St Aloysius & The Sacred Heart Parish

In a few days, we will recall a miraculous event. On October 13th 1916 seventy-thousand pilgrims had found their way to Fatima because of the visions three children had begun receiving in the spring of 1916. The anxious crowd, bearing mixed attitudes, uncomfortably stood in ankle-deep mud; many awaited an unheard yet fathomed hope, a silent promise which had touched their craving hearts; others had arrived convinced that their lack of faith would soon be justified on finding the wet, soggy morning uneventful. This latter group would soon adopt a very different outlook on life.

Just prior to noon of that same day, the Lady "morebrilliant than the sun" appeared to the three children, saying, "I am the Lady of the Rosary. I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives
and to ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend our Lord any more, for he is already too grievously offended by the sins of men. People must say the Rosary. Let them continue saying it every day."

Nearly nineteen centuries earlier, our Lord Jesus Christ satat a wedding feast in Cana. The wine had run out, and, showing her constant concern for all, Our Lady simply turned to her Son and said, "They have no wine." Although Jesus responded, "My hour is not yet come," the Mother of our Lord, of course, knew her Son would listen to her, and, in a display of complete confidence, simply advised the servants to "Do whatever he tells you" (see Jn 2:1-5). Those were the final words of Our Lady recorded in the New Testament, which, unarguably, are an everlasting profession of what it means to be Christian.

Yet even before that day on which our Lord worked his fistmiracle, the birth of the Rosary had, in a sense, already occurred in the Angelic Salutation, when Gabriel the Archangel said to Mary: "Hail, favoured one! The Lord is with you" (Lk 1:28). St. Gabriel, sensing that Mary was troubled by his message, tells her she has "found favour with God" (Lk 1:30). And, upon hearing of the wondrous, unfathomable event of which she was about to partake, the sweet Virgin responded with beautiful simplicity and obedience: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38).

The Handmaid of the Lord, the Virgin Mother of all thefaithful, whose entire life is united in perfection and holiness to the Incarnate Word's mission of Salvation, returns repeatedly to us, exercising her office as motherly intercessor, caring for her children, directing them always
and everywhere to her Son. She says of herself: "I am the Lady of the Rosary."

The word Rosary means "crown of roses." St. LouisDe Montfort calls the Rosary "the mystical rose tree of Jesus and Mary in life, death, and eternity." He tells us that reciting the Rosary produces spiritual roses which will "never wilt or die, and they will be just as exquisite thousands of years from now as they are today." In regards the worth of saying the Rosary, he professes it to be a "priceless treasure which is inspired by God" (The Secret Of The Rosary, Montfort Publications, 1954).

Pope John Paul II tells us: "The Rosary, though clearlyMarian in character, is at the 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. . . . Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer" (Apostolic Letter On The Most Holy Rosary, RosariumVirginis Mariae, introduction).

Our Lady of the Rosary is the image and beginning of theChurch: "In the meantime the Mother of Jesus, in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise she shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come, a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God" (LG 68; cf. 2 Pet 3:10).

Soon we will return again to that day at Fatima less than acentury ago, on which Our Lady of the Rosary opened her hands: the rain ceased, clouds parted, light issued forth from her delicate palms and travelled toward the sun as if penetrating the daystar itself, transforming it into a pale disc
that could be viewed without harming the eyes. Although the gathered crowd could not see Our Lady, on hearing Lucy shout, "Look at the Sun!" thousands of eyes turned their gaze toward what was a very different sun from anything they had previously known.

United in a bond of love and beauty, Our Lady of the Rosaryand the Blessed Trinity reached down upon sinful humanity, leaving those present as well as future generations yet another sign of heaven's constant plea of repentance. On that very day the dancing sun would forever be burned into the intellects of the seventy-thousand onlookers. Those who doubted, doubted no longer; those who believed shook with joy; the children's eyes filled with tears of wonder and love as they, along with all who were presentt, witnessed the Miracle of the Sun.

Source: Feast: OurLady of the Rosary - Living Faith - Home & Family - News - Catholic Online