Vigilance and the Rosary

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We are told in today's Gospel, “Let your loins be girt about, and your lamps burning, and you yourselves like men waiting for their master's return from the wedding, so that when he comes and knocks, they may straight away open to him” (Luke 12:35-36).

It's interesting how in the Gospel, Our Lord on many occasions encourages us to be very vigilant—vigilant about what our life is all about, about what God wants from us in our lives, about what we're supposed to be doing; encouraging us to be focused on the ball, not slow, playing the game.

Up to the particular moment, what is the will of God for me at this particular time? In my life, what's His plan for me? Because God can call us to Him at any moment. Someday He will. He wants us to be ready.

He doesn't want us to be wandering around with our head in the clouds. He doesn't want us to be people who are full of nonsense, who don't know where they're going, or what they're doing, or who are wasting their time.

The words of the Gospel are like a call to be very alert, very alive. Double-checking that we're on the right road, we're on the right path. Double-checking our work when we've done it, looking back, is it really what I want it to be?

Is it the best that I can do? Have I double-checked all the details? Am I sure that this is the best job that I can do at this particular moment?

We're not just wandering around the place. “Let your loins be girt about, and your lamps burning.”

That means oil in the lamps—thinking about the lamps, having foresight, making sure that the lamp has enough oil to last through the night and through the days, and you yourselves, like people waiting for their master's return from the wedding.

There's a lot of talk about weddings in the Gospel. John Paul II said we're all called to the eternal wedding feast. God wants to marry us. Marriage in this world is a preparation for marriage in the next.

He wants us to be waiting for that wedding, for the bridegroom who's coming, because that's what our life is all about.

There may be many things that humanly we are alert about. If we go out into the street, we're alert that some thief might steal our money, so we're careful where we go. We're alert when we're crossing the road; some cars might come very quickly around the corner.

There are a lot of situations in life where we are sort of naturally alert. But that's not just the sort of alertness that Our Lord is talking about here.

He wants us to be alert in relation to our souls, to our eternal destiny, so that each day of our life can have that echo of eternity.

‘I'm preparing for the coming of the master from the wedding. The bridegroom is coming. I want to have everything prepared.’

“Blessed are those servants whom the master on his return shall find watching” (Luke 12:37). All the verbs that are used are verbs that foster our vigilance. He doesn't want us sleeping.

“And then I say to you, he will girt himself and make them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or if in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants” (Luke 12:37-38).

He might not come when they're expecting him. He might come a little later. They might have to be keeping alert all the time, a little longer than planned.

But if they have that disposition, if they're taking good care of their soul, their plan of life, their apostolate, the Christian life that God wants them to lead—blessed are those servants.

We can ask Our Lord in our prayer, How can I take better care of my spiritual life? What is it that you're asking of me at this particular moment?

What are the messages that I'm getting, for where you have led me to this particular center, to the formation that I'm exposed to, to the ideas that are circulating in my head and that I'm thinking of, and the people you've brought me in contact with?

God acts through all of these things. There's a message there in all of these things. He speaks to us through little things.

There's a story about a little six-year-old Protestant boy who had a lot of Catholic companions, and he heard them reciting the Hail Mary.

He liked it so much that he copied it. He memorized it and would say it every day. God was speaking to him through those companions.

One day he said to his Mom, “Look, Mom, I found this beautiful prayer.”

The mother wasn't happy at all. She said, “Never say that again. It's a superstitious prayer of Catholics who adore idols and think Mary is a goddess. After all, she's a woman like any other. You take this Bible and you read it. It contains everything that we're bound to do and have to do.”

That little boy was very obedient to his mother. He took the Bible and he began to read it. He stopped saying the Hail Mary and he gave himself more time to read the Bible.

Then one day, reading the Bible, he came across the passage about the Annunciation of the Angel to Our Lady.

Full of joy, he ran to his mother and said, “Mommy, I found the Hail Mary in the Bible. It says, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women’ (Luke 1:28). Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?”

On another occasion, he found that beautiful salutation of St. Elizabeth to Our Lady in the canticle called Magnificat, in which Mary foretold that “generations would call her blessed” (Luke 2:46-48).

He decided not to say anything to his mother about this, but he started to say the Hail Mary again as before, and he felt a great pleasure in addressing those charming words to the Mother of Jesus, Our Savior.

When he was fourteen, he heard a discussion about Our Lady among members of his family. Everyone said that Mary was a common woman like any other woman. He was listening carefully to all their erroneous reasoning.

But there came a moment when he couldn't bear it any longer, and, full of indignation, he interrupted them and said, “Mary is not like any other children of Adam, stained with sin. The angel called her ‘full of grace and blessed among women.’ Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ and consequently Mother of God. There is no higher dignity to which she can be raised. The Gospel says that the ‘generations would proclaim her blessed.’”

He said, “You are trying to despise her and look down on her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel, nor of the Bible which you proclaim to be the foundation of the Christian religion.”

So deep was the impression which his talk made on the family members that his mother cried out sorrowfully, “Oh my God! I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of the Popes.”

Not very long afterwards, having made a serious study of Protestantism and Catholicism, he found the latter to be the true religion. He embraced it and became a very ardent apostle.

Some time later, his married sister who had rebuked him in various ways, said, “Do you little know how much I love my children? Should any one of them desire to become a Catholic, I would sooner pierce their heart with a dagger than allow them to embrace the religion of the Popes!”

Her anger and her temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she was going to change her ways, just as St. Paul did on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9).

One of her sons fell dangerously ill, and the doctors gave up hope of his recovery. Her brother then approached her and spoke to her affectionately, saying, “My sister, you naturally wish to have your child cured. Very well, then, just do what I ask you to do. Follow me, that is, pray one Hail Mary, and promise God that if your son recovers his health, you would seriously study the Catholic doctrine, and should you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you would embrace it, no matter what the sacrifices might be.”

His sister was a bit reluctant in the beginning, but she wanted her son's recovery. So she accepted her brother's proposal, and she recited the Hail Mary with him. The next day, the son was completely cured.

The mother then fulfilled her promise. She studied the Catholic doctrine, and after a long preparation, she was baptized together with her whole family, thanking her brother for being the apostle to her.

This story was related by a certain priest in a homily, and he said, “Brothers and sisters, the boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism dedicated his whole life to the service of God. He is the priest who is speaking to you now!” (Tim O’Sullivan, Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society, Father George Tuckwell: Missionary Priest in the Australasian Colonies).

He said, “What I am I owe to Our Lady. You, too, my dear brethren, be entirely dedicated also to Our Lady. Never let a day pass without saying the beautiful prayer of the Hail Mary and the Rosary. Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ, founded on the Rock of Peter, and “against whom the gates of hell shall never prevail” (Matt. 16:18).

The power of one Hail Mary, and through that Hail Mary, maybe Our Lady wants to lead us to see many things; many plans that God may have for our life, for the apostolate that she wants us to do in the world; to influence our friends in different ways.

The feast of the Holy Rosary was established in 1573 by Pope Pius V, in thanking God for the victory of the Turks over at Lepanto. The Rosary started earlier in the 1200s. It goes back an awful long way; promoted by St. Dominic.

In the last twenty years, Pope St. John Paul II added the mysteries of light. In the Rosary we contemplate various mysteries or events of Our Lord's life. We are led into a deeper understanding of them.

John Paul II says that the Rosary is “a compendium of the Gospel” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 16, 2002).

Just by contemplating the mysteries of the Rosary one by one, we are led through all the main mysteries of Our Lord's life and all the events of the Gospel.

St. Josemaría in The Forge says, “I've come to see that every Hail Mary, every greeting to Our Lady, is a new beat of a heart in love” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 615).

We pray the Rosary, and we can have our loins girt, and our lamps burning. Each Hail Mary is important.

Fulton Sheen tells a story of how a girl came to him and said, “I don't like praying the Rosary. It's very repetitive, it's not sincere. You're saying the same thing all the time, over and over again. I don't go for it—not sincere, not real.”

Fulton Sheen said, “Who's this gentleman there with you?”

“That's my fiancé.”

“Does he love you?” “Yes.”

“How do you know?” “He told me.”

“When did he tell you?” “Yesterday.”

“Did he ever tell you before?” “Yes, he told me last week.”

“Did he ever tell you before that?” “Yes, about a month ago.”

“I wouldn't believe him if I were you. He's not sincere; very repetitive. Saying the same thing over and over again!” (Fulton J. Sheen, World’s First Love).

People who love each other say the same thing. They don't look for different things to say all the time. It's very clear, very simple.

In The Forge, St. Josemaría says, “The Holy Rosary: the joys, the sorrows, and the glories of the life of Our Lady weave a crown of praises, repeated ceaselessly by the angels and the saints in heaven—and by those who love Our Mother here on earth. —Practise this holy devotion every day, and spread it” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 621).

The words and the sentiments that we say in the Rosary are the same sort of things the angels are saying with the saints in heaven. Powerful prayer.

We should reach for our Rosary frequently. We can try to be generous with our Rosary—say more than one in the day if we're moving around the place.

In that way, be constantly talking to Our Lady and asking her for the things that we need, to help us to have our lamp burning brightly, and our loins girt, so that anyone who comes close to us might be able to ask us a question, or to get light from our life.

One good question to ask ourselves is: What sort of shadows do we cast when we walk around the place? What sort of mark do we leave?

When people walk near us, are they uplifted by our words, by our actions, by our lifestyle? Are they inspired to be a little bit better? To grow as a human being? Are they inspired to have their lamps burning brightly or to learn a little more about the mysteries of our life?

Pope St. John Paul says there are three questions all human beings must keep asking themselves, all throughout their life. ‘Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is my life all about?’ (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical, Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1988).

St. Paul VI says, “The Rosary sets forth…the mystery of Christ in the very way in which it is seen by St. Paul in the celebrated ‘hymn’ of the Letter to the Philippians, when he talks about the self-emptying.

“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 grasped by the heart of her who is closer to the Lord than all others” (Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation, Marialis Cultus, February 2, 1974).

Our Lady shows us the way, helps us like little children, takes us by the hand—little children who perhaps don't understand all the wonderful things that are happening around them; little children who are looking for excitement.

My sister was telling me in a letter last week—she was with her grandson, age three—and he wanted to have a treasure hunt, in a place where there was no treasure.

She went with him to have a treasure hunt, and she managed to hide a Snickers bar behind a tree someplace, and he discovered the treasure. “Ah, this is the treasure.”

Then he said, “Now we should keep looking because we might find more treasure.” She couldn't keep up with that pace!

Little children look for treasures, and they're happy when they find treasures. They yearn for the new treasures and the new excitement.

Our Lady can take us by the hand and help us to savor the treasures of each day, the beauties of each moment, the beauties of nature that are around us—help us to discover the wonderful realities that are perhaps within reach every day.

“Holy Mary,” we're told in the Furrow, “is the Queen of peace, and thus the Church invokes her. So when your soul or your family are troubled, or things go wrong at work, in society, or between nations, cry out to her without ceasing. Call to her by this title: ‘Queen of Peace, pray for us.’ Have you at least tried it when you have lost your calm?... —You'll be surprised at its immediate effect” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 874).

There may be many moments when we become a little bit more troubled, a little bit agitated in our work, because of the number of things to do, or some machine won't work, or we're extra demands, or we're called out in the middle of our work to do something else and we have to fill the holes later, or come back later, or work a bit longer.

All these little things. And yet Our Lady can restore peace to our souls.

Mary, help me to be a greater person of peace, to work with peace, to work with such peace that even if my schedule has changed, or there's a bit of a jam somewhere, or somebody needs some help, I can leave what I'm doing and peacefully go and solve whatever other problem there may be, with a lot of calm, because I'm close to you, and because I know you're holding me by the hand.

“Develop a lively devotion,” he says, “for Our Mother. She knows how to respond in a most sensitive way to the presents we give her. What is more, if you say the Holy Rosary every day, with a spirit of faith and love, Our Lady will make sure she leads you very far along her Son's path” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 691).

When we say the Rosary, it's like giving Our Lady a present. It's saying the words that she longs to hear, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).

We remind her of her vocation—one of the most wonderful moments in her whole life, when she discovered the purpose of her existence. With it, there was a great excitement, a great joy.

Every Hail Mary is like a compliment to Our Lady, a little present that we give her. As soon as we get up in the morning or we go to bed at night, we try to say some particular prayers to Our Lady.

We fill those moments, when perhaps our mind could be far away, with a conversation with the Mother of God.

“If we say those prayers,” he says, “with a spirit of faith and love,” Our Lady all the more will take us by the hand and show us things and help us to see the things that she wants us to see (cf. J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 691).

Maybe she'll help our apostolate to go forward a little more fruitfully. We'll somehow see that there are people around us that she wants us to bring a little closer.

We'll see that people in our class, or people that God brings us in contact with, are looking for things, and maybe we have the answers to tell them.

Pope St. John Paul has said that the Rosary is a prayer that is “simple yet profound.” It goes very deep. It penetrates the mysteries of Our Lord and Our Lady.

He says, “It blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 16, 2002).

Every little journey that we have to make each day can be a spiritual journey, a journey full of Rosaries—going up the stairs, or going to school, or coming home.

He says it's “a Christocentric prayer” (Ibid.). It leads us to Jesus. “Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus” (Luke 1:42).

“It's an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb” (Ibid.).

We remind Our Lady of those moments. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).

A lady in Asia told me once that when she says those words, she said she could be hours and hours just contemplating their beauty. “Henceforth, all generations will call me blessed. He has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid” (Luke 1:48).

Pope St. John Paul says, “With the Rosary, the Christian people sit at the school of Mary and are led to contemplate the beauty of the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love” (Ibid.).

We “sit at the school of Mary.” She has so much to teach us. Beautiful things, human virtues, supernatural virtues.

She teaches us how to live out our Christian vocation in the same way that she lives out her vocation—with her lamps burning brightly, with her loins girt.

When the Angel gave her the message that she was to be the mother of God, Mary responded immediately. She didn't say, ‘Let me think about it a little bit.’

It wasn't a moment of pride and vanity. She didn't go and look in the mirror and say, ‘Mother of God—what will that mean? I wonder whether I’ll like it or not.’

She didn’t take the words of the angel in a very calm and nonchalant sort of way. She was taken up with what God was saying to her through the angel.

“Behold, the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38). “Here I am because you have called me” (1 Sam. 3:4-6,8). Help me to respond.

He says, “Through the Rosary, the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer” (Ibid.).

Our Lady is there, just waiting to give us so many graces when we ask Our Father, like a mother who wants to give her child something very special, but wants the child to ask for it, to really want it, to show with deeds that it's serious.

Very often in our spiritual life, Our Lord wants us to show that disposition with deeds, not just sweet words. Anyone can say sweet words.

But he wants to see those deeds of keeping our lamp burning brightly, of hard work well done, of getting up quickly in the morning, of being on time for things, of offering Our Lord the little sacrifices that may come our way with generosity, or going out of our way for other people to help them in their work, or not complaining interiorly or criticizing, or saying harsh words to other people, but creating a pleasant environment in which they can work.

We learn all these things at “the school of Mary.” We watch Our Lady in Nazareth, and in other moments, we see her moving around the place quietly, effectively, fulfilling her duty, but not butting into other people's lives, not spending her day complaining about other people, or gossiping about them, or criticizing them, or feeling superior because she is the Mother of God.

She was practising virtue in all moments, always with a smile, uplifting the people around her.

“To recite the Rosary,” he says, “is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.” (Ibid.).

Mary has such a unity with her Son, unity with God. There was a great peace in her soul. She must have radiated that peace and beauty.

This is the treasure that God has placed in our hands in this particular month of the Rosary. It's a good time to be a little bit more attentive to our Rosary. It's a path of contemplation.

Pope St. John Paul says, “It's a genuine ‘training in holiness.’ What is needed is ‘a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer’” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo millenio ineunte, January 6, 2001, quoted in Rosarium Virginis Mariae).

If we're souls of prayer, then everything will get solved. God will let us see His plans for us for the future.

All the formation we receive will somehow fall into place. We'll see things we didn't see before, deeper realities.

We'll be growing in and working at that “training in holiness.” We may be trained in many other areas, and we may be learning all sorts of skills, but ultimately beneath all of that, there's a deeper training taking place.

Our Lady is training us, Christ is training us—training in holiness to be an effective apostle, to have an impact on the world.

“Christian communities,” he said, “should become genuine schools of prayer” John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae).

We try to live as a family. Our own blood families are the same thing.

Lord, help me to foster schools of prayer so that maybe, I can encourage people around me sometimes to say the Rosary, or started up a time for saying the Rosary in my school.

There's a school in Eastlands, Aquinas School, where there's a hundred guys, secondary school students, say the Rosary every day, voluntarily, and feast days, sometimes 150.

Why? Because they find peace there, they find joy, they find meaning in talking to the Mother of God. They’ve probably experienced her help in a special way.

He says, “It’s a typically meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the ‘prayer of the heart’” (Ibid.).

“Prayer is a raising up of the mind and of the heart to God” (St. John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa; Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 2590). In the Rosary, we lift up our hearts and place our hearts in those mysteries that we're contemplating.

He says, “The Rosary…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” (Ibid.).

We're working on the new evangelization, the evangelization of the world in the 21st century. He says, ‘This prayer remains a very important prayer at the dawn of the third millennium, a prayer of great significance” (Ibid.).

As we look at these words of the Gospel—they talk about lamps burning brightly, loins girt, and being prepared for the master's return from the wedding.

This month of October, we could try and see what that means in concrete terms, and how we could grow to love the Rosary more, so that every day of our life, our lamps might be burning brightly.

And we know that Our Lady will listen very much to our prayer. Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD