Ventimiglia, the author of an ancient history of the Carmelite Order, revealed how God inspired St. Dominic to prophesy that some day the Blessed Mother would give us two devotions to be known as the Rosary and the Brown Scapular, "AND ONE DAY, THROUGH THE ROSARY AND THE SCAPULAR SHE WOULD SAVE THE WORLD."
In the year 1214 while St. Dominic was trying to convert sinners without success, Our Lady appeared to him, gave him the Rosary and taught him how to use it. Many miraculous conversions resulted!
Pius XII:"There is no surer means of calling down God's blessings upon the family . . .than the daily recitation of the Rosary."
Praying the Rosary can become monotonnous if one neglects to meditate on the Mysteries of the life of Our Lord. knowing the details of each mystery can make the difference in making meditations meaningful.
1. shall receive signal graces.
2. shall have my special protection and the greatest graces.
3. shall have a powerful armor against hell. It will destroy
vice, decrease sin, defeat heresies.
4. shall find that it will cause virture and good works to
flourish, it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of
God, it will withdraw 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. shall not perish.
6. shall never be conquered by misfortune if he applies himself
to the consideration of its sacred mysteries. God will not
chastise him in His justice, he will not perish by an
unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the
grace of God and become worthy of eternal Life.
7. shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.
8. shall have during their life and at their death the Light
of God and the plentitude of His graces. At the moment of
death they shall participate in the merits of the saints
in paradise.
9. shall be delivered from purgatory.
10. shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.
11. shall obtain all asked of me.
12. . . . and propagate it, shall be aided by me in their
necessities.
13. shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court
during their life and at the hour of death.
14. are my sons and brothers of my only Son, Jesus Christ.
15. can consider it a great sign of predestination.
The Rosary has been productive of marvelous fruits in the Church of God. It was the powerful weapon which St. Dominic used so successfully against the pestilential heresy of the Albigensians; it has accounted for the manifold graces of conversion which have accompanied the preaching of zealous missionaries; it has been one of the secrets of Ireland's constant fidelity to the faith which Patrick planted on her soil. The bright light of faith has continued to shine in all its pristine splendor, within the shores of Erin, despite the cruelest and most tyrannical persecutions, for, although despotic rulers could hunt down her priests like wolves, and murder them as they offered the adorable sacrifice on the mountain sides of the Emerald Isle, such tyrants could never tear from the hearts of Erin's faithful children their tender, undying love for Mary Immaculate, and, when those heroic Catholics were unable to partake of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and were deprived of the ministrations of the priest of God, they assembled in their cottages around an image of the Mother of God, and recited with child-like confidence the holy Rosary.
Pope Leo XIII, who is known as the Pontiff of the Rosary, recognized the truth of the Rosary, and ordered the Rosary to be publicly recited during the month of October, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed. It would need an angel to describe the wondrous graces which deluge earth during this holy month.
The Rosary is especially popular as a form of family prayer, and no Catholic father or mother should allow a night to pass without assembling the children, and offering together to the Mother of God this tribute of praise and of supplication.
Ye are the only chain I wear -
A sign that I am but the slave,
In life, in death, beyond the grave
Of Jesus and His Mother fair."
St. Gertrude the Great, whose feast day is November 16 entertained a deep compassion for the souls in purgatory. At Holy Communion she besought our loving Savior with tender, fervent petitions, to be merciful to these dear sufferers. Once, before Communion, as she reflected with heartfelt pity on the sufferings of the holy souls, it seemed to her that she descended with Our Lord into the depths of purgatory. There she heard Jesus say: "At Holy Communion I will permit thee to draw forth all to whom the fragrance of thy prayers penetrates." After Holy Communion Our Lord often delivered more souls then she dared to ask for.
"Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me." Job. 19 - 21
Between Heaven, "the PLACE of refreshment, light and peace", and Hell, the ABODE of eternal torment, there is, till the day of general judgement a middle state called Purgatory. Purgatory is a prison of fire in which souls that have been faithful to God but who have not yet atoned for all their sins are plunged after death. In this prison, they suffer the most intense pain. Saint Thomas Aquinis, the Prince of Theologians, says that the fire of Purgatory is equal to the fire of Hell, and that the slightest contact with it is more dreadful than all possible sufferings on earth.
Our Lord told St. Gertrude the Great that the following prayer would release 1000 souls from Purgatory each time it is said. "Eternal Father, I offer Thee the most precious blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory. Amen."
St. Antoninus, the illustrious Archbishop of Florence, relates that a pious gentleman and a great friend of the Dominican Convent in which the Saint resided, died. Many Masses and suffrages were offered for his soul.
The Saint was very much afflicted when, after the lapse of a long time, the soul of the poor gentleman appeared to him, suffering excruciating pains.
"My dear friend," exclaimed the Archbishop, "are you still in Purgatory, you who led such a pious and devout life?"
"Yes, and I shall remain there still for a long time, replied the poor sufferer, for when on Earth, I neglected to offer suffrages for the souls in Purgatory. Now God by a just judgment, has applied the suffrages which have been offered for me to those souls for whom I should have prayed.
But God, too in his justice will give me all the merits of my good works when I enter Heaven, but first of all I have to expiate my grave neglect in
Our Lord's great law is that we must love one another, genuinely and sincerely. The first great commandment is to love God with all our heart and soul. The second, or rather a part of the first, is to love our neighbour as ourselves. This is not a counsel or a mere wish of the Almighty. It is His great commandment, the very base and essence of His law.
Never did a Mother of this Earth love so tenderly a dying child, never did she strive so earnestly to soothe its pains, as Mary seeks to console Her suffering children in Purgatory, to have then with Her in Heaven. We give Her unbounded joy each time we take a soul out of Purgatory.
"It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins." IIMacabees - Ch12, V46
More than six thousand years have passed away since the first man breathed the air of Heaven in the fragrant garden of Paradise. Since that time, a vast multitude of human beings just like ourselves have lived their short lives here on earth and then disappeared; we number them by the thousands, the millions and the billions. In fact, so vast is this multitude of those who have once lived, that for every one of us who still treads the paths of human life, there are more than ninety-nine of whose earthly career not a trace remains. Their hopes and their joys, their pleasures and their pains, their virtues and their vices, are all buried in the great ocean of eternity; only God in Heaven has kept a record of their lives.
Moreover, with what rapidity Death reaps its grim harvest, we well know, for statistics tell us that every day that passes is the last one on earth for more than a hundred thousand souls; that means that every time the clock ticks, someone leaves the few here to join the many hereafter, for there is no escaping God's universal decree, that all men are once to die, and after death, the Judgment.
When that judgment comes, God will pass sentence upon us according to His laws, not according to ours. Many who pride themselves upon being broad-minded tell us: "My religion is to do the right thing by my fellow men, to treat others as I wish them to treat me." If that is an essential PART of your religion, it is very good; but if that is ALL of your religion, there is in it a fatal defect. To love our neighbor as ourselves is ONE of the greatest commandments, but according to Jesus Christ, who proved himself to be the Son of God, it comes in the second place. The first and greatest commandment is: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God above all things," etc., therefore we have duties to God even more than to our fellow men; duties, such as to worship and pray to Him, to obey His laws, to practice His religion.
While you are honest to your fellow men, be not dishonest to God; while you pay your debts to your fellow men, do not rob and cheat the Almighty of what you owe to Him. But this is exactly what millions are doing today, in spite of the fact that no one has the right to divide God's law into two parts, and to reject the first and greatest, commandment.
The essence of Christmas is Light. The first words known to have been spoken by God were, "Let There Be Light". No human being witnessed that first all encompassing explosion of Divine Light, but when the human race was ready for it He provided another light. This time He Himself was the Light.
At that first Christmas there was no blinding explosion. Instead, with His burning love for mankind He ignited a small, white hot flame which grew, shed it's light over the entire world and burns forever. On that first Christmas Day He became completely human while remaining completely Divine. How He accomplished this Incarnation as both man and God is a mystery beyond human understanding - but there He is - in the person of a baby, held in the arms of His perfect human mother Mary, protected by His holy foster-father Joseph, worshiped and adored by the Magi and the shepherds, and extolled with songs of joy by His Heavenly Angels.
His birth was obscure, attended by only a few, but that few included the Divine and the human, the perfect and the imperfect, the high born and the low, the learned and the ignorant. Mysteriously, His birth was attended by representatives of both heaven and earth, encompassed in a handful of His creatures. Indeed, His birth is mysterious, obscure, glorious and incomprehensible, but the Light cast by His nativity shone into His future, and as it lights His way from crib to cross to resurrection, so also it illuminates our path to eternal life. In the Light of His love there is little mystery. On Christmas Day Jesus Christ again begins to show us what God is in His love for mankind, and what man can become if he loves God. On Christmas, again He says, "Let There Be Light". So let us respond with, "Let There Be Love" and open our hearts to one another in the true Christmas spirit of love.
I pray that we may all rejoice in the Light of Love cast by Jesus, Mary and Joseph today and all days.
Prayer to obtain favors
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen
It is piously believed that whoever recites the above prayer fifteen times a day from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30) until Christmas, will obtain what is asked.
Imprimatur, Michael Augustine, Archbishop of New York, February 6, 1897.
Reading through the liturgical texts which the Church uses during the four weeks of the Advent season it is evident the Church intends to have us share the mental attitude of the Patriarchs and seers of Israel who looked forward to the Advent of the Messias in His twofold coming of grace and glory.
Primarily, one feels the absence of Christ. The Collects of the Sundays of Advent, for example, do not end like those of the rest of the year with "through our Lord Jesus Christ." We are still deprived of this Mediator for whom we are longing. The prayers are addressed to the Father or to the Word, in order to prepare our souls for the coming of the God-Man.
The antiphons, hymns and psalms are filled with the remembrance of the fall of the first man, and of the miserable state of humanity before the Redemption. God willed indeed that man should feel the depth of his misfortune throughout many long centuries after his fall, in order that, turning towards the promised Saviour, he would hope in Him alone.
On going over the various parts of the Masses and Office of Advent, one cannot fail to be impressed by the repeated and urgent appeals to the Messias: "Come, delay no longer." This "Veni" is repeated on every page of the Liturgy during these four weeks and always takes us back to the time when Christ was not yet born.
Each year, during Advent, we see passing before our eyes the Patriarchs and Prophets, but especially Isaias, St. John the Baptist, and Mary with St. Joseph.
God hears their prayers, and yielding above all to the wondrous beauty of the Virgin Mary's soul. All the hopes of those who looked for the Messias are centered in Mary, for on her Fiat depends the salvation of the world. She accepts. The idea of Advent is that we may prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus at each feast of Christmas; and that is the reason why the very appeals of the Patriarchs and Prophets, which God was unable to resist, are put in our mouth in this season.
Thus prepared for the coming of mercy, our souls shall likewise be prepared for the coming of justice, so that "receiving with joy the Son of God when He comes as our Redeemer, we may also receive Him without fear when He comes as our Judge" (Collect for Christmas Eve).
Because the first coming of Jesus is only intended to prepare us for the second coming of the Son of Man at the end of the world, the Liturgy of Advent describes to us, especially on the First Sunday of Advent, the scene of the Last Judgment. It will be terrible for the wicked,
The season of Advent shows us that Christ is the centre of the whole world's history, which begins with the expectation of His coming with mercy to redeem us, and shall end with His coming with glory to judge mankind. In keeping with this thought, the Liturgy aims at having every generation of Christians play its part in the divine scheme. Therefore, at this time of the year we should yearn sincerely, lovingly, even impatiently for Christ's twofold coming, and from afar let us in union with the Church adore Him as our King: "Come, let us adore the King, who is about to come." This attitude of love, faith and hope which we sinners bear towards our Redeemer sums up the whole spirit of the season of Advent.
The wreath without beginning and end stands for eternity; the greens for life and growth; the four candles, preferably of beeswax and blessed and set aside since Candlemas, present the ages "sitting in darkness and thee shadow of death" each candle adding more lights until on Christmas the light from the wreath sets off, as it were, the blaze of light on the "tree of life," the Christmas tree, for the time is fulfilled.
The FATHER prays Our help is in the name of the Lord. ALL: Who hath made Heaven and Earth. FATHER: Let us Pray: O God, by Whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Through Christ Our Lord. ALL: Amen, He then sprinkles the wreath with holy water. THE FIRST WEEK: FATHER: O Lord, stir up Thy power, we beg Thee and come, that by thy protection we may deserve to be rescued from Lord, stir up Thy power, we beg Thee and come, that by thy protection we may deserve to be rescued from the threatening dangers of our sins and be saved by Thy deliverance. Through Christ Our Lord. ALL: Amen.
