Rosary: October 2009 Archives

German artist Hans Baldung Grien depicts a prosperous young fellow wearing what appears to be a velvet coat with a warm fur collar. The pearl grey cap nicely sets off his reddish hair and picks up the grey blue of his eyes. The young man's Rosary beads are, in some way, central to the whole painting. The hand emerging from the russet sleeve draws the eye to the beads. He is right in the middle of a decade of the Rosary, having completed five Aves. His Rosary, with the large pearl grey Pater bead is beautifully crafted; it looks, in fact, like it might have come from The Rosary Workshop.

If you allow your eye to travel up from the large Pater bead to the very top of the painting you will discover there the image of an owl attacking a bird on a branch. What is the painter saying? Is he intimating that the prayer of the Rosary comes between the soul, depicted by the bird, and the attacks of the devil, represented by the owl, a bird of the night? Is he suggesting that the young man is using the Rosary to pray his way out a conflict? Perhaps. But another meaning is also possible. The owl can be an image of Christ who chooses to hide Himself in the dark night of faith. He comes not to attack the soul praying like a bird on a branch, but to make His mystic presence known.

I, for one, do not see conflict on the young man's face. It seems to me that he is pondering one of the mysteries of the Rosary, even as he ponders his own future. The beads passing through his fingers bespeak the passage of time. Perhaps, the Rosary has induced him to make a change in his life? Will he forsake his fashionable coat and cap for the habit of monastic conversion?

One wonders if the Rosary was not for him the means of a gradual conversion. Nothing attacks the knotty roots of the seven capital sins as effectively as the prayer of the Rosary. The Rosary is the undoing of Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Anger, and Sloth.

An old confessor of mine, Father Cajetan Sheehan, O.P., after every confession used to ask, "Do you pray the Rosary, son?" "Yes, Father," I would reply. "Good, son. Then everything will turn out alright. Pray the Rosary." I imagine this young man's confessor said the very same thing to him.

Blessed Bartolo Longo

There is a marvelous figure of holiness inscribed on the calendar today: Blessed Bartolo Longo, the great Apostle of the Rosary and the founder of the shrine of the Madonna of the Rosary at Pompei in Italy. Born in 1841, Blessed Longo died in 1926. He was a contemporary of Saint Faustina. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1980. Several times in his pontificate, Pope John Paul II called our attention to the example of this holy layman, calling him “l’uomo della Madonna,” Our Lady’s man.

Divine Mercy Displayed

Blessed Bartolo Longo’s story is a dramatic illustration of Divine Mercy. The mystery of Mercy announced by Saint Faustina played itself out in the life of Blessed Longo. As a young man, following studies in Law, Bartolo Longo abandoned his faith and allowed himself to be drawn into paths of great spiritual darkness. He practiced spiritism, found himself entrenched in the occult, and became a practicing Satanist. Longo went so far as to have himself ordained a priest of Satan. He very nearly lost his sanity, becoming a mere shadow of himself.

Spiritually Sick

In one particular séance Longo was distressed to see the face of the deceased king of Naples and the Two Sicilies: Ferdinand II. That same night he saw the soul of his mother circling his bed, begging him to return to the Catholic faith. His practice of the occult had so affected him that he was barely recognizable to those who once knew him as a handsome young man, full of vitality and promise. A Catholic friend, seeing him in such a pitiful spiritual, psychological, and physical state, begged him to at least meet with Father Radente, a wise Dominican priest. After some time, Longo made a thorough confession and, under the direction of this priest, began the reform of his life. He entered the Third Order of Saint Dominic, receiving the name, Brother Rosario.

Conversion and Healing

Bartolo’s Dominican spiritual father told him that the Mother of God promised that anyone who promoted her Rosary would assuredly be saved. The rest of Blessed Barolo’s life was dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary. The Rosary was his lifeline. The Rosary was the anchor of his salvation. The Rosary was the means by which the Holy Mother of God brought him back from hell. It was through the prayer of the Rosary that the Blessed Virgin healed his soul, restored him to health, and entrusted him with a mission. Later Blessed Bartolo wrote, “What is my vocation? To write about Mary, to have Mary praised, to have Mary loved.”

Rosary Apostolate

Blessed Longo reached out to the desperately poor, ignorant, and needy people of the town of Pompei. He taught them to pray the Rosary. The Rosary did for that entire town what it had done for him in his personal life; it brought healing, refreshment, holiness, joy, and peace. With the help of the Countess Mariana de Fusco whom he later married on the advice of Pope Leo XIII, while preserving with her his vow of chastity, Bartolo Longo undertook the construction of the church of the Madonna of the Rosary of Pompei. The city that grew up around it became the City of the Rosary.

He founded a congregation of Dominican Sisters to care for the poor. He established a school for boys. He wrote tirelessly in the service of Madonna and of her Rosary. His beautiful supplication to the Madonna of the Rosary has been translated into countless languages. Pope John Paul II prayed it when, on October 7, 2003, he visited Pompei to conclude the Year of the Rosary. In Italy, every year on the first Sunday of October, everything comes to a halt at noon while people, young and old, poor and rich, healthy and sick, pause to pray Blessed Longo’s supplication to the Virgin of the Rosary.

Divine Mercy Available to All

Saint Faustina made known the mystery of Divine Mercy. Blessed Bartolo Longo experienced Divine Mercy in a dramatic and deeply personal way. The same Divine Mercy is available to us: the mercy that brings back from hell, the mercy that raises the soul from spiritual death, the mercy that heals, restores, forgives, and repairs the past.

The Divine Mercy comes to us through the intercession of the Mother of God and, most efficaciously, through the humble prayer of the Rosary. It comes to us in the Sacrament of Penance: the mystery of the blood and the water from the side of Christ washing over the soul. And the Divine Mercy comes to us in the mystery of the Eucharist. The Mass is the real presence of Crucified Love. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is Divine Mercy flowing from the Heart of the Lamb, making saints out of sinners.