Rosary: October 2008 Archives

One of Barbara Pym's characters -- I don't remember which one -- sometimes exclaims, "Too much richness!" Exactly my sentiments concerning this past weekend! There was altogether too much going on: the Synod in Rome with the Ecumenical Patriarch's extraordinary address, the Holy Father's visit to the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Rosario at Pompei, the beatification of Louis and Zélie Martin at Lisieux, and the feasts of Saint Philip Howard, of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, of Blessed Agnès de Langeac, and of Saint Paul of the Cross. Finally, I decided to translate the Holy Father's address at Pompei for the dear readers of Vultus Christi. Here it is:

A Gift from the Heart of Our Lady

Before entering the Sanctuary to recite the Holy Rosary together with you, I paused briefly before the tomb of Blessed Bartolo Longo and, praying, I asked myself: "Whence did this great apostle of Mary draw the energy and constancy necessary to bring to completion so imposing a work, now known in all the world? Is it not from the Rosary that he received as a true gift from the heart of Our Lady?"

The School of the Virgin

Yes, it was really so! The experience of the saints witnesses to this: this popular Marian prayer is a precious spiritual means to grow in intimacy with Jesus and learn, at the school of the Holy Virgin, to carry out always the Divine Will.

The Rosary is contemplation of the mysteries of Christ in spiritual union with Mary, as the Servant of God Paul VI emphasized in the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, and then, as my venerated predecessor John Paul II amply illustrated in the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, which, ideally, I give again to the community of Pompei and to each one of you.

Authentic Apostles of the Rosary

You who live and work here at Pompei, especially you, dear priests, religious, and layfolk engaged in this singular portion of the Church, are called -- all of you -- to make the charism of Blessed Bartolo Longo your own and to become, in the measure and in the ways granted by God to each one, authentic apostles of the Holy Rosary.

Contemplate the Face of Christ

But, in order to be apostles of the Rosary, it is necessary to experience first hand the beauty and depth of this prayer that is simple and accessible to all. It is, above all, necessary to allow oneself to be led by the hand of the Holy Virgin to contemplate the Face of Christ: His joyful, luminous, sorrowful, and glorious Face.

One who, like Mary and together with her, assiduously keeps and meditates the mysteries of Jesus, assimilates His sentiments more and more, and is conformed to Him. It pleases me, in this regard, to quote a beautiful consideration of Blessed Bartolo Longo.

Familiarity with Jesus and Mary

"Just as two friends," he writes, "going about frequently together, are wont to conform themselves to each other in their manners, so too do we, conversing familiarly with Jesus and the Virgin in the meditation of the Mysteries of the Rosary, and forming together one and the same life by means of communion with them, become like them, whatever be our lowliness, and learn from these consummate examples how to live humbly, in poverty, in hiddenness, patience, and perfection."

Contemplation and Silence

The Rosary is a school of contemplation and of silence. At a first glance, it may seem like a prayer that accumulates words, one that it is difficult to reconcile with the silence rightly required for meditation and contemplation. In reality, the cadenced repetition of the Ave Maria does not disturb interior silence; on the contrary it calls it forth and sustains it.

Akin to the Divine Office

It is analogous to what happens with the psalms when one prays the Liturgy of the Hours. Silence flowers through the words and the phrases, not as a void, but as a presence of their ultimate meaning, which goes beyond the words themselves and, together with them, speaks to the heart.

Like the Whisper of a Gentle Breeze

Thus, in reciting the Ave Marias, one must pay attention in such wise that our voices do not "cover" the voice of God, which always speaks through silence, like "the whisper of a gentle breeze" (1 K 19:12).

Interior Silence in the Recitation of the Rosary

How important it is, then, to foster this silence full of God, be it in personal or communal recitation [of the Rosary]. Even when it happens that the Rosary is prayed in great assemblies, as we did, and as is done each day in this Sanctuary, it is necessary that the Rosary be perceived as a contemplative prayer, and this cannot happen if a climate of interior silence is lacking.

The Rosary: Response to the Word of God

I should like to add another reflection relative to the Word of God in the Rosary. This is particularly opportune at this period in which the Synod of Bishops on the theme "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church" is taking place in the Vatican. If Christian contemplation cannot prescind from the Word of God, so too must the Rosary, if it is to be a contemplative prayer, emerge always from the silence of the heart as a response to the Word, modeled after the prayer of Mary.

Woven of Sacred Scripture

Considered well, one sees that the Rosary is entirely woven of Sacred Scripture. There is, first of all, the enunciation of the mystery, preferably done with words drawn from the Bible. Then follows the Our Father: by impressing upon our prayer its vertical orientation, it opens the mind of one reciting the Rosary to the correct filial attitude: "When you pray, say Father . . ." (Lk 11:2). The first part of the Hail Mary, also drawn from the Gospel, makes us each time hear anew the words with which God addressed the Virgin through the Angel, and the blessing of her cousin, Elizabeth. The second part of the Hail Mary resounds as the response of children who, in addressing petitions to their Mother, do nothing other than express their own adhesion to the saving plan revealed by God. In this way, the thought of the one praying remains always anchored to Scripture and to the mysteries presented therein.

Charity and Peace

Finally, remembering that today we are celebrating the World Day of Missions, I am pleased to recall the apostolic dimension of the Rosary, a dimension that Blessed Bartolo Longo lived intensely, drawing from it inspiration to undertake here in this place so many works of charity and of human and social promotion. Moreover, he wished that this Sanctuary should be open to the entire world, as a centre of irradiation of the prayer of the Rosary and a place of intercession for peace among peoples. Dear friends, I desire to confirm both of these aims -- the apostolate of charity and prayer for peace-- and I entrust them to your spiritual and pastoral labours. Following the example, and with the support of your venerated Founder, do not grow weary of working with passion in this part of the vineyard of the Lord for which the Madonna has shown a special love.

Farewell

Dear brothers and sisters, the moment has come for me to take leave of you and of this beautiful Sanctuary. I thank you for the warm welcome and, above all, for your prayers. I thank the Archbishop Prelate and Pontifical Delegate and his collaborators, and those who worked to prepare my visit so well. I must leave you, but my heart remains close to this place and to this community. I entrust you all to the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary, and to each one, from the heart, I impart my Apostolic Blessing.

Telling One's Beads Over Saint Luke's Gospel

I have always thought the Rosary a particularly Lukan prayer. So many of the mysteries are drawn from Saint Luke's Gospel. It is Saint Luke who gives us the Gospel of the Holy Spirit; the Gospel of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary; the Gospel of the liturgical canticles sung by the Church at sunrise, eventide, and nightfall; the Gospel of the Angels; the Gospel of mercy.

The Face of Christ

But there is more. According to tradition, Saint Luke was an iconographer. I very much like this painting of Luke painting! He seems to have just completed his image of the Virgin Mother with the Infant Christ. An Angel looks on approvingly. Could it be Saint Gabriel, the Archangel who figures so prominently in the first chapters of Saint Luke's Gospel? The Evangelist is showing us his painting and inviting us to contemplate the Mother and the Child. The Rosary is just that: a contemplation of the Face of Christ and of the Mother who presents Him to the eyes of the soul.

Veni, veni de Libano

The Rosary, like the Psalter it parallels, grows with the one who prays it. It is like the manna in the desert that accommodated itself to the taste of each one. There are seasons in each man's life with God, and the garden of the Rosary changes with these seasons. The Rosary is especially valuable in times of dryness; it becomes a way of inviting Our Blessed Lady into one's desert. When Mary comes into the dry and weary land of our soulscapes, she irrigates it with the grace of her presence, causing it to blossom like the rose.

Saint Luke, Evangelist

2 Timothy 4: 10-17a
Psalm 144: 10-11, 12-13ab, 17-18 (R: cf. 12)
Luke 10:1-9

The Evangelist

Saint Luke comes to us today as the evangelist of the Holy Spirit, as the evangelist of the little and of the poor, the evangelist of the Virgin Mary, and of the holy angels. He comes to us as the iconographer of the healing Christ, the Divine Physician of our souls and bodies. Saint Luke comes to us as the advocate and friend of the women disciples of the Lord, and as the witness of the Acts of the Apostles and of the life of the infant Church. He comes to us as the poet of the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Nunc Dimittis, as the evangelist of the sacred liturgy, the one who closes his Gospel with the radiant image of a joyful Church semper in templo benedicentes Deum, “continually in the temple blessing God” (Lk 24:52).

Iconographer of the Holy Mother of God

According to an old tradition, Saint Luke, in addition to being a physician (Col 4:14), was a painter. It is recounted that Saint Luke depicted the Virgin Mother with the Infant Christ in three icons. He showed them to her. The Mother of God looked at them with joy and then blessed them, saying, “May the grace of Him to Whom I gave birth be within them.” The iconography of Saint Luke himself makes for a fascinating study; he is nearly always portrayed painting the Blessed Virgin and her Son. Paintings of a saint painting!

Saint Luke at the Cross

I know also of one painting of Saint Luke, different from all others and profoundly moving. It is by the Spanish artist Francisco Zurbaràn and dates from 1660. Zurbaràn shows Saint Luke standing on Calvary; he is holding one of his paintings in his hands and contemplating Jesus Crucified with rapt attention. Saint Luke is memorizing the scene so as to depict it in a painting, just as he depicts it in his Gospel.

A Rosary of Icons

Open the Gospel of Saint Luke and what do you see? Icons of the Virgin Mother and the Child Christ, of the healing Christ, of Christ in prayer, of the suffering Christ, of the Crucified Christ, and of the mysterious risen Christ appearing on the road to Emmaus. These Gospel icons, written by Saint Luke with an extraordinary spiritual sensitivity, invite us to the contemplation of the Face of Christ in much the same way, as do the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary.

The Lectio Divina of the Icon

Irish Benedictine Dom Gregory Collins has written an extraordinary little book on icons: “The Icons and Lectio Divina: Ancient and Post Modern Insights.” Dom Gregory applies the four moments of lectio divina to the practice of prayer before an icon. Lectio becomes a reading of the imagery, an attempt to “receive” the message it expresses through colour and form.

Meditatio takes the images received and turns them over in the mind; it can also mean focusing on a single detail of the icon: the face, the eyes, a hand, a gesture. Meditatio before an icon allows one to linger for a long time in the transforming presence of the light of God. “We all,” says Saint Paul, “with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).

Oratio is the prayer that, like a flame, shoots up in the heart. Gazing upon the icon, like repeating the sacred text, feeds the flame of oratio. Finally, one is surprised by a holy stillness. The “fiery darts of prayer” are absorbed into something more obscure: contemplatio. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12).

Dom Gregory’s insights may help us to read the Gospel of Saint Luke more deeply, searching on each page for the icon that slowly emerges from between the lines and behind the words, becoming visible to the eyes of faith. “It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me” (Ps 26:8-9).

We Become What We Contemplate

Philosophers, psychologists and saints agree that we become what we contemplate. Look at goodness and you will become good. Look at beauty and you will become beautiful. Look at truth and you will become true. Look at purity and you will become pure. Saint Clare of Assisi, herself so marked by Gospel of Saint Luke, wrote to Agnes of Prague: “Gaze upon Him, consider Him, contemplate Him, as you desire to imitate Him” (Second Letter to Agnes of Prague).

Contemplating the Mysteries With Saint Luke

Understood in this way, the contemplation of the “icons” of Saint Luke’s Gospel, especially through the prayer of the Rosary, is transforming. The Rosary is, I have always believed, a uniquely Lukan prayer. Consider Saint Luke’s icon of the Annunciation (Lk 1:26 38) and, with Mary, become “Yes” to the Word. Look at the Visitation (Lk 1:39 56) and learn the language of Mary’s praise. Look at the Child lying in the manger (Lk 2:16) and become little and poor.

Look at the merciful Christ (Lk 4:40 - 5:26) and become merciful; at the healing Christ (Lk 7:1-10) and become an instrument of healing; at the solitary Christ in prayer (Lk 11:1), and learn to converse with the Father.

Look at the icon of Christ in Gethsemane (Lk 22:39-46), agonizing and comforted by an angel, and enter into his submission to the Father’s will. Look at the crucified Jesus (Lk 23:33-47) and learn from him to forgive and to show mercy, even in the hour of darkness. Look at the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-32) and know that he walks with you always, opening the Scriptures, breaking the Bread, causing your hearts to burn with a mysterious fire. Finally, look at the icon of the Church in the last sentence of Saint Luke’s Gospel -- “They were continually in the temple blessing God” (Lk 24:53) -- and learn to bless God always and everywhere, learn to give the last word to praise.

To the Altar

The Benedictine vocation is that of the Church in the temple at Jerusalem: to bless. The transformation that begins in the contemplation of Saint Luke’s Rosary of Gospel icons is perfected, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Prayer at Noon

For Catholics in Italy and throughout the world, tomorrow, Sunday, 5 October 2008, marks the return of an appointment with the Supplica, the passionate supplication to the Madonna of the Rosary, born in the heart of Blessed Bartolo Longo. This year the Supplica -- always prayed at noon on the first Sunday of October -- falls on the liturgical memorial of Blessed Bartolo Longo, a day he shares with Saint Faustina Kowalska.

The celebration at Pompeii will begin with a Solemn Vigil of Prayer this evening. At 8:00 p.m. there will be a procession with the relics of Blessed Longo. At midnight, His Grace, Archbishop. Carlo Liberati, pontifical delegate for Pompeii, will celebrate Holy Mass. The Vigil of Prayer will continue through the night. Italian television will cover the recitation of the Supplica beginning at 10:45. His Excellency, Msgr. Elio Sgreccia, president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life, will offer Holy Mass preceding recitation of the prayer that has won signal graces for so many souls.

125th Anniversary of the Supplica

Blessed Bartolo Long wrote his inspired petition to the Queen of the Holy Rosary 125 years ago, in 1883. The lengthy supplication has lost nothing of its power to soften even the most hardened hearts; it continues to obtain graces in abundance from the hands of the Madonna of the Rosary. It is a prayer for all peoples and for universal peace, a prayer for the whole Church: for the Holy Father and the bishops, for priests, deacons, and the lay faithful of every state in life, with their special intentions, their burdens, and their hopes.

The Supplica is, of all Blessed Bartolo Longo's published prayers to the Mother of God, the most famous. Its incandescent words have opened countless souls to the merciful love of Christ through the all-powerful intercession of His Mother.

The Supplica is a prayer that people have made their own. It is known on every continent; it has been translated into hundreds of languages. No authority ever imposed it, it is not part of the liturgy of the Church, it was never submitted to revision by ICEL, and yet, it has become universal. Sociologists of religion, take note! Translators of liturgical texts, wake up and smell the Neapolitan coffee!

A Prayer of the Heart

Certain rationalistic types sniff with disdain at the Supplica. They see it as representative of an unenlightened, sentimental, southern Italian piety bordering on superstition. They find its emphases embarrassing, its display of emotion unnerving.

Rich in Sentiment

The literary style of Blessed Bartolo Longo is the expression of his own character. He was capable of gentleness and of passion. He was, like all meridionals, rich in sentiment and quick to express it both in song and in tears. He was moved, before all else, by the reason of the heart.

The Discovery of Truth Through Love

Blessed Bartolo Longo, a Dominican Tertiary, was a lover of Truth; but his particular grace was the discovery of Truth through love. He found Truth, not in syllogisms and in concepts, but in the Heart and on the Face of the Word Made Flesh in the womb of the Virgin, and held in her arms.

The Prayer of One Delivered From Evil

The Rosary was the means by which, at the age of twenty-eight, a confused and desperate Avvocato Bartolo Longo -- a practicing Satanist and medium at the time -- was converted to the Truth and delivered from the powers of darkness. He vowed that he would spend his life proclaiming to others the Rosary's liberating and healing power. This is why, at the end of the Supplica, he exclaims: "O blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain which unites us to God, bond of love which unites us to the angels, tower of salvation against the assaults of hell, safe port in our universal shipwreck, we shall never abandon you."

Bound to Mary by the Rosary

Even pious folks may find the Supplica a bit too baroque, a bit overdone. It may be the Borboni southern Italian blood (mixed with Irish) that runs hot in my veins, but I love the Supplica and I plan on saying it with thousands of other people at noon tomorrow. It is the prayer of a man very like myself: a poor sinner who fears nothing when he holds the Rosary in his hands, knowing that the Mother of God holds her end of the chain, and will not let it go.

Here is the text: