Today we honor Our Lady of the Rosary for her help...
Reflections on the readings for the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (October 7, 2020): GAL 2:1-2,7-14; PS 117:1-2; LK 11:1-4
MISSIO offers “Preaching Mission,” as a homily help, providing connections to mission from the readings of Sundays, Feast Days and Holy Days.
The recitation of the Rosary, or even a single decade, can help us know our Savior...
Today we venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary. The feast was originally designated as Our Lady of Victory, honoring Mary’s aid in helping Christians defeat a large navy of the Turks. This was at the 1571 Battle of Lepanto, one of several battles where she gave her assistance when many prayed the Rosary. Pope Pius V instituted the day celebrating the Blessed Virgin’s great intervention. Many Popes over succeeding centuries have continued to revere the Rosary as an effective instrument of prayer and a sure way to grow closer to our Jesus through Mary. Pope Leo XIII added this title of Mary to the Litany of Loreto that we still say in devotion to her. Pope St. John Paul II added a new set of Mysteries to the Rosary in 2002 – the Luminous Mysteries that focus on the public life of Jesus. John Paul also said, “To pray the rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and His Mother.…Through the rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.”
The two main prayers of the Rosary are the Hail Mary and the Our Father. Both feature words from Scripture. Greetings to the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Angel Gabriel and St. Elizabeth make up the first half of the Hail Mary. In today’s Gospel, when asked by a disciple to teach them to pray, Jesus answered with words that have become part of the Our Father: “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test” (Luke 11:2-4). The recitation of the Rosary, or even a single decade, can help us know our Savior and His unfathomable love more deeply. We can make a practice of asking Our Lady of the Rosary to reveal her Son to us with every Mystery – and to help our own lives more truly reflect His.
For resources for the celebration of World Mission Sunday / Mission Month, including materials for prayer and reflection, visit this website.
