CONTINUATION OF THE
ROSE 46
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 most 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 united to that of the 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 cannot 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 country, 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 all those who wish, pray the
Rosary to two choirs; do the same in your home or in that of a private
individual in 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 reprobates everywhere,
do not doubt that there are
the places where
you live some bad people who will despise coming to your Rosary, who will
perhaps ridicule you 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 from Jesus
Christ and his servants and handmaids.
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 Confraternity 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
Confraternity 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"
(8). "Erat
pernoctans in
oratione Dei "(9). (I have given you an example that just as I did, you
also do it) 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 deadly, always
pray, 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 in the Brotherhood
none as he was not
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). This was
not the case at the beginning.
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 pray 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" (12): Blessed, oh Jesus, our Lord, the
brothers of the daily Rosary, who are around you every day 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. ¿now happy they are on earth for the special graces you convey to
them and how happy they will be in heaven, ¡where you will be praised 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 with faith, without hesitation, praying the Rosary, and it will be
given to him.
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; 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). (They
left Me who am the source of living water) 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.quaerite et invenietis,
pulste et aperietur vobis "(21): 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. his word that the Eternal Father will grant us whatever we ask
in his name: in the name of Jesus.quaerite et invenietis, pulste et aperietur
vobis "(21): 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. his
word that the Eternal Father will grant us whatever we ask in his name: in the
name of Jesus.
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