The Rosary: A Prayer of Presence

 

The most fundamental component of the Holy Rosary is the ‘Hail Mary.’ Analytically, it is the smallest unit to which the Rosary can be reduced before it completely loses recognition as the Rosary. The Rosary is essentially the ‘Hail Mary.’ However, the beautiful and powerful prayer of the Rosary sometimes unwittingly obscures the Hail Mary itself. Were the number of Rosaries some of us have said over the entire course of our lives reduced materially into straight-chained chaplets, with beads the size of peanuts, the length might encircle entire states. So, I believe that in a number of cases and without intending to, we say so many Rosaries that, without intending to, we lose sight of the Hail Mary with the attendant implication that our prayer life suffers a vitiation in quality and efficacy. This understanding is perhaps put in clearer perspective when we consider an observation  by one of the former Spanish side’s finest coaches, Vicente del Bosque, concerning Sergio Busquets, a Spanish player of no mean legendary repute himself. He said “When you watch the game, you don’t see Sergio Busquets,

MARIA FAUSTINA - THE EXTENT OF GOD'S MERCY

"Let no soul, even the most miserable, fall prey to doubt; as far as one is alive, one can be a great saint" St. Maria Faustina

This particular quote of St. Maria Faustina has always comforted and encouraged me.

Today, being her Feast, I meditated deeply on the various implications of this simple verse. The first implication that brings itself to the fore is the depth of God's mercy portrayed

HAIL MARY, PUREST AMONGST THE PURE.

 Hail Mary, purest amongst the pure, fairest amongst the fair

Why would the messenger of the Most high not proclaim the “Ave” to you, O Mary Most poor in Spirit?

When Jesus wanted to begin his ministry, he started by first proclaiming the words

 “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Is it not evident that in you is found the epitome of “Poverty of Spirit”?

Poverty denotes a certain lack of security, a certain dependence on a higher or more secure source for sustenance. Who could compete with you, O Mary most poor, on the virtue of total dependence and trust in Divine providence? The readiness of the fiat testifies to this fact. You readily submitted when the future possible outcome, humanly speaking, is nothing but disaster and shame.

THE HUMAN FACE OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD

 Quite ambitiously, we are moved to propagate the philosophy which holds that the human flesh is by nature evil. Probably because a good ratio of the temptations that threaten our flight to God besiege that constituent of our make up. Both ecclesial preachers and philosophical minds have held this view, in which they condemned the capacity of the flesh to achieve any good in itself due to its proneness to fall. Nevertheless, both from the point of healthy theological speculations, and sound philosophical ethics, this position has become moribund. In Jean Paul Sartre’s atheistic humanism, the flesh dethrones the mind, so that subsequently, he would replace the mind with a human existence that is actively engaged in the world, what he calls the existential subject. Sartre opens up for us certain true remarks of our humanism, but he also makes some conclusions that does not resolve our human dilemmas.

THE NECESSITY OF A DECISIVE MOMENT: MARY, A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

Ladislaus Boros begins his shocking yet captivating The Mystery of Death, by citing the bitter remark from the poem; Man’s Estate: “you know what they say: it takes nine months to create a man and only a single day to destroy him. When man is utterly a man, when that manhood has been achieved, the only thing he is good for is to die.” The existentialists’ mantra advances that there is no pre-given essence for man, rather, man actively creates for himself an essence through commitments to a certain course of life. Although an over ambitious humanism is found within this thesis, it nonetheless posits to us the very core of Mary’s dilemma. It presents to us the very picture of man. It is that picture of us when we are devoid of friends, those instances when no relative is close, no acquaintance is ready to hand, to whom we may run to for urgent advice. But the paradox of such moments is that when those decisions are eventually made by us, we have the whole world streaming towards us, either to congratulate us or to offer to us, their own portion of the numerous criticisms we receive. The question which therefore borders us here is: what does it really take the human to decide. Can the presumptions that inform our decisions be duly passed through the crucible of sincerity?