The Rosary and the role of Mother Mary By Bro Kenneth Tham

The Rosary

The Rosary is the most highly recommended prayer in the Catholic Church, second only to the liturgy (MC 54)¹.

Pope St Paul VI even went as far as to say that the rosary is the compendium of the Gospel.
As we pray the rosary with our fingers counting the beads, we meditate on the life of Christ,
from his incarnation, his suffering, death, and glorious Resurrection. Our head and heart,
soul and body therefore participate in the Rosary.

Pope St John Paul II would tell us that the rosary is marvelous in its simplicity and marvelous
in its depth. The Rosary is not about merely meditating on the mysteries of Christ which may
seem distant and unrelatable, but placing our very selves in the mysteries. Regardless of our
circumstances or condition, we can find ourselves somewhere in them.

In the Annunciation, Mary receives good news through an angel, perhaps we find ourselves
as heralds of good news to students or to parents; in the Visitation, we discover Jesus in our
colleagues, students, or friends as Elizabeth discovered Him in Mary; in the Nativity, Christ
is born in our lives; in the Presentation, we present ourselves and our students to God; in the
Finding of Christ, we find Christ teaching and studying in our students. The parallels between
our lives and the mysteries of the Rosary are endless, yet it is so simple to pray it.

“Our heart can enclose in these decades of the Rosary all the facts that make up the
life of the individual, the family, the nation, the Church, and mankind. Personal matters and
those of one’s neighbor, and particularly of those who are closest to us, who are dearest to
us.” (Pope St John Paul II)

Some may find the rosary repetitive and boring. Some may even argue against repetitive
prayer, saying that Jesus was against repetitive prayer. Jesus was against meaningless and
mindless repetition, but the rosary is meaningful repetition.

In fact, repetition is a part of our ordinary lives. Our basic human functions are repetitions.
We do the same things everyday – we breath in and out repeatedly, our heart beats in the
same way throughout our life. We repeat our calendar each year – we go through the same
events, liturgical seasons and the same celebrations, but if we enter deeply into each event,
they don’t just remain as mere events, they become memorable experiences.

So how can all repetition be meaningless? Thus, if we find the Rosary boring, we may be
not entering fully into the Rosary. We are just repeating words instead of meditating on the
life of Christ through the eyes of Mary. Perhaps we can begin to think of each bead as the
heartbeat of Jesus, and our goal would be that our heart would beat in unison with His.

Mary’s role

Why do we call Mary our mother? Because Christ gave her to us at the cross. As any mother
would do, she would watch over us, pray, and intercede for us. She is in no way divine, but
she has a very special place given to us by Christ. If we love Christ, we would love his mother.

Praying the ‘Hail Mary’ is to repeat the words of the Angel Gabriel, to give due honour to the
mother of Christ and our mother. When we offer our petitions to Mother Mary, we are saying
to her ‘Mother, will you please pray for me? Nobody knows your Son like you do.’ She
delightedly acts like the mother she is because God in His power and omniscience delights
to have it so.

Someone may pose the question, ‘should you be praying to people who are no longer on
earth?’ As Catholics, we ought to answer with a resounding ‘Yes’, because we believe in the
Communion of Saints and the Mystical Body of Christ. The Body of Christ cannot be divided.

The fact that our loved ones have gone before us, that we have the saints as our older brothers
and sisters, does not mean that we are separated. We are one body in Jesus Christ. As Saint
Paul says, we are members, not only of Christ Jesus but “one of another” (Rom 12:5).

As we pray and meditate on the mysteries of the rosary, we see that the rosary is centered
on Christ. The rosary is not about Mary, but about Christ – his life and the mystery of our
salvation.

Though we meditate on her Assumption and Crowning in the Glorious Mysteries, these are
due to the power of Christ, who preserves her from the corruption of the grave and brings
her into heavenly glory. Mary is our guide who points us back to Christ her Son while at the
same time exercising her motherhood of maternal care over all of us.

Mary, our Mother, pray for us.

¹ Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
Marialis Cultus (1974), no. 54.