Good Sunday to one and all in the Risen Lord,
As many of you are aware our Holy Father Pope Francis has invited the Christian faithful to recite the Holy Rosary with greater devotion during this month of May imploring the salutary prayers and motherly intercession of the Holy Mother of God upon us, our nation, the world, and all victims and first responders to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Pope’s letter for the month of May and his appeal for families to take up this praiseworthy practice can be found on the Catholic News Service and zenit.org just name two Catholic news portals.
For those who are interested, I crowned the statue of our Lady yesterday morning (First Saturday) with the reliable help of one of our dedicated altar servers for the Latin Mass who God-willing will be entering St. Andrew’s College Seminary at Seton Hall this fall to begin his studies for the priesthood, please keep Marco in your prayers and all who are discerning a call to the priesthood and consecrated life as we observe the World Day of Prayer for Vocations this Sunday.
If any of you wish to decorate the altar of Our Lady or the Grotto outdoors with flowers from your yards you are most cordially invited to do so as side door of the church remains open each day for private visitation.
Today, I would like to share with you the very powerful words of the Venerable Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who preached this message about the Holy Rosary and its fruitful effects many times throughout his preaching ministry (Read about the Battle of Lepanto as well):
“Because the Hail Mary is said many times in the course of a Rosary, do not think of it as sterile repetition, because each time it is said in a different setting or scene, as you meditate, for example, on such mysteries as the Birth of Our Lord, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and so forth. You never thought, as a child, when you told your mother you loved her, that it had the same meaning as it did the last time you told her. Because the background of the affection changed, its affirmation was new. It is the same sun that rises each morning, but it makes a new day. He continues:
1. If, every day of your life, you say the Rosary devoutly, and all it implies, you will never lose your soul.
2. If you wish for peace in your heart and your family and an abundance of heavenly gifts on your household, then assemble your family each night and pray the rosary.
3. If you are anxious to convert a soul to the fullness of God’s love and life, teach that person to pray the Rosary, That person will either stop saying the Rosary, or he/she will receive the gift of faith.
4. If a sufficient army of us said the Rosary every day, the Blessed Mother would now, as in the past, obtain from her Divine Son the stilling of present tempests, the defeat of the enemies of human (Christian) civilization, and a real peace in the hearts of tired and straying men and women.
5. If the cooling of your charity has made you unhappy on the inside and critical of others, then the Rosary, through your meditation on Our Lord’s great love for you on the Cross and your Mother’s affection for you on Calvary, will rekindle your love of God and of neighbor and restore you to a peace that surpasses all understanding.
Do not think that in honoring Our Lady with the Rosary you are neglecting Our Lord. Did you ever know anyone who ignored you by being kind to your mother? If our Lord said, “Behold thy Mother,” it well behooves us to respect her whom Our Lord chose above all the creatures of the earth (Sheen’s, The Cries of Jesus from the Cross: An Anthology, 160-161).
Sheen was fond of saying that if upon meeting Our Lord in Heaven one day, he hoped that Lord would say to him, “Oh, I know you, my Mother always told me about you.”
As I pray my rosary each day, I do so for all of you, your family members, and all your intentions.
In the Sacred Heart of Jesus and with Our Lady Queen of the Holy Rosary,
Fr. Damian Breen
