A Sermon Preached by Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas, CMRI
(Fall, 2016)
In What Do the Prayers of the Rosary Consist and Where Do They Come From?
The Rosary, also known as “Our Lady’s Psalter,” consists of a combination of three prayers; namely, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be. Since we offer it daily to our Blessed Mother, it is something we all know by heart. The Our Father comes right from the Gospel of St. Luke, where we read how the Apostles said to Jesus, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” And Jesus said, “When you pray, pray thus: Our Father, Who art in Heaven….” (Luke 11: 1-4).
The Hail Mary also comes from the Gospel of St. Luke; we read therein that the Angel announced to Mary that she was to be the Mother of God when he said, “Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.” (Luke 1:28). And later in the same Gospel, at the Visitation, when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, she was filled with the Holy Ghost and said, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. How is it that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43). So we see that both the Our Father and the Hail Mary are outlined in Holy Scripture.
The first part of the Glory Be, on the other hand, was instituted by the Apostles: “Glory Be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.…,” with the second half added at the Council of Nicaea: “…as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
The Rosary is, indeed, a very powerful source of grace; so much so that Our Lady said to St. Dominic, “One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, the world will be saved.” I myself experienced the power of these two sacramentals this past year when visiting a family out of state. I had never met them before, and so I asked them about the other family members. With great sorrow, the parents told me that their daughter had fallen away from the Faith and was involved with drugs. I asked if there would be an opportunity to see her, but they said they didn’t think she would come. When I asked if she lived nearby, they told me she was at work. So I said, “Well, this might be the one and only chance: let’s go visit her at work.”
We went to her place of employment and her father asked her to come out. I had just this very small window of opportunity to talk to her. I was able to give her a Brown Scapular and said to her, “Can you just do one thing? At least say three Hail Mary’s every day. Our Blessed Mother loves you, and She will help you.” That was a moment of grace for her and she cooperated. She put the Scapular on right away. She started praying the Hail Mary. And, as they say in the world, she went “cold turkey” and stopped taking drugs right then and there. Indeed, she just broke off taking drugs altogether. She didn’t even have to go to rehab, even though she had already been heavily addicted to hard drugs when I spoke with her. This had nothing to do with me; it had everything to do with Our Lady and the power of her intercession.
How Was the Rosary Able to Help a Famous French Chemist?
In thinking of the Holy Rosary, I am reminded of the story of a young university student back in the olden days before there were cars, buses, and airplanes. Back then, everyone, when they had to go long distances, generally traveled by train. One day this young student, who was very self-satisfied with all his learning, got on a train. He had gleaned a great many years of education at his university and was working toward a degree in science. As he sat down, he noticed that across from him sat someone he took for a “poor deluded fellow” – an elderly man fingering his beads. So he said to this elderly man, “I would think that a man of your age would have given up that superstitious stuff; the beads, I mean.” The elderly man made the Sign of the Cross, put his beads away and started talking to him. He asked the younger man what university he was attending, what he was studying, and how long he had been in the university, etc. The young man went on and on and on about his education, until the train finally arrived at his stop. As he stood up to leave and shook the elderly man’s hand, he said, “Oh, by the way, sir, I did not get your name. What is your name?” The elderly man reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to him. On it was printed Dr. Louis Pasteur.
When he looked at the card, the young man felt very foolish as he thought of how he had put down this world-renowned biologist for his “superstitious practice” of praying the Rosary. The man was a genius and everyone in the world knew it. But this great man also knew that the laws of nature had originated from a real Law Giver. In his old age Dr. Louis Pasteur not only knew about science, but about Divine Revelation and Jesus Christ, and he was praying his Rosary.
Is the Rosary Meant Only for a Privileged Few? Or is It for Everyone?
The point to be made is that it does not matter if we are young or old, smart or uneducated. It does not matter whether we are advanced in the spiritual life or just beginning: the Rosary is appropriate for all of us; for all ages, nations, and times. It beautifully combines vocal prayer; i.e. – the recitation of the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be, with mental prayer (which is meditation on the mysteries in the lives of Jesus and Mary). It wonderfully brings before our minds everything that we read about in the Gospels. Let me illustrate this point further in the following scenarios:
In the Joyful Mysteries, we see how Our Blessed Mother lived that beautiful prayer which she offered to God when her cousin Elizabeth greeted her at the Visitation: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” We see it when the Angel told her that she was to be the Mother of God. We can certainly imagine the joy which filled her Immaculate Heart to know that the coming of the Messias has been realized at last, and that she had been chosen to be His Mother, the Mother of the Son of God!
We see the further joy of Mary as she embraced her cousin Elizabeth and saw the miracle of this same cousin being with child in her old age and in her sixth month. And then we recall how our Blessed Mother herself miraculously gave birth to Christ in a stable in Bethlehem.
The Presentation in the Temple was a fulfillment of the prophet Aggeus referring to this second Temple. The first one, Solomon’s temple, was destroyed, but the Messias would come to the second Temple. This prophecy was being fulfilled at the Presentation; it was also in action when Jesus was lost for three days and was found in the Temple, as well as during Our Lord’s public life when He preached in this same Temple.
In the Sorrowful Mysteries, we see the heinousness of our sins by the price that Jesus had to pay to atone for them. With an intense agony, Jesus suffered so much in the Garden of Olives as to sweat blood. He was stripped of His garments by cruel soldiers, who scourged Him and beat Him over His entire body. We see how they mocked Him by crowning Him with thorns, the sufferings of Our Lord in walking to Calvary carrying His Cross, and finally, being nailed to it and hanging on it for three long hours. And we see Our Blessed Mother there, standing bravely and faithfully at the foot of the Cross.
There is so much we can meditate on, and most of it we get right from the Gospels; directly from the Word of God. We see the beautiful, perfect example of Christ and His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in action on those pages. The Glorious Mysteries give us the hope that, after this vale of tears, we also will rise to a new life at the end of the world, with our body and soul reunited to live gloriously with Our Lord and Our Lady forever.
When we reflect upon the coming of the Holy Ghost, we realize how weak we all are and how much we need God’s grace at all times. We realize that what the Holy Ghost did for the Apostles, He can also do for us. Finally, we see how wonderfully and beautifully God rewarded the faithfulness of His Mother, taking her body and soul into Heaven and crowning her gloriously as Queen of Heaven and Earth.
How Powerful is the Rosary in the Fight for Souls?
Indeed, the Rosary is a very powerful means of grace. The late 60’s was a time of great confusion in the Church: the Mass was being changed, the teachings of the Church were being watered down and compromised. In a word, the Faith was being destroyed. My parents realized something was not right, although they could not quite put their finger on it. But we were faithfully praying the Rosary together as a family. I remember kneeling down as a young boy and agonizing those 15 minutes or so, but nevertheless, closing my eyes as I thought about those mysteries and prayed the Rosary. That was the means Our Blessed Mother used to bring my family to a knowledge of the true Faith.
By 1971 we were going to the Latin Mass; we knew that the modernists had destroyed the Mass by replacing it with the Novus Ordo and that Vatican II was no good. I believe Our Blessed Mother continues to work and to bring about in people’s lives those special moments of grace when they begin to see the light and find the truth. It’s an amazing thing to see, time and time again, what happens when people start praying, especially those young people who have had no previous foundation in the traditional Catholic Faith and who have never seen a Latin Mass before. Its amazing because all they knew while growing up was the New Mass and Vatican II. But by praying the Rosary, they came to see that something was not quite right. God’s grace works wonderfully in these souls, and Divine Providence leads them to a knowledge of the traditional Catholic Faith.
Our world is a very, very small one indeed. On Tuesday, I was visiting a new family that had recently moved to Omaha; their parents, an elderly couple, were visiting from out of state. I asked them how long they had been married, what kind of work the father did, etc. Then I asked, “How did you find out about the Traditional Movement; about the Latin Mass?” The man said that they had been devout to Our Lady by praying her Rosary faithfully. He was working for General Motors when another man from Fort Worth, Texas, happened to tell them one day about the Latin Mass. When he mentioned the man’s first name, I stopped and asked, “You’re not talking about Mr. X, are you?” The man just about fell out of his chair. He asked, “You know X?” I said, “I recently had Mass for him in Alabama.” He replied, “I have not heard from him or seen him since 1996, when I went back to California.”
We had a great conversation after that. But that wonderful opportunity, small world that this is, came when this man told me about how he got to know all about the Latin Mass and came back to Tradition. Now his son, his daughter-in-law, and their children are all involved with the True Faith; their children attend a true Catholic school. All that came about via one brief contact with someone at General Motors. Out in the world people would say this is random, a coincidence; that this is just one of those things that “sometimes happens.” But no; God in His Mysterious Providence works very wonderfully. Not a hair falls from our heads without Our Lord knowing about it.
What Do the Three Fatima Children Teach Us About the Rosary?
We must, then, remind ourselves that if we want to persevere in these difficult and confusing times, we must love the Blessed Virgin Mary. We must be very devout to her. Satan is extremely clever; he is the master of lies and deceit. He has legions at his disposal trying to undermine our faith, our spiritual life, and our families; always trying to lead us away from God via one means or another. Remind yourself that if even if you combined all the most intelligent men in the world together, that all of these brilliant minds, these “Einsteins,” would still be no match for the least devil. The devil knows our weaknesses; he knows how to tempt us. One very clever way he tempts us is by trying to cut off from our lives the means of grace we have at our disposal. One of these powerful means of grace is the Rosary. The devil knows the good that can come to us by our praying the Rosary faithfully. He will tempt you to think: “It’s so late; I’m so tired.” Or, “I have so much to do; I don’t have time for the Rosary.” Or maybe we are tempted to just put in our time, moving our lips, making the sounds, but with our minds wandering. That is tragic. It’s tragic, because the Rosary is such a powerful means to keep you on the right track.
Think of the Fatima children; of Jacinta, Lucia, and Francisco. Remember that when Our Lady first appeared to them, only Lucia and Jacinta could hear Our Blessed Mother; Francisco could not. Lucia asked her where she was from and she answered that she came from Heaven. Lucia then asked about a girl who had recently died: “Did she go to Heaven?” Our Lady said that, yes, she did. Then Lucia asked about another girl, if she also went to Heaven. But Our Lady answered that she will be in Purgatory until the end of the world. Now this latter girl was only in her teens.
Sometimes children think, “I’m just a little kid. God doesn’t expect much from me.” But what did the Angel of Portugal say to the Fatima children? “What are you doing? Pray a great deal. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications.” When Our Blessed Mother appeared to these three children in her July apparition, she showed them a vision of Hell. Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia were just children, but they became very mature. There was a spiritual seriousness about them. They had realized life is not a game; that it is not a joke. They knew that each one of us has a soul to save, that we have to get to heaven. They knew that so many souls go to hell. They soon became heroic in offering prayers and sacrifices for the conversion of sinners.
Can the Rosary and the Scapular be Used for Our Times as They Were in Bygone Eras?
So let this be a reminder and encouragement to us all. Let us be faithful to the devout recitation of the Rosary – not just merely saying it, but truly praying it. If you know anyone who is not doing God’s will, maybe not practicing their Faith, perhaps living in sin – whether it be immediate family members, relatives, or friends – get them to pray, especially the Rosary. Offer them the Scapular. If the Rosary seems too much for them, at least have them say some Hail Mary’s. If they begin to do that every day, Our Blessed Mother will do the rest. But I can only exhort you and remind myself of the power of the Holy Rosary throughout the history of the Church.
Ever since Our Lady gave the Rosary to St. Dominic around 1214, the Rosary has been the powerful means of combating heresy. Thus, at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, although the Christian fleet was outnumbered by the mighty fleet of the Turks, it was the Rosary that enabled them to gain the decisive victory. Pope St. Pius V was aware of this victory, even though he was in another city many miles away. In that moment of triumph, he stopped and said, “Let us pray and give thanks to God. We have gained the victory.” It was not until days later that word came and confirmed it was a complete victory for the Christian fleet. The Rosary was also a powerful means of combatting Communism in various countries. There are many wonderful examples of that.
When we pray the Rosary and wear Our Lady’s Scapular, we are fulfilling prophecy. Mary, the Mother of God, when she recited her beautiful prayer the Magnificat, prophesied that: “Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” (Luke 1:48). We fulfill that prophecy as Catholics when we wear her Brown Scapular, when we devoutly recite the Holy Rosary. On this Feast of the Holy Rosary, let us remind ourselves that, after the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments, praying the Rosary is a very important means of grace and perseverance.
Staying Close to Mary Throughout Life Enables Our Perseverance and Will Obtain Our Salvation
Yes, we live in very confusing times. I compare the times we live in to the time of the Crucifixion. When Jesus was dying on the Cross, it seemed that His enemies had finally conquered. They were accusing Jesus of being a fraud and an imposter: “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Come down from the Cross.” Our Lord had just a handful of His followers with Him: His Mother, His beloved disciple St. John, St. Mary Magdalene, and a few holy women. His Apostles and disciples had abandoned Him. How could this be? He was the Messias. He had worked stupendous miracles. No one had ever spoken as this Man had spoken. No one had ever done the things that this Man had done. Indeed, He was the Messias.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the miracles and wonderful events, He is being put to death, the death of crucifixion, and His enemies are taunting Him and mocking Him. Yet, we know that on the third day, Our Lord rose again as He had foretold. So too, our Holy Mother the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, undergoes a crucifixion. We see so much confusion around us, so many contradictions, so much hostility; but we must remember that we must stay close to the Blessed Virgin Mary if we would persevere to the end. As Jesus tells us, “He who perseveres to the end shall be saved.” (Matt. 24:13). In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
–Taken from the Reign of Mary Quarterly Magazine, Issue 162
