Prayer is a central part of the Spirituality Year (SY), in which I am currently partaking in at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. One of the blessings is to have the time to engage in many different forms of prayer. One of which is the Rosary. The Rosary is an expression of prayer that is unique because it expresses the devotion that we are invited to have for Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The proper role of Mary in the Church is often misunderstood by non-Catholics, and some Catholics themselves. Sometimes, it is suggested that Catholics worship Mary. Other misunderstandings suggest that Mary acts as a demi-god of sorts. I myself was unsure of who Mary was until I did more research and myself engaged in Marian forms of prayer. The important thing to know and to understand when talking about the Blessed Mother is to know that all that she encompasses and is: points to her Son, Jesus Christ. She does not have power over the Trinity, she is perfectly united with the will of God. A great analogy is to think of Mary as the moon. The moon can be the brighest object in the sky on a clear night. The moon does not give off its own light though. It merely reflects the light form the Sun. Same with the Blessed Mother. She merely reflects and points towards the Way, Jesus. Still, with this understanding, why should one say their Hail Marys or a daily Rosary? Does one need a spiritual relationship with Mary to grow closer to God? Need is a strong word. What I will say is that Mary is the one who can most directly bring us to the foot of her Son because she knows how to come to know him and to love him best. Mary was one of the few persons to remian with him throughout his entire earthly life, even remianing at the foot of his the Cross. Mary, being the Mother of God, became the mother of us all. In this way, she desires all of us to know her Son, often times more then we desire to know him ourselves because she has literally seen the 'face of God'. She invites us to show us the Way (Her Son) if we ask for her intercession. Mary intercedes for us in the best way possible because she literally and spiritually carried the Word of God in her very being. I have been reflecting on this because I have been able to pray a daily Rosary which in its very nature points to Christ. The Rosary is a prayer in which one prays the Hail Mary again and again. While one is saying the Hail Mary though, one reflects on a different mystery of Christ's life on Earth. For example, the Sorrowful Mysteries go through the Passion of Christ and His Crucifixion. The five scenes in which consist of the Sorrowful Mysteries are: The Agnoy in the Garden, The Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning of Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. Through the Rosary, and the intercession of Mary, one is able to enter into each of these mysteries in a much deeper way. One can imagine Mary during each of these scences; what she saw and what she was experiencing. The Rosary is a very powerful form of prayer that brings one closer to Mary, and in a real way closer to Christ. I have been reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church(one of the perks of the SY) and fell upon the section that breaks down the Hail Mary line by line. I have copied it from the online version and posted it below for your reading pleasure. In it are some great lines that explain the Hail Mary, and at the same time the role Mary plays in our salvation. I have grown in my devotion for the Blessed Mother because through her I can better know Christ. In seeing Mary as a model of faithfulness and prayer, I can better allow myself to be configured to Christ. Mary is the epitome of faithfulness. She is a gift of a model that we are all given to learn from and to model our own faith after. She alone experienced the consolation of being a very real instrument of the Lord by bringing him into the world and she experienced the darkest of days when he was sacrificed for our sins on the Cross. The challenege we are all faced in times of spirtual desolation and consolation is striving to be faithful at all times, who better to learn it from then the 'mother of all believers'? Who better then from the one who said 'Yes' and never stopped saying 'yes' to the will of God? Who better to help pick us up when we have fallen then the one who picked up Jesus when he would stumble and fall when he was but a child and learning how to walk? Her better then the very one who taught Christ his first prayers? May we let her show us how to pray as we ought and to keep praying. God Bless! Peace Our Lady of Guadalupe Pray For Us 2674 Mary gave her consent in faith at the Annunciation and maintained it without hesitation at the foot of the Cross. Ever since, her motherhood has extended to the brothers and sisters of her Son âwho still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties.â28 Jesus, the only mediator, is the way of our prayer; Mary, his mother and ours, is wholly transparent to him: she âshows the wayâ (hodigitria), and is herself âthe Signâ of the way, according to the traditional iconography of East and West. (494) 2675 Beginning with Maryâs 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. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first âmagnifiesâ the Lord for the âgreat thingsâ he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings;29 the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused. (970, 512, 2619) 2676 This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria: (722, 490, 435, 146) Hail Mary [or Rejoice, Mary]: the greeting of the angel Gabriel opens this prayer. It is God himself who, through his angel as intermediary, greets Mary. Our prayer dares to take up this greeting to Mary with the regard God had for the lowliness of his humble servant and to exult in the joy he finds in her.30 Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angelâs greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. âRejoice... O Daughter of Jerusalem... the Lord your God is in your midst.â31 Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is âthe dwelling of God... with men.â32 Full of grace, Mary is wholly given over to him who has come to dwell in her and whom she is about to give to the world. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. After the angelâs greeting, we make Elizabethâs greeting our own. âFilled with the Holy Spirit,â Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary âblessed.â33 âBlessed is she who believed....â34 Mary is âblessed among womenâ because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lordâs word. Abraham, because of his faith, became a blessing for all the nations of the earth.35 Mary, because of her faith, became the mother of believers, through whom all nations of the earth receive him who is Godâs own blessing: Jesus, the âfruit of thy womb.â 2677 Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, âAnd why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?â36 Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: âLet it be to me according to your word.â37 By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: âThy will be done.â (495, 1020) Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the âMother of Mercy,â the AllâHoly One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender âthe hour of our deathâ wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her sonâs death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing38 to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise.
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