46th Rose. Continuation.
133) Louis the Just, in happy memory,
besieging La Rochela, where the revolutionary heretics had their forts, wrote
to the Queen, his mother, for public prayers to be made for the prosperity of
his army. The Queen decided to organize public Rosaries in the Church of
the Preaching Brothers in the San Honorato neighborhood of Paris, which the
Archbishop carried out with the greatest care. This devotion was started
on May 20, 1628.
The Queen Mother and Queen Regent
attended, as well as the Duke of Orleans, the eminent Cardinals de la
Rochefoucault and de Berulle, many prelates, the entire court and an
innumerable multitude of people. The Archbishop read aloud the meditations
on the mysteries of the Rosary and then began the Lord's Prayer and the Hail
Mary of each ten, which the religious and assistants answered. After the
Rosary, the image of the Blessed Virgin was carried in procession, singing her
litanies.
This devotion was continued every
Saturday with admirable fervor and evident blessing from heaven, as the King
triumphed over the English on the island of Re and entered La Rochela
victoriously on All Saints' Day of the same year; which shows the power of
public prayer.
134) Finally, the Rosary recited
in community is much more terrible for the devil, since an army corps is
constituted by such means to attack him. It triumphs, sometimes with ease, of
the particular prayer, but if it is joined to that of others, then with
great difficulty it will be able to achieve its purpose. It is easy to
break a wand, but if you join it to another and make a bundle, you will not be
able to break it. "Vis unita fit fortior." Soldiers unite in the army
corps to fight their enemies, the bad guys often unite for their excesses and
their dances, the demons themselves unite to lose us; Why, then, should
Christians not unite to be in the company of Jesus Christ, to appease the wrath
of God, to obtain his grace and mercy, ¿and to overcome and more powerfully
strike down demons? Beloved confreres of the Rosary, whether you live in
the city or in the countryside, near the parish church or a chapel, go to it at
least every afternoon and, with the permission of the rector of said parish and
in the company of those who wish, pray the Rosary to two choirs; do the same in
your home or in that of any individual in the town, if you do not have the
comfort of the church or chapel.
135) It is a holy practice that God, by
his mercy, established in the places where he resigned, to preserve and
increase the fruit and prevent sin. In those towns and villages, before
establishing the Rosary, only dances, excesses, dissolution, immodesty, oaths,
quarrels and divisions were seen; only dishonest songs and double meaning words
were heard. At present we only hear the songs and the chanting of the Lord's Prayer
and the Hail Mary, only holy companies of twenty, thirty, one hundred and more
people are seen who sing the praises of God as religious at a given hour.
There are also places where the Rosary
is prayed daily in community at three times of the day. What a blessing
from heaven! As there are reprobate everywhere, do not doubt that there
are in the places where you live some bad people who will disdain to come to
your Rosary, who will ridicule you perhaps and even do everything they can,
with their bad words and examples, to prevent you from continuing this holy exercise; but
resist. As such wretches must be forever separated from God and from his
paradise in hell, it is necessary that here on earth they separate themselves
from Jesus Christ and from his servants and servants.
47th Rose
136) Separate yourselves from the
wicked, people of God, predestined souls, and to escape and save yourselves
from the midst of those who condemn themselves for their impiety, indevocation
and idleness, decide, without loss of time, to pray the Holy Rosary
frequently, with faith, with humility, with confidence and with
perseverance.
Whoever seriously thinks about the
command of Jesus Christ that we always pray, in his example, in the immense
needs that we have for prayer because of our darkness, ignorance and weakness
and because of the multitude of our enemies, will certainly not be satisfied
with pray the Rosary once a year, as ordered by the Brotherhood of the
Perpetual Rosary, not every week, as that of the ordinary Rosary prescribes,
but will pray it every day, without missing one, as the Brotherhood of the
Daily Rosary indicates, although not has another obligation than to save
himself.
Oportet, it is necessary, semper orare,
pray always, et non deficere (7), not stop praying.
137) These are the eternal words
of Jesus Christ, who is forced to believe and practice, under penalty of
condemnation. Explain them as you wish, as long as you do not explain them
in fashion, so as not to practice them in fashion. Jesus Christ gave us
his true explanation in the examples that he has left us: "Exemplum dedi
vobis, ut quemadmodum ego feci, ita et vos faciatis" (Example I have given
to you so that as I do it in the same way you can do it) (8). "Erat
pernoctans in oratione Dei" (9). As if the day was not enough for
him, he used the night in prayer.
He frequently repeated these two words
to his Apostles: "Vigilate et orate" (10). Watch and pray.
The flesh is weak, the temptation
proximate and continuous. If you don't always pray, you will fall. Since they
believed that what Our Lord was telling them was only for advice, they
interpreted these words in fashion and for that reason they fell into
temptation and sin, even when they were in the company of Jesus Christ.
138) If you want to live, beloved
brother, in fashion and condemn yourself to fashion; That is to say, if you
compromise with falling into mortal sin from time to time, thinking of going to
confession later, if you avoid gross and scandalous sins and preserve the
appearances of good manhood, so many prayers are not necessary, nor that you
pray so many Rosaries; A little prayer in the morning and in the afternoon, a
few Rosaries that are imposed on you in penance and a few dozen Hail Marys when
you feel like it, are enough to appear before the world as a Christian. If
you did less, you would approach debauchery; if you did more, you would
approach the exception, the prudishness.
139) But if, as a true Christian who
really wants to save himself and walk on the path of the saints, you want not
to fall into mortal sin in any way, break all bonds and extinguish all the
flaming darts of the devil, it is necessary that you pray always as Jesus
Christ taught.
Therefore, it is necessary, at least,
that you pray the Rosary or other equivalent prayers daily.
And I repeat "at least"
because that will be the fruit that you will get by praying the Rosary every
day: avoiding all mortal sins and overcoming all temptations, in the midst of
the torrents of iniquity in the world, which frequently drag the most
secure; in the midst of thick darkness, which frequently blinds the most
enlightened, in the midst of evil spirits, who, more skillful than ever and
with less time to tempt, do so with greater skill and success.
¡Oh, what a wonder of the grace of the
Holy Rosary! To be able to escape from the world, the devil and the flesh
and save yourself to heaven!
140) If you don't want to believe what
I tell you, believe in your own experience. I ask you if when you only prayed a
little, as it is done in the world and in the way it is ordinarily done, you
could avoid serious faults and great sins that, because of your blindness,
seemed small to you. Open, then, your eyes, and to live and die holy, sinless,
to the
less mortal, pray always, pray the
Rosary every day, as the confreres did once when the Confraternity was
established. The Blessed Virgin, when giving it to Santo Domingo, ordered him
to pray it and have him pray every day; and the Saint did not receive anyone in
the Brotherhood unless he was determined to pray it daily. If, now, in the
Brotherhood of the ordinary Rosary, more than one Rosary per week is not
required, it is because fervor has died down and charity has cooled. From this
it follows that it can be said of those who say little: "Non fuit ab
initio sic" (11). It is also necessary to note three things.
141) The first, that, if you wish to
enroll in the Brotherhood of the Rosary every day and participate in the
prayers and merits of those who are in it, it is not enough to be enrolled in
the Brotherhood of the ordinary Rosary or to only take the resolution to pray
the Rosary. every day; It is also necessary to give your name to those who
have the power to register you; and it is convenient to confess and
receive communion on the occasion of being received by confreres for this
intention. The reason for the aforementioned warning is that the ordinary
Rosary does not involve the everyday, but the everyday Rosary implies the
ordinary.
The second thing to keep in mind is
that there is absolutely no sin, not even venial, in failing to pray the Rosary
daily, weekly, or yearly.
And the third, that when illness,
legitimate obedience, necessity or involuntary forgetfulness cause you not to
be able to pray the Rosary, you do not stop having its merit and you do not
lose the participation in the Rosaries of the other confreres; and therefore it
is not necessary at all that the next day you recite two Rosaries to make up
for the one you have missed, without your fault as I suppose. If, however, your
illness allows you to pray a part of the Rosary, you must pray it. "Beati
qui stant coram te semper." "Beati qui habitant in domo tua, Domine,
in saecula saeculorum laudabunt te" (Blessed are those who dwell in your
house, Lord, for ever and ever shall they praise you) (12): Blessed, O Jesus,
our Lord, the brothers of the daily Rosary,that every day they are around you
and in your little house in Nazareth around your cross on Calvary and around
your throne in heaven, to meditate and contemplate your joyful, painful and
glorious mysteries. ¡Oh, how happy they are on earth for the special graces you
communicate to them and how happy they will be in heaven, ¡where they will
praise you in a special way forever and ever! 142) Furthermore, it is necessary
to pray the Rosary with faith, according to the words of Jesus Christ:
"Credite quia accipietis et fiet vobis" (13): Believe that you will
receive from God what you ask him, and he will listen to you. He will tell you:
"Sicut credidisti, fiat tibi" (14). Be done as you have believed.
"Si quis indiget sapientiam, postulet a Deo; postulet autem in fide nihil
haesitans" (15): If anyone needs wisdom, let him ask God for it in faith,
without hesitation, praying the Rosary, and it will be given to you.
143) It is also necessary to pray
with humility, like the publican who was with both knees on the ground, and
not with one knee in the air or on a bench, like the worldly; I was
at the back of the church, and not in
the sanctuary, like the Pharisee; His eyes were lowered to the ground, not
daring to look at the sky, and not with his head raised, looking here and
there, like the Pharisee; and beat his chest confessing a sinner and
asking forgiveness: "Propitius esto mihi peccatori" (16), and not
like the Pharisee, who boasted of his good works, despising others
in your prayers. Beware of the
proud prayer of the Pharisee that made him more hardened and
cursed; imitate, instead, the humility of the publican in his prayer,
which obtained the remission
of their sins.
Be careful not to tend towards the
extraordinary and not to ask for and desire extraordinary knowledge, visions,
revelations and other miraculous graces that have sometimes been communicated
to certain saints in the recitation of the Rosary. "Sola fides
sufficit" (17), faith alone is sufficient today, since the Gospel and all
devotions and practices of piety are sufficiently established.
Never omit the slightest part of the
Rosary in your discouragement, dryness and interior decay; that would be a
sign of pride and infidelity; but, as brave champions
of Jesus and Mary, without seeing,
feeling, or liking anything, pray the Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary in the midst
of all your dryness, thinking the best you can of the mysteries.
Do not want the children's chocolates
and sweets to eat your daily bread, and to imitate Jesus Christ more perfectly
in his agony, prolong your Rosary when you have more work to pray it: "Factus
in agonia prolixius orabat" (18); so that what Jesus said when he was
in the throes of prayer may apply to you: he prayed longer.
144) Finally, pray with great
confidence, founded on the infinite goodness and liberality of God and on the
promises of Jesus Christ. God is a spring of living water that flows into the
hearts of those who pray. Jesus Christ is the breast of the Eternal Father,
filled with the milk of grace and truth; the greatest desire of the Eternal
Father in relation to us is to communicate to us the healthy waters of his
grace and mercy; and exclaims: "Omnes sitientes venite ad aquas"
(19): Come and drink my waters through prayer; and when he is not asked, he
laments that he is abandoned: "Me dereliquerunt fontem aquae vivae"
(20). Great pleasure is given to Jesus Christ by asking for his graces; and
still greater satisfaction that gives natural mothers to give their children
the nectar of their breasts. Prayer is the channel of God's grace and as the
maternal breast of Jesus Christ. If it is not resorted to as all the children
of God should, Jesus Christ lovingly complains: "Usque Modo non petistis
quidquam, petite et accipietis, quaerite et invenietis, pulste et aperietur
vobis" (21): Until now you have asked me nothing: ask me and I will give
you, seek and you will find, knock on my door, I will open it for you. And to
encourage us more to pray to him with confidence, he pledges his word that the
Eternal Father will grant us whatever we ask in his name: in the name of
Jesus.Until now you have asked nothing of me: ask me and I will give you, seek
and you will find, knock on my door, I will open it for you. And to encourage
us more to pray to him with confidence, he pledges his word that the Eternal
Father will grant us whatever we ask in his name: in the name of Jesus.Until
now you have asked nothing of me: ask me and I will give you, seek and you will
find, knock on my door, I will open it for you. And to encourage us more to
pray to him with confidence, he pledges his word that the Eternal Father will
grant us whatever we ask in his name: in the name of Jesus.
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