October 6, 2024

Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever~

God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I love the Rosary and want you to pray it daily. When the Blessed Virgin Mary visited St. Bernadette at Lourdes, she always prayed the Rosary on her 14 visits. When the Blessed Virgin Mary visited the children at Fatima, she told them to pray the Rosary daily. Simply put, heaven wants us to pray the Rosary daily. If all the Catholics in the world prayed the Rosary daily, Satan’s power would be broken, and the world would be converted to Jesus Christ. The Rosary is a gift from God, a superpower.

We live in a spiritual “Dark Age” that eclipses anything Christianity has seen in our 2024-year history:

· the loss of faith in Christ and His Church by the world at large, and even Catholics;

· the breakdown of the Church, marriage, family, and societies;

· a steep climb in the rate of addictions to things that Satan uses to lure us into sin: impurity, screens, internet, video games, alcohol, drugs, overeating, sports, gambling, news, and every other vice.

We need supernatural help – a way to powerfully pray anytime and anywhere for consolation, hope, and miracles. To that end, God has given us a gift from heaven: the Rosary – a light in the darkness when all other lights have gone out.

While the Church dedicates the month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church dedicates the month of October to the Rosary. There are various historical reasons for this, which I don’t have space to explain here. Yet, suffice it to say, God, the Church, and I, want you to learn how to pray the Rosary, pray it daily, and grow in holiness. Most Catholics don’t know how to pray the Rosary and many just don’t know where to begin. Don’t be embarrassed, I know priests who can’t say a whole Rosary from memory (pray for priests!). Fortunately, my parents prayed the Rosary with my siblings and I throughout our childhoods, even when we didn’t want to. For that I am eternally grateful. Yet, in spite of that experience, it wasn’t until my conversion at the age of 26 that I deliberately set out to memorize the various prayers and mysteries of the Rosary, for I had never quite nailed it as a kid.

The Rosary is a prayer to the Holy Trinity through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Through it, prayers are answered, people healed, relationships strengthened, virtue fostered, consolation found, wisdom and understanding gained, battles won, disaster averted, protection granted, and hardened souls converted. The miracles brought about by praying the Rosary are countless. Yet just as important as having our prayers answered, is the relationship the Rosary fosters. In a way it is like spending time with someone we love – the more time we invest with someone, the more we bond. Jesus, who is God, wants all of us to love His Mother as He does. He wants us to adopt her as our beloved mother too, for she has already adopted us. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest of all of God’s creation and the greatest intercessor before God in heaven; and like a good mother, she desires our wellbeing and a personal relationship with each one of us. To these ends, the Rosary cannot be beaten.

At all three communities in our Parish Family, Columbia River Catholic (see last Sunday’s pastor’s column), the Rosary is prayed before Mass; 20 minutes before Mass at Holy Redeemer and 30 minutes before Mass at St. Thomas and Star of the Sea. It is heartening to see so many of you pray at least a little bit of it in the final minutes before Mass begins. It has been even more heartening to see so many coming early enough to Mass to pray the whole Rosary. I encourage all of you who don’t do so already – especially families with kids – to start getting yourself and the kids ready 30 minutes earlier on Sundays for Mass, so that you can all be settled in a pew before Mass begins to pray the whole Rosary. You and your family will be eternally grateful.

If you don’t know how to pray the Rosary, please take a “how to” brochure from the pews home with you at Holy Redeemer. We’ll work on getting them in the pews at St. Thomas and Star too. Of course you can always go on-line too to find rosary guides. We also have a Rosary board in the narthex at Holy Redeemer, again, we’ll work on getting a board at St. Thomas and Star also. Like me at age 26, make a point of learning the Rosary and strive to pray it daily for the rest of your life: for you, your family, the Church, and the whole world.

Our Lady’s 15 Promises to Those Who Pray the Rosary

From Saint Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche

1. Whosoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.

2. I promise my special protection and the greatest Graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.

3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell; it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.

4. It will cause good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant Mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire for Eternal Things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5. The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.

6. Whosoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the Grace of God, and become worthy of Eternal Life.

7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.

8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the Light of God and the plenitude of His Graces; at the moment of death, they shall participate in the Merits of the Saints in Paradise.

9. I shall deliver from Purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.

10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of Glory in Heaven.

11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by recitation of the Rosary.

12. All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire Celestial Court during their life and at the hour of death.

14. All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only Son, Jesus Christ.

15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

May Our Lord and His Blessed Mother Bless You,