Word to the Wise
Saturday, October 7, 2023 - Saturday in the 26th Week in Ordinary Time
[Bar 4:5-12, 27-29 and Luke 10:17-24]"Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it." [Luke]
OCTOBER 7 OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY
[Baruch 4:5-12, 27-29 and Luke 10:17-24. These are the scriptures for the "memorial" in the Roman calendar. Dominicans celebrate this day as a "feast" because the rosary has been a part of our life since its earliest development in the 15th century. So, the scriptures will vary in Dominican locales.]
The whole purpose of the devotion of the rosary is to recall to mind the things that those prophets and kings longed to see and did not see. The observance of a feast day of the Virgin Mary in her role in the life of Jesus dates back to the 15tlh century and earlier when a popular form of beaded prayer known as Mary's Psalter was joined to pictures of events in her life and Jesus' life as shown in stained glass and books of "woodcut" pictures of the time. The preaching of Bl. Alan de la Roche OP and his establishment of the Confraternity of the Rosary in 1455 led to a rapid spread of the devotion because anyone of any class could become a member. It is a vision that he experienced that led to the traditional idea that Mary directly gave the rosary to St. Dominic! Certainly our Order has been associated with the rosary from its earliest time and it was a Dominican pope, St. Pius V who put the feast on the calendar in 1571 to celebrate a Christian victory over the Turks at Lepanto. We Dominicans wear a 15 decade rosary as part of our habit. (Pope St. John Paul II added 5 more "mysteries" but I haven't seen any 20 decade rosaries on the friars!)
Because we Catholics tend to simply give a title to each of the "mysteries" (scriptural events), it is easy to forget that the purpose of the rosary is to meditate on those events and not just to recite the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be over and over again. Nor are we required to use the list that St. Pius V enshrined as the 15 mysteries: Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious. We can choose other events like the miracles or sayings of Jesus. There is a variation known as the "scriptural rosary" that incorporates these.
If nothing else, the rosary has come to be one of the most common symbols of Catholic faith in the western Church. (The Eastern rites have their own form of beaded prayer.) Today we celebrate its status as a universal and powerful expression of devotion not just to Mary but to God's entire plan of salvation, represented in the "mysteries" offered to our sight, minds and hearts. AMEN