Holding Hands

Father Peter Linh offers a beautiful vision of what happens when we pick up our rosaries to pray:

One day, on my turn as a priest to give a brief homily to [the congregation] on Wednesday, I didn’t know what to share with them. I prayed to our Blessed Mother: Please tell me what you want me to tell them. After a moment of silence, then listening, I had a feeling that she wanted me to tell her children that the Rosary is her very hand. I felt she wanted to say to us: You are my children indeed. Anytime you feel anxious or troubled about anything, hold the Rosary, then pray. When praying the mysteries and holding the Rosary in your hand, that is the moment I am holding your hand and you are holding my hand. Don’t be afraid! I am holding your hand. Again, whenever you need me, hold my hand by praying the Rosary. 

Redemptorist  Rev. Peter Linh, CSsR

Thank you, Blessed Mother, for all your love and care. How do you listen to all the prayers sent up to you, the urgent pleas for help as well as the timid requests from your countless children across the world? We cannot know. But we can believe. As we hold your rosary beads in our hands, let us in some way feel the soft pressure of your own hand in ours. 

(Don't forget that the Feast of the Holy Rosary is coming up on Friday, October 7. Read more about it here.)

Standing by the Cross on Fridays

During Lent, we get to resume the solemn  and tender practice of praying the Stations of the Cross every Friday. Whether at 3 p.m., the hour of Our Lord's death, or 7 p.m., or whatever time you are able, we walk with Jesus through his mighty Passion and take our place with Mary and John at the foot of his cross, in solidarity and sorrow. We, of course, have the relief of knowing what happens three days later.

Whether we use the little booklet containing St. Alphonsus Ligouri's Way of the Cross or a Stations "rosary," whether we join other Catholics at church in a Stations service or pray the 14 stations in a corner of our room, we find ourselves growing closer to Jesus and his mother with each stop we make along the way to Calvary.

And this exercise is a powerful one. The Lord told St. Gertrude, "... Any man, although he feels overwhelmed by the burden of his crimes, must hope for pardon through the offering of my Passion and death. For there does not exist on earth any more efficient remedy against sin than the loving memory of my Passion."*

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*As quoted by Francois Mauriac in Holy Thursday: The Night That Changed the World, p. 85.

Pressed for Time

How many good intentions get pushed off the edges of our days by the press of daily duties! The rosary is often one of these that we reluctantly put off for tomorrow as we see the hour growing late.

On days like this, it's good to remember The Golden Hail Mary, a charming verse that reminds us that even one decade of Our Lady's prayer carries weight when said sincerely:

The Golden Hail Mary

One Hail Mary with love and thought said
Is better than volumes of prayers read.
If time and one's duties prevent a long prayer,
Just say one Hail Mary with fervor and care.

We pray:

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

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