My dear brethrens,
How I wish I had another avenue to share my thoughts with my fellow Catholics alone. This message is essentially, although not strictly, for staunch Catholics. However, anonymous Catholics (i.e. those who easily get lost in the crowd or who readily get carried away by the whirlwind of religious fever ) as well as non-Catholics (most especially believers in Christ) may benefit from the message providing they read it with the open-mind and the Christian attitude it deserves. In writing this very message,
I’m mindful of the fact that the sensibility of some readers may be somehow disturbed. I wish to crave the indulgence of such readers. Warning: Any attempt to understand the message while carrying any dogmatic baggage in one’s mind will be futile and most unrewarding. Therefore, it’s better for one to off-load and free one’s mind of certain prejudices before reading any further or to delete this message right away.
Now, let’s go over to the subject that has today critically caught the attention of the Oracle at Akalanze Court.
Once again, October devotion is here with us. Glory be to God and honour to Mary! For centuries, the month of October has been known to be the month of the Holy Rosary.
The Rosary is widely regarded as a Catholic prayer although many Anglicans use it and find it a great help to their spiritual life. Some Catholics, in recent years, have abandoned it completely. They now wish to pray in a different way. The Church, I understand, does not impose the Rosary on anyone. We are free to say it or choose other forms of prayer. While it is part of our popular Catholic tradition, it is not the central part of the practice of our faith. Catholics are
bound to honour Mary but the prayers used in doing this are never imposed. Yet the Rosary is now so much a part of our heritage that it could be rightly called an heirloom. An heirloom is something precious that is handed down in a family from one generation to the next. They cannot be discarded or allowed to rot just like that. So it is with the Holy Rosary. Go and ask any serious, practising Catholic around you. The Rosary is precious to all devoted Catholics. They cherish it and they always want to use it and be spiritually enriched by it. But it is not enough to recite it; we must pray it well for it to produce the desired results. Those who pray the Rosary properly can reach the very depths of spiritual awakening. The Rosary can be highly gratifying and
edifying to those who have discovered the hidden treasure it represents. It is not just a Marian prayer but also very much a Christ-centred (or Christological) prayer. Those who pray the Rosary well will automatically grow in knowledge and love of Christ. This is true because the Rosary is profoundly rooted in the divine words of God as clearly enunciated in the Bible.
Consider the words used. The “Our Father” is a biblical prayer taken from Mt. 6: 9-13. It is a formula that sums up our whole Christian life. We could spend the whole prayer period just reciting the Lord’s Prayer once slowly and reflectively. Likewise, the “Hail Mary” is a beautiful, simple, and powerful prayer. It comes straight from the biblical accounts of the Annunciation and Visitation. Every time we recite it, we are one with Mary in glorifying God by total, joyful, and trusting surrender to His divine will. The second part of the prayer is a simple petition to our Mother Mary to intercede for us at the two most important occasions of our life, namely, now and at the crucial
time of our death. The immense value of Mary’s intercession particularly when we’re dying will become clearer to us when we recall that it is appointed unto man to die and after death comes judgement. Obviously, Mary’s intercession is for this ultimate judgement to be tempered with divine mercy. Otherwise, I wonder how many of us will make it to heaven with all our numerous shortcomings and inherent encumbrances despite the fact that Jesus Christ Himself had paid dearly for our transgressions.
After asking Mary to intercede for us, we then add the “Glory be to the Father …” which is another excellent way to pay tribute to the Holy Trinity in one God. These three prayers (“Our Father”, “Hail Mary”, and “Glory be to the Father”) are strikingly extraordinary and potent prayers on their own. Their efficacy when combined together as in the Holy Rosary is better imagined than explained. We are encouraged to pray them slowly and meditatively from time to time. However, when we pray the Rosary, we are supposed to be meditating more on the mysteries it portrays than on the words used so that we can imitate what they contain and, at the end, obtain what they promise. Therefore, as we begin
the prayer, we are expected to pull our thoughts together and focus our minds on the circumstances of the birth of Christ and on the significance of His mission/ministry while bodily here on earth. We are also supposed to concentrate our attention on the level of illumination His lifestyle, teachings, and proclamations threw upon the Kingdom of God as well as on Christ’s sorrowful experiences in the course of His vicarious suffering/death on the Cross of Calvary.
At the commencement of the Rosary, we are expected to ask for the grace to pray it soberly and with sufficient interest in both the profound blessings it guarantees and the unparalleled love or the inexplicable nature of God it so distinctively spreads before us. The Rosary achieves this special support for the growth of our spirituality by taking our minds down the memory lane while succinctly presenting the biography of the only begotten Son of God as detailed in the joyful account of Christ’s birth, the enlightening story of His accomplishments, the sorrowful mystery of His passion, and the glorious saga of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The introductory prayers are quite appropriate and necessary to prepare our body and soul for the great spiritual
exercise.
At the next stage of the Rosary, it is strongly suggested that before saying each “decade” of the chaplet, we pause for a moment and focus our minds on the particular mystery at hand. If we have a pictorial representation of that mystery, it will help to engage our spirit and keep us focused. We are expected to think deeply, conjure up the scene of that particular biblical incident being recounted, and then enter into it in our minds. The Rosary is simply a spiritual engagement session with the Holy Family of Nazareth and, by extension, with God Almighty Himself. True! It’s all about being with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; sharing with them the joyful, the sorrowful, the glorious, and the luminous moments of our life and existence. We need to
know how best to savour the special grace attached to each of the uncertainties embedded in both the opportunities and the challenges of our own lives and times. For example, when we pray the first “Joyful Mystery”, our minds should be focused on the angel Gabriel speaking to Mary. We pause for a moment, listen to Her response and note Her humility. Accordingly, we pray for the grace to be able to listen to God and obey His command as Mary did. Then we proceed to recite our Lord’s Prayer, the ten “Hail Mary”, and the “Glory be …” in a steady, calm, and rhythmic manner. These prayers are collectively a kind of mantra that soothes our spiritual nerves so that God can take over our lives and control everything including the humanly uncontrollable aspects. Gradually, the picture becomes part of us. Our minds
become greatly influenced by Mary’s examples and precepts and we begin to emulate Her deeds and abide by Her words just as the biblical servants did during the celebrated wedding at Cana where Jesus performed His first ever miracle when water was turned into wine. What a wonderful way to put into practice what the Bible teaches us.
At the end of each “decade of the Rosary”, the invocation our Lady gave the children at Fatima is recited: “ O Jesus forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell, and lead all souls to heaven especially those who are in most need of your mercy .” Nothing else can capture more appropriately the acknowledgement of our sinfulness and the exigent need for divine forgiveness of our incessant wrongdoings as mere mortals.
It only takes approximately less than half an hour to say the Rosary prayerfully well. When it becomes a habit or a daily routine, it can truly transform our lives for the better. When this happens, Christ’s thoughts will become our thoughts, Christ’s ways will become our ways, and gradually God’s purpose will continue to prevail in our lives with little or no additional effort of our own. The Rosary is a very useful and suitable family prayer. Children who learn it in the bosom of their family carry a spiritual weapon with them, which will protect and guide them throughout their lives. Some people feel that the Rosary is too easy and too boring to be of any efficacy. They want to meditate directly on the
Bible. But there is no contradiction between the Rosary and the Bible. The central themes of the Bible form the mysteries of the Rosary. Nothing more; nothing less! Again, some people prefer to sing praises to God instead of praying the Rosary. But there is nothing wrong in singing hymns while praying the Rosary. So, we can start the Rosary with a hymn and end with another hymn. Better still, we can sing a hymn in-between the “decades”. However, we are advised never to allow singing to adulterate the quality, diminish the value, or break the steady rhythm of the powerful Catholic traditional prayer formula called the Holy Rosary.
Henceforth (and mainly during this October devotion), let’s strive to cultivate the good habit of properly praying the Holy Rosary very often. And soon afterward, our lives will surely not be the same again. Something new, something good, something positive, and something great is bound to happen in our lives. When we trust the Rosary and taste the Rosary, we’ll certainly see instantly that the Rosary is a veritable resource for spiritual empowerment as well as an invaluable tool for harvesting bountiful blessings and divine mercies. And it is also a weapon we can use effectively to protect ourselves from all dangers and harmful influences.
The Holy Rosary is, indeed, one peculiar habit that is worth acquiring and inculcating in our young ones. Believe me!
I sincerely salute you all for finding the time to read this heavenly-inspired message. Glory be to Jesus! And honour to Mary!! Bye for now!!!
With much love,
Jimbuoy Okoye - Akalanze Nimo.
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