ideological and
practical planes, so as to make us fear for the future of this fundamental and
indispensable institution and, with it, for the future of society as a whole.
The revival of the Rosary in Christian families, within the context of a
broader pastoral ministry to the family, will be an effective aid to countering
the devastating effects of this crisis typical of our age.
“Behold, your Mother!” (Jn 19:27)
7. Many signs indicate that still today the Blessed Virgin desires to
exercise through this same prayer that maternal concern to which the dying
Redeemer entrusted, in the person of the beloved disciple, all the sons and
daughters of the Church: “Woman, behold your son!” (Jn19:26). Well-known
are the occasions in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries on which the
Mother of Christ made her presence felt and her voice heard, in order to exhort
the People of God to this form of contemplative prayer. I would mention in
particular, on account of their great influence on the lives of Christians and
the authoritative recognition they have received from the Church, the apparitions
of Lourdes and of Fatima;11 these shrines continue to be visited by
great numbers of pilgrims seeking comfort and hope.
Following the witnesses
8. It would be impossible to name all the many Saints who discovered in the
Rosary a genuine path to growth in holiness. We need but mention Saint Louis
Marie Grignion de Montfort, the author of an excellent work on the Rosary,12
and, closer to ourselves, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, whom I recently had the joy
of canonizing. As a true apostle of the Rosary, Blessed Bartolo Longo had a
special charism. His path to holiness rested on an inspiration heard in the
depths of his heart: “Whoever spreads the Rosary is saved!”.13 As a
result, he felt called to build a Church dedicated to Our Lady of the Holy
Rosary in Pompei, against the background of the ruins of the ancient city,
which scarcely heard the proclamation of Christ before being buried in 79 A.D.
during an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, only to emerge centuries later from its
ashes as a witness to the lights and shadows of classical civilization. By his
whole life's work and especially by the practice of the “Fifteen Saturdays”,
Bartolo Longo promoted the Christocentric and contemplative heart of the
Rosary, and received great encouragement and support from Leo XIII, the “Pope
of the Rosary”.
CHAPTER I
CONTEMPLATING CHRIST WITH MARY
A face radiant as the sun
9. “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun” (Mt
17:2). The Gospel scene of Christ's transfiguration, in which the three Apostles
Peter, James and John appear entranced by the beauty of the Redeemer, can be
seen as an icon of Christian contemplation. To look upon the face of
Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the sufferings of
his human life, and then to grasp the divine splendour definitively revealed in
the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father: this is the
task of every follower of Christ and therefore the task of each one of us. In
contemplating Christ's face we become open to receiving the mystery of
Trinitarian life, experiencing ever anew the love of the Father and delighting
in the joy of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul's words can then be applied to us:
“Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being changed into his likeness, from
one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit”
(2Cor 3:18).
Mary, model of contemplation
10. The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary. In
a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that
Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an
even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the
contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her
heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she conceived him by the
power of the Holy Spirit. In the months that followed she began to sense his
presence and to picture his features. When at last she gave birth to him in
Bethlehem, her eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she
“wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger” (Lk2:7).
Thereafter Mary's gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder, would never
leave him. At times it would be a questioning look, as in the episode of
the finding in the Temple: “Son, why have you treated us so?” (Lk 2:48);
it would always be a penetrating gaze, one capable of deeply
understanding Jesus, even to the point of perceiving his hidden feelings and
anticipating his decisions, as at Cana (cf. Jn 2:5). At other times it
would be a look of sorrow, especially beneath the Cross, where her
vision would still be that of a mother giving birth, for Mary not only shared
the passion and death of her Son, she also received the new son given to her in
the beloved disciple (cf. Jn 19:26-27). On the morning of Easter hers
would be a gaze radiant with the joy of the Resurrection, and finally,
on the day of Pentecost, a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Spirit
(cf. Acts 1:14).
Mary's memories
11. Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his every word:
“She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; cf.
2:51). The memories of Jesus, impressed upon her heart, were always with her,
leading her to reflect on the various moments of her life at her Son's side. In
a way those memories were to be the “rosary” which she recited uninterruptedly
throughout her earthly life.
Even now, amid the joyful songs of the heavenly Jerusalem, the reasons for
her thanksgiving and praise remain unchanged. They inspire her maternal concern
for the pilgrim Church, in which she continues to relate her personal account
of the Gospel. Mary constantly sets before the faithful the “mysteries” of
her Son, with the desire that the contemplation of those mysteries will
release all their saving power. In the recitation of the Rosary, the Christian
community enters into contact with the memories and the contemplative gaze of
Mary.
The Rosary, a contemplative prayer
12. The Rosary, precisely because it starts with Mary's own experience, is an
exquisitely contemplative prayer. Without this contemplative dimension, it
would lose its meaning, as Pope Paul VI clearly pointed out: “Without
contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the
risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the
admonition of Christ: 'In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles
do; for they think they will be heard for their many words' (Mt 6:7). By
its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a
lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the
Lord's life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In
this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are disclosed”.14
It is worth pausing to consider this profound insight of Paul VI, in order
to bring out certain aspects of the Rosary which show that it is really a form
of Christocentric contemplation.
Remembering Christ with Mary
13. Mary's contemplation is above all a remembering. We need to
understand this word in the biblical sense of remembrance (zakar) as a
making present of the works brought about by God in the history of salvation.
The Bible is an account of saving events culminating in Christ himself. These
events not only belong to “yesterday”; they are also part of the “today” of
salvation. This making present comes about above all in the Liturgy: what
God accomplished centuries ago did not only affect the direct witnesses of
those events; it continues to affect people in every age with its gift of
grace. To some extent this is also true of every other devout approach to those
events: to “remember” them in a spirit of faith and love is to be open to the
grace which Christ won for us by the mysteries of his life, death and
resurrection.
Consequently, while it must be reaffirmed with the Second Vatican Council
that the Liturgy, as the exercise of the priestly office of Christ and an act
of public worship, is “the summit to which the activity of the Church is
directed and the font from which all its power flows”,15 it is also
necessary to recall that the spiritual life “is not limited solely to
participation in the liturgy. Christians, while they are called to prayer in
common, must also go to their own rooms to pray to their Father in secret (cf. Mt
6:6); indeed, according to the teaching of the Apostle, they must pray without
ceasing (cf.1Thes 5:17)”.16 The Rosary, in its own particular
way, is part of this varied panorama of “ceaseless” prayer. If the Liturgy, as
the activity of Christ and the Church, is a saving action par excellence,
the Rosary too, as a “meditation” with Mary on Christ, is a salutary
contemplation. By immersing us in the mysteries of the Redeemer's life, it
ensures that what he has done and what the liturgy makes present is profoundly
assimilated and shapes our existence.
Learning Christ from Mary
14. Christ is the supreme Teacher, the revealer and the one revealed. It is
not just a question of learning what he taught but of “learning him”. In
this regard could we have any better teacher than Mary? From the divine
standpoint, the Spirit is the interior teacher who leads us to the full truth
of Christ (cf. Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:13). But among creatures no one knows
Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of his
mystery better than his Mother.
The first of the “signs” worked by Jesus – the changing of water into wine
at the marriage in Cana – clearly presents Mary in the guise of a teacher, as
she urges the servants to do what Jesus commands (cf. Jn 2:5). We can
imagine that she would have done likewise for the disciples after Jesus'
Ascension, when she joined them in awaiting the Holy Spirit and supported them
in their first mission. Contemplating the scenes of the Rosary in union with
Mary is a means of learning from her to “read” Christ, to discover his secrets
and to understand his message.
This school of Mary is all the more effective if we consider that she
teaches by obtaining for us in abundance the gifts of the Holy Spirit, even as
she offers us the incomparable example of her own “pilgrimage of faith”.17
As we contemplate each mystery of her Son's life, she invites us to do as
she did at the Annunciation: to ask humbly the questions which open us to the
light, in order to end with the obedience of faith: “Behold I am the handmaid
of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
Being conformed to Christ with Mary
15. Christian spirituality is distinguished by the disciple's commitment to
become conformed ever more fully to his Master (cf. Rom 8:29; Phil
3:10,12). The outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Baptism grafts the believer like
a branch onto the vine which is Christ (cf. Jn 15:5) and makes him a
member of Christ's mystical Body (cf.1Cor 12:12; Rom 12:5). This
initial unity, however, calls for a growing assimilation which will
increasingly shape the conduct of the disciple in accordance with the “mind” of
Christ: “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).
In the words of the Apostle, we are called “to put on the Lord Jesus Christ”
(cf. Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27).
In the spiritual journey of the Rosary, based on the constant contemplation
– in Mary's company – of the face of Christ, this demanding ideal of being
conformed to him is pursued through an association which could be described in
terms of friendship. We are thereby enabled to enter naturally into Christ's
life and as it were to share his deepest feelings. In this regard Blessed Bartolo
Longo has written: “Just as two friends, frequently in each other's company,
tend to develop similar habits, so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus
and the Blessed Virgin, by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and by
living the same life in Holy Communion, we can become, to the extent of our
lowliness, similar to them and can learn from these supreme models a life of
humility, poverty, hiddenness, patience and perfection”.18
In this process of being conformed to Christ in the Rosary, we entrust
ourselves in a special way to the maternal care of the Blessed Virgin. She who
is both the Mother of Christ and a member of the Church, indeed her
“pre-eminent and altogether singular member”,19 is at the same time
the “Mother of the Church”. As such, she continually brings to birth children
for the mystical Body of her Son. She does so through her intercession,
imploring upon them the inexhaustible outpouring of the Spirit. Mary is
the
perfect icon of the motherhood of the Church.
The Rosary mystically transports us to Mary's side as she is busy watching
over the human growth of Christ in the home of Nazareth. This enables her to
train us and to mold us with the same care, until Christ is “fully formed” in
us (cf. Gal 4:19). This role of Mary, totally grounded in that of Christ
and radically subordinated to it, “in no way obscures or diminishes the unique
mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power”.20 This is the
luminous principle expressed by the Second Vatican Council which I have so powerfully
experienced in my own life and have made the basis of my episcopal motto:
Totus Tuus.21 The motto is of course inspired by the teaching of
Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, who explained in the following words
Mary's role in the process of our configuration to Christ: “Our entire
perfection consists in being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus Christ.
Hence the most perfect of all devotions is undoubtedly that which conforms,
unites and consecrates us most perfectly to Jesus Christ. Now, since Mary is of
all creatures the one most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows that among all
devotions that which most consecrates and conforms a soul to our Lord is
devotion to Mary, his Holy Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to
her the more will it be consecrated to Jesus Christ”.22 Never as in
the Rosary do the life of Jesus and that of Mary appear so deeply joined. Mary
lives only in Christ and for Christ!
Praying to Christ with Mary
16. Jesus invited us to turn to God with insistence and the confidence that
we will be heard: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). The basis for this power
of prayer is the goodness of the Father, but also the mediation of Christ
himself (cf. 1Jn 2:1) and the working of the Holy Spirit who “intercedes
for us” according to the will of God (cf. Rom 8:26-27). For “we do not
know how to pray as we ought” (Rom 8:26), and at times we are not heard
“because we ask wrongly” (cf. Jas 4:2-3).
In support of the prayer which Christ and the Spirit cause to rise in our
hearts, Mary intervenes with her maternal intercession. “The prayer of the
Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary”.23 If Jesus, the one
Mediator, is the Way of our prayer, then Mary, his purest and most transparent
reflection, shows us the Way. “Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with
the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the Holy
Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his
mysteries”.24 At the wedding of Cana the Gospel clearly shows the
power of Mary's intercession as she makes known to Jesus the needs of others:
“They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).
The Rosary is both meditation and supplication. Insistent prayer to the
Mother of God is based on confidence that her maternal intercession can obtain
all things from the heart of her Son. She is “all-powerful by grace”, to use
the bold expression, which needs to be properly understood, of Blessed Bartolo
Longo in his Supplication to Our Lady.25 This is a conviction
which, beginning with the Gospel, has grown ever more firm in the experience of
the Christian people. The supreme poet Dante expresses it marvellously in the
lines sung by Saint Bernard: “Lady, thou art so great and so powerful, that
whoever desires grace yet does not turn to thee, would have his desire fly
without wings”.26 When in the Rosary we plead with Mary, the
sanctuary of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35), she intercedes for us before
the Father who filled her with grace and before the Son born of her womb,
praying with us and for us.
Proclaiming Christ with Mary
17. The Rosary is also a path of proclamation and increasing knowledge,
in which the mystery of Christ is presented again and again at different levels
of the Christian experience. Its form is that of a prayerful and contemplative
presentation, capable of forming Christians according to the heart of Christ.
When the recitation of the Rosary combines all the elements needed for an
effective meditation, especially in its communal celebration in parishes and
shrines, it can present a significant catechetical opportunity which
pastors should use to advantage. In this way too Our Lady of the Rosary
continues her work of proclaiming Christ. The history of the Rosary shows how
this prayer was used in particular by the Dominicans at a difficult time for
the Church due to the spread of heresy. Today we are facing new challenges. Why
should we not once more have recourse to the Rosary, with the same faith as
those who have gone before us? The Rosary retains all its power and continues
to be a valuable pastoral resource for every good evangelizer.
CHAPTER II
MYSTERIES OF CHRIST –
MYSTERIES OF HIS MOTHER
The Rosary, “a compendium of the Gospel”
18. The only way to approach the contemplation of Christ's face is by
listening in the Spirit to the Father's voice, since “no one knows the Son
except the Father” (Mt 11:27). In the region of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus
responded to Peter's confession of faith by indicating the source of that clear
intuition of his identity: “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but
my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 16:17). What is needed, then, is a
revelation from above. In order to receive that revelation, attentive listening
is indispensable: “Only the experience of silence and prayer offers the
proper setting for the growth and development of a true, faithful and
consistent knowledge of that mystery”.27
The Rosary is one of the traditional paths of Christian prayer directed to
the contemplation of Christ's face. Pope Paul VI described it in these words:
“As a Gospel prayer, centred on the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, the
Rosary is a prayer with a clearly Christological orientation. Its most
characteristic element, in fact, the litany- like succession of Hail Marys,
becomes in itself an unceasing praise of Christ, who is the ultimate object
both of the Angel's announcement and of the greeting of the Mother of John the
Baptist: 'Blessed is the fruit of your womb' (Lk 1:42). We would go
further and say that the succession of Hail Marys constitutes the warp
on which is woven the contemplation of the mysteries. The Jesus that each
Hail Mary recalls is the same Jesus whom the succession of mysteries
proposes to us now as the Son of God, now as the Son of the Virgin”.28
A proposed addition to the traditional pattern
19. Of the many mysteries of Christ's life, only a few are indicated by the
Rosary in the form that has become generally established with the seal of the
Church's approval. The selection was determined by the origin of the prayer,
which was based on the number 150, the number of the Psalms in the Psalter.
I believe, however, that to bring out fully the Christological depth of the
Rosary it would be suitable to make an addition to the traditional pattern
which, while left to the freedom of individuals and communities, could broaden
it to include the mysteries of Christ's public ministry between his Baptism
and his Passion. In the course of those mysteries we contemplate important
aspects of the person of Christ as the definitive revelation of God. Declared
the beloved Son of the Father at the Baptism in the Jordan, Christ is the one
who announces the coming of the Kingdom, bears witness to it in his works and
proclaims its demands. It is during the years of his public ministry that the
mystery of Christ is most evidently a mystery of light: “While I am in the
world, I am the light of the world” (Jn 9:5).
Consequently, for the Rosary to become more fully a “compendium of the
Gospel”, it is fitting to add, following reflection on the Incarnation and the
hidden life of Christ (the joyful mysteries) and before focusing on the
sufferings of his Passion (the sorrowful mysteries) and the triumph of
his Resurrection (the glorious mysteries), a meditation on certain
particularly significant moments in his public ministry (the mysteries of
light). This addition of these new mysteries, without prejudice to any
essential aspect of the prayer's traditional format, is meant to give it fresh
life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary's place within Christian
spirituality as a true doorway to the depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of
joy and of light, of suffering and of glory.
The Joyful Mysteries
20. The first five decades, the “joyful mysteries”, are marked by the joy
radiating from the event of the Incarnation. This is clear from the very
first mystery, the Annunciation, where Gabriel's greeting to the Virgin of
Nazareth is linked to an invitation to messianic joy: “Rejoice, Mary”. The
whole of salvation history, in some sense the entire history of the world, has
led up to this greeting. If it is the Father's plan to unite all things in
Christ (cf. Eph 1:10), then the whole of the universe is in some way
touched by the divine favour with which the Father looks upon Mary and makes
her the Mother of his Son. The whole of humanity, in turn, is embraced by the
fiat with which she readily agrees to the will of God.
Exultation is the keynote of the encounter with Elizabeth, where the sound
of Mary's voice and the presence of Christ in her womb cause John to “leap for
joy” (cf. Lk 1:44). Gladness also fills the scene in Bethlehem, when the
birth of the divine Child, the Saviour of the world, is announced by the song
of the angels and proclaimed to the shepherds as “news of great joy” (Lk
2:10).
The final two mysteries, while preserving this climate of joy, already point
to the drama yet to come. The Presentation in the Temple not only expresses the
joy of the Child's consecration and the ecstasy of the aged Simeon; it also
records the prophecy that Christ will be a “sign of contradiction” for Israel
and that a sword will pierce his mother's heart (cf Lk 2:34-35). Joy
mixed with drama marks the fifth mystery, the finding of the twelve-year-old
Jesus in the Temple. Here he appears in his divine wisdom as he listens and
raises questions, already in effect one who “teaches”. The revelation of his
mystery as the Son wholly dedicated to his Father's affairs proclaims the
radical nature of the Gospel, in which even the closest of human relationships
are challenged by the absolute demands of the Kingdom. Mary and Joseph, fearful
and anxious, “did not understand” his words (Lk 2:50).
To meditate upon the “joyful” mysteries, then, is to enter into the ultimate
causes and the deepest meaning of Christian joy. It is to focus on the realism
of the mystery of the Incarnation and on the obscure foreshadowing of the
mystery of the saving Passion. Mary leads us to discover the secret of
Christian joy, reminding us that Christianity is, first and foremost, euangelion,
“good news”, which has as its heart and its whole content the person of Jesus
Christ, the Word made flesh, the one Saviour of the world.
The
Mysteries of Light
21. Moving on from the infancy and the hidden life in Nazareth to the public
life of Jesus, our contemplation brings us to those mysteries which may be
called in a special way “mysteries of light”. Certainly the whole
mystery of Christ is a mystery of light. He is the “light of the world” (Jn
8:12). Yet this truth emerges in a special way during the years of his public
life, when he proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom. In proposing to the
Christian community five significant moments – “luminous” mysteries – during
this phase of Christ's life, I think that the following can be fittingly
singled out: (1) his Baptism in the Jordan, (2) his self-manifestation at
the wedding of Cana, (3) his proclamation of the Kingdom of God, with his call
to conversion, (4) his Transfiguration, and finally, (5) his institution of the
Eucharist, as the sacramental expression of the Paschal Mystery.
Each of these mysteries is a revelation of the Kingdom now present in
the very person of Jesus. The Baptism in the Jordan is first of
all a mystery of light. Here, as Christ descends into the waters, the innocent
one who became “sin” for our sake (cf. 2Cor 5:21), the heavens open wide
and the voice of the Father declares him the beloved Son (cf. Mt 3:17
and parallels), while the Spirit descends on him to invest him with the mission
which he is to carry out. Another mystery of light is the first of the signs,
given at Cana (cf. Jn 2:1- 12), when Christ changes water into wine and
opens the hearts of the disciples to faith, thanks to the intervention of Mary,
the first among believers. Another mystery of light is the preaching by which
Jesus proclaims the coming of the Kingdom of God, calls to conversion (cf. Mk
1:15) and forgives the sins of all who draw near to him in humble trust (cf. Mk
2:3-13; Lk 7:47- 48): the inauguration of that ministry of mercy
which he continues to exercise until the end of the world, particularly through
the Sacrament of Reconciliation which he has entrusted to his Church (cf. Jn
20:22-23). The mystery of light par excellence is the
Transfiguration, traditionally believed to have taken place on Mount Tabor. The
glory of the Godhead shines forth from the face of Christ as the Father
commands the astonished Apostles to “listen to him” (cf. Lk 9:35 and
parallels) and to prepare to experience with him the agony of the Passion, so
as to come with him to the joy of the Resurrection and a life transfigured by
the Holy Spirit. A final mystery of light is the institution of the Eucharist,
in which Christ offers his body and blood as food under the signs of bread and
wine, and testifies “to the end” his love for humanity (Jn 13:1), for
whose salvation he will offer himself in sacrifice.
In these mysteries, apart from the miracle at Cana, the presence of Mary
remains in the background. The Gospels make only the briefest reference to
her occasional presence at one moment or other during the preaching of Jesus
(cf. Mk 3:31-5; Jn 2:12), and they give no indication that she
was present at the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. Yet the
role she assumed at Cana in some way accompanies Christ throughout his
ministry. The revelation made directly by the Father at the Baptism in the
Jordan and echoed by John the Baptist is placed upon Mary's lips at Cana, and
it becomes the great maternal counsel which Mary addresses to the Church of
every age: “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). This counsel is a
fitting introduction to the words and signs of Christ's public ministry and it
forms the Marian foundation of all the “mysteries of light”.
The Sorrowful Mysteries
22. The Gospels give great prominence to the sorrowful mysteries of Christ.
From the beginning Christian piety, especially during the Lenten devotion of
the Way of the Cross, has focused on the individual moments of the
Passion, realizing that here is found the culmination of the revelation of
God's love and the source of our salvation. The Rosary selects certain
moments from the Passion, inviting the faithful to contemplate them in their
hearts and to relive them. The sequence of meditations begins with Gethsemane,
where Christ experiences a moment of great anguish before the will of the
Father, against which the weakness of the flesh would be tempted to rebel.
There Jesus encounters all the temptations and confronts all the sins of
humanity, in order to say to the Father: “Not my will but yours be done” (Lk
22:42 and parallels). This “Yes” of Christ reverses the “No” of our first
parents in the Garden of Eden. And the cost of this faithfulness to the
Father's will is made clear in the following mysteries; by his scourging, his
crowning with thorns, his carrying the Cross and his death on the Cross, the
Lord is cast into the most abject suffering: Ecce homo!
This abject suffering reveals not only the love of God but also the meaning
of man himself.
Ecce homo: the meaning, origin and fulfilment of man is to be found
in Christ, the God who humbles himself out of love “even unto death, death on a
cross” (Phil 2:8). The sorrowful mysteries help the believer to relive
the death of Jesus, to stand at the foot of the Cross beside Mary, to enter
with her into the depths of God's love for man and to experience all its
life-giving power.
The Glorious Mysteries
23. “The contemplation of Christ's face cannot stop at the image of the Crucified
One. He is the Risen One!”29 The Rosary has always expressed this
knowledge born of faith and invited the believer to pass beyond the darkness of
the Passion in order to gaze upon Christ's glory in the Resurrection and
Ascension. Contemplating the Risen One, Christians rediscover the reasons
for their own faith (cf. 1Cor 15:14) and relive the joy not only of
those to whom Christ appeared – the Apostles, Mary Magdalene and the disciples
on the road to Emmaus – but also the joy of Mary, who must have had an
equally intense experience of the new life of her glorified Son. In the
Ascension, Christ was raised in glory to the right hand of the Father, while
Mary herself would be raised to that same glory in the Assumption, enjoying
beforehand, by a unique privilege, the destiny reserved for all the just at the
resurrection of the dead. Crowned in glory – as she appears in the last
glorious mystery – Mary shines forth as Queen of the Angels and Saints, the
anticipation and the supreme realization of the eschatological state of the
Church.
At the centre of this unfolding sequence of the glory of the Son and the
Mother, the Rosary sets before us the third glorious mystery, Pentecost, which
reveals the face of the Church as a family gathered together with Mary, enlivened
by the powerful outpouring of the Spirit and ready for the mission of
evangelization. The contemplation of this scene, like that of the other
glorious mysteries, ought to lead the faithful to an ever greater appreciation
of their new life in Christ, lived in the heart of the Church, a life of which
the scene of Pentecost itself is the great “icon”. The glorious mysteries thus
lead the faithful to greater hope for the eschatological goal towards
which they journey as members of the pilgrim People of God in history. This can
only impel them to bear courageous witness to that “good news” which gives
meaning to their entire existence.
From “mysteries” to the “Mystery”: Mary's way
24. The cycles of meditation proposed by the Holy Rosary are by no means exhaustive,
but they do bring to mind what is essential and they awaken in the soul a
thirst for a knowledge of Christ continually nourished by the pure source of
the Gospel. Every individual event in the life of Christ, as narrated by the
Evangelists, is resplendent with the Mystery that surpasses all understanding
(cf. Eph 3:19): the Mystery of the Word made flesh, in whom “all the
fullness of God dwells bodily” (Col 2:9). For this reason the Catechism
of the Catholic Church places great emphasis on the mysteries of
Christ, pointing out that “everything in the life of Jesus is a sign of his
Mystery”.30 The “duc in altum” of the Church of the third
millennium will be determined by the ability of Christians to enter into the
“perfect knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, in whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:2-3). The Letter to the
Ephesians makes this heartfelt prayer for all the baptized: “May Christ dwell
in your hearts through faith, so that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have power... to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that
you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:17-19).
The Rosary is at the service of this ideal; it offers the “secret” which
leads easily to a profound and inward knowledge of Christ. We might call it Mary's
way. It is the way of the example of the Virgin of Nazareth, a woman of
faith, of silence, of attentive listening. It is also the way of a Marian
devotion inspired by knowledge of the inseparable bond between Christ and his
Blessed Mother: the mysteries of Christ are also in some sense the
mysteries of his Mother, even when they do not involve her directly, for
she lives from him and through him. By making our own the words of the Angel
Gabriel and Saint Elizabeth contained in the Hail Mary, we find
ourselves constantly drawn to seek out afresh in Mary, in her arms and in her
heart, the “blessed fruit of her womb” (cf Lk 1:42).
Mystery of Christ, mystery of man
25. In my testimony of 1978 mentioned above, where I described the Rosary as
my favourite prayer, I used an idea to which I would like to return. I said
then that “the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human life”.31
In the light of what has been said so far on the mysteries of Christ, it is
not difficult to go deeper into this anthropological significance of the
Rosary, which is far deeper than may appear at first sight. Anyone who
contemplates Christ through the various stages of his life cannot fail to
perceive in him the truth about man. This is the great affirmation of
the Second Vatican Council which I have so often discussed in my own teaching
since the Encyclical Letter Redemptor
Hominis:
“it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man is
seen in its true light”.32 The Rosary helps to open up the way to
this light. Following in the path of Christ, in whom man's path is
“recapitulated”,33 revealed and redeemed, believers come face to
face with the image of the true man. Contemplating Christ's birth, they learn
of the sanctity of life; seeing the household of Nazareth, they learn the
original truth of the family according to God's plan; listening to the Master
in the mysteries of his public ministry, they find the light which leads them
to enter the Kingdom of God; and following him on the way to Calvary, they
learn the meaning of salvific suffering. Finally, contemplating Christ and his
Blessed Mother in glory, they see the goal towards which each of us is called,
if we allow ourselves to be healed and transformed by the Holy Spirit. It could
be said that each mystery of the Rosary, carefully meditated, sheds light on
the mystery of man.
At the same time, it becomes natural to bring to this encounter with the
sacred humanity of the Redeemer all the problems, anxieties, labours and
endeavours which go to make up our lives. “Cast your burden on the Lord and he
will sustain you” (Ps 55:23). To pray the Rosary is to hand over our
burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother. Twenty-five years
later, thinking back over the difficulties which have also been part of my
exercise of the Petrine ministry, I feel the need to say once more, as a warm
invitation to everyone to experience it personally: the Rosary does indeed
“mark the rhythm of human life”, bringing it into harmony with the “rhythm” of
God's own life, in the joyful communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's destiny
and deepest longing.
CHAPTER III
“FOR ME, TO LIVE IS CHRIST”
The Rosary, a way of assimilating the mystery
26. Meditation on the mysteries of Christ is proposed in the Rosary by means
of a method designed to assist in their assimilation. It is a method based
on repetition. This applies above all to the Hail Mary, repeated ten
times in each mystery. If this repetition is considered superficially, there
could be a temptation to see the Rosary as a dry and boring exercise. It is
quite another thing, however, when the Rosary is thought of as an outpouring of
that love which tirelessly returns to the person loved with expressions similar
in their content but ever fresh in terms of the feeling pervading them.
In Christ, God has truly assumed a “heart of flesh”. Not only does God have
a divine heart, rich in mercy and in forgiveness, but also a human heart,
capable of all the stirrings of affection. If we needed evidence for this from
the Gospel, we could easily find it in the touching dialogue between Christ and
Peter after the Resurrection: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Three times
this question is put to Peter, and three times he gives the reply: “Lord, you
know that I love you” (cf. Jn 21:15-17). Over and above the specific
meaning of this passage, so important for Peter's mission, none can fail to
recognize the beauty of this triple repetition, in which the insistent request
and the corresponding reply are expressed in terms familiar from the universal
experience of human love. To understand the Rosary, one has to enter into the
psychological dynamic proper to love.
One thing is clear: although the repeated Hail Mary is addressed
directly to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love is ultimately directed,
with her and through her. The repetition is nourished by the desire to be
conformed ever more completely to Christ, the true programme of the Christian
life. Saint Paul expressed this project with words of fire: “For me to live is
Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). And again: “It is no longer I
that live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). The Rosary helps us to be
conformed ever more closely to Christ until we attain true holiness.
A valid method...
27. We should not be surprised that our relationship with Christ makes use
of a method. God communicates himself to us respecting our human nature and its
vital rhythms. Hence, while Christian spirituality is familiar with the most
sublime forms of mystical silence in which images, words and gestures are all,
so to speak, superseded by an intense and ineffable union with God, it normally
engages the whole person in all his complex psychological, physical and
relational reality.
This becomes apparent in the Liturgy. Sacraments and sacramentals are
structured as a series of rites which bring into play all the dimensions of the
person. The same applies to non-liturgical prayer. This is confirmed by the
fact that, in the East, the most characteristic prayer of Christological
meditation, centred on the words “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on
me, a sinner”34 is traditionally linked to the rhythm of breathing;
while this practice favours perseverance in the prayer, it also in some way
embodies the desire for Christ to become the breath, the soul and the “all” of
one's life.
... which can nevertheless be improved
28. I mentioned in my Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte that the West is now experiencing a renewed demand
for meditation, which at times leads to a keen interest in aspects of other
religions.35 Some Christians, limited in their knowledge of the
Christian contemplative tradition, are attracted by those forms of prayer.
While the latter contain many elements which are positive and at times
compatible with Christian experience, they are often based on ultimately
unacceptable premises. Much in vogue among these approaches are methods aimed
at attaining a high level of spiritual concentration by using techniques of a psychophysical,
repetitive and symbolic nature. The Rosary is situated within this broad gamut
of religious phenomena, but it is distinguished by characteristics of its own
which correspond to specifically Christian requirements.
In effect, the Rosary is simply a method of contemplation. As a
method, it serves as a means to an end and cannot become an end in itself. All
the same, as the fruit of centuries of experience, this method should not be
undervalued. In its favour one could cite the experience of countless Saints.
This is not to say, however, that the method cannot be improved. Such is the
intent of the addition of the new series of mysteria lucis to the
overall cycle of mysteries and of the few suggestions which I am proposing in
this Letter regarding its manner of recitation. These suggestions, while
respecting the well-established structure of this prayer, are intended to help
the faithful to understand it in the richness of its symbolism and in harmony
with the demands of daily life. Otherwise there is a risk that the Rosary would
not only fail to produce the intended spiritual effects, but even that the
beads, with which it is usually said, could come to be regarded as some kind of
amulet or magic object, thereby radically distorting their meaning and
function.
Announcing each mystery
29. Announcing each mystery, and perhaps even using a suitable icon to
portray it, is as it were to open up a scenario on which to focus our
attention. The words direct the imagination and the mind towards a particular
episode or moment in the life of Christ. In the Church's traditional
spirituality, the veneration of icons and the many devotions appealing to the
senses, as well as the method of prayer proposed by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in
the Spiritual Exercises, make use of visual and imaginative elements (the compositio
loci), judged to be of great help in concentrating the mind on the
particular mystery. This is a methodology, moreover, which corresponds to
the inner logic of the Incarnation: in Jesus, God wanted to take on human
features. It is through his bodily reality that we are led into contact with
the mystery of his divinity.
This need for concreteness finds further expression in the announcement of
the various mysteries of the Rosary. Obviously these mysteries neither replace
the Gospel nor exhaust its content. The Rosary, therefore, is no substitute for
lectio divina; on the contrary, it presupposes and promotes it. Yet,
even though the mysteries contemplated in the Rosary, even with the addition of
the mysteria lucis, do no more than outline the fundamental elements of
the life of Christ, they easily draw the mind to a more expansive reflection on
the rest of the Gospel, especially when the Rosary is prayed in a setting of
prolonged recollection.
Listening to the word of God
30. In order to supply a Biblical foundation and greater depth to our
meditation, it is helpful to follow the announcement of the mystery with the
proclamation of a related Biblical passage, long or short, depending on the
circumstances. No other words can ever match the efficacy of the inspired word.
As we listen, we are certain that this is the word of God, spoken for today and
spoken “for me”.
If received in this way, the word of God can become part of the Rosary's
methodology of repetition without giving rise to the ennui derived from the
simple recollection of something already well known. It is not a matter of
recalling information but of allowing God to speak. In certain solemn
communal celebrations, this word can be appropriately illustrated by a brief
commentary.
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, Theotókos, 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 Friday 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 Letter Novo
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
1 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 45.
2 Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2
February 1974), 42: AAS 66 (1974), 153.
3 Cf. Acta Leonis XIII, 3 (1884), 280-289.
4 Particularly worthy of note is his Apostolic Epistle on the
Rosary Il religioso convegno (29 September 1961): AAS 53 (1961),
641-647.
5 Angelus: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, I (1978):
75-76.
6 AAS 93 (2001), 285.
7 During the years of preparation for the Council, Pope John
XXIII did not fail to encourage the Christian community to recite the Rosary
for the success of this ecclesial event: cf. Letter to the Cardinal Vicar (28
September 1960): AAS 52 (1960), 814-816.
8 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 66.
9 No. 32: AAS 93 (2001), 288.
10 Ibid., 33: loc. cit., 289.
11 It is well-known and bears repeating that private revelations
are not the same as public revelation, which is binding on the whole Church. It
is the task of the Magisterium to discern and recognize the authenticity and
value of private revelations for the piety of the faithful.
12 The Secret of the Rosary.
13 Blessed Bartolo Longo, Storia del Santuario di Pompei,
Pompei, 1990, 59.
14 Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2 February
1974), 47: AAS (1974), 156.
15 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium,
10.
16 Ibid., 12.
17 Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on
the Church Lumen Gentium, 58.
18 I Quindici Sabati del Santissimo Rosario, 27th ed.,
Pompei, 1916, 27.
19 Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on
the Church Lumen Gentium, 53.
20 Ibid., 60.
21 Cf. First Radio Address Urbi et Orbi (17 October 1978):
AAS 70 (1978), 927.
22 Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
23 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2679.
24 Ibid., 2675.
25 The Supplication to the Queen of the Holy Rosary was
composed by Blessed Bartolo Longo in 1883 in response to the appeal of Pope Leo
XIII, made in his first Encyclical on the Rosary, for the spiritual commitment
of all Catholics in combating social ills. It is solemnly recited twice yearly,
in May and October.
26 Divina Commedia, Paradiso XXXIII, 13-15.
27 John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte
(6 January 2001), 20: AAS 93 (2001), 279.
28 Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2 February
1974), 46: AAS 6 (1974), 155.
29 John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte
(6 January 2001), 28: AAS 93 (2001), 284.
30 No. 515.
31 Angelus Message of 29 October 1978 : Insegnamenti, I
(1978), 76.
32 Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on
the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 22.
33 Cf. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses, III,
18, 1: PG 7, 932.
34 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2616.
35 Cf. No. 33: AAS 93 (2001), 289.
36 John Paul II, Letter to Artists (4 April 1999), 1: AAS
91 (1999), 1155.
37 Cf. No. 46: AAS 66 (1974), 155. This custom has also been
recently praised by the Congregation for Divine Worship and for the Discipline
of the Sacraments in its Direttorio su pietà popolare e liturgia. Principi e
orientamenti (17 December 2001), 201, Vatican City, 2002, 165.
38 “...concede, quaesumus, ut haec mysteria sacratissimo
beatae Mariae Virginis Rosario recolentes, et imitemur quod continent, et quod
promittunt assequamur”. Missale Romanum 1960, in festo B.M. Virginis a
Rosario.
39 Cf. No. 34: AAS 93 (2001), 290.