The Rosary is a beautiful prayer during which we meditate on events in the lives of Jesus and Mary. Its purpose is to bring us ever closer to Jesus, Our Lord and Savior. The Rosary has been called “The Gospel of Jesus Christ on a string of beads.”
Fr. Donald Calloway writes: “In 1208 [St.Dominic] retreated into the silence of the Prouille forest near the town of Fanjeaux, France, to pray, begging Heaven to come to his aid and give him what he needed to overcome the Albigensians. After three days of intense prayer, fasting, and penitential acts, the Queen of Heaven came to his assistance. According to ancient accounts, on the third day, a ball of fire and three holy angels appeared in the sky, after which the Virgin Mary spoke to St. Dominic. She informed him that his efforts in preaching had been noble, but it was the Ave Maria that would give his preaching power. The Queen of Heaven informed him: ‘Wonder not that until now you have obtained so little fruit by your labors; you have spent them on a barren soil not yet watered with the dew of divine grace. When God willed to renew the face of the earth, He began by sending down on it the fertilizing rain of the Angelic Salutation [“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!”; see Luke 1:28]. Therefore preach my Psalter.’” (Note: The “Marian Psalter” was 150 Hail Marys prayed which mirrored the praying of the 150 Psalms.)
“Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother” (St. Padre Pio).
Saint Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche received the following 15 promises from Our Lady for those who faithfully pray the Rosary:
Fifteen Promises of the Rosary
1. To all those who shall pray my Rosary devoutly, I promise my special protection and great graces.
2. Those who shall persevere in the recitation of my Rosary will receive some special grace.
3. The Rosary will be a very powerful armor against hell; it will destroy vice, deliver from sin and dispel heresy.
4. The Rosary will make virtue and good works flourish, and will obtain for souls the most abundant divine mercies. It will draw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.
5. Those who trust themselves to me through the Rosary will not perish.
6. Whoever recites my Rosary, devoutly reflecting on the mysteries, shall never be overwhelmed by misfortune. He will not experience the anger of God, nor will he perish by an unprovided death. The sinner will be converted; the just will persevere in grace and merit eternal life.
7. Those truly devoted to my Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
8. Those who are faithful to recite my Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces and will share in the merits of the blessed.
9. I will deliver promptly from purgatory souls devoted to my Rosary.
10. True children of my Rosary will enjoy great glory in heaven.
11. What you shall ask through my Rosary, you shall obtain.
12. To those who propagate my Rosary, I promise aid in all their necessities.
13. I have obtained from my Son that all the members of the Rosary Confraternity shall have as their intercessors, in life and in death, the entire celestial court.
14. Those who recite my Rosary faithfully are my beloved children, the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.
15. Devotion to my Rosary is a special sign of predestination.
NOTE: “…[W]hen God ‘establishes his eternal plan of “predestination,” he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 600). Thus, anyone who is finally saved will have been predestined by God because it was God’s predestined plan and God’s grace that went before him and enabled him to be saved.
“However, this does not mean that God has predestined anyone for hell. Indeed, the Bible cannot be any plainer than to say God is ‘not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance’ (2 Pt. 3:9). God wills all to be saved. To be damned, a person must willfully reject God’s ‘predestined plan’ for his salvation (cf. CCC 2037)…” (Tim Staples, Catholic Answers).
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