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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Holy card copyright 2020 CatholicStationery.com

Global Rosary During October

French laywomen have started an international project to pray the Rosary by turns in French, then English, then in Spanish during this month of October, the month of the Holy Rosary. Prayers will go up for an answer to the terrible distress of our times, just as they did before the famous Battle of Lepanto to save Christendom back in October of 1571. Read about how to participate here.

A Lesson from Madrid

Centuries ago, when the Moors were driven out of Spain, the Christians in Madrid set to work restoring the church of Santa Maria. But the ancient statue of Mary and Jesus that once decorated the church could not be found. The citizens organized a procession around the city to ask God to help them find the statue. And help them He did. 

At one point as the crowd passed a wall, it began to crumble. Lo and behold, behind it was hidden the statue that they sought. Not only was it intact, but two lamps, installed in the cavity by those who walled in the statue, were still burning. 

Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira writes of this miracle:

Notice how they put lighted lamps near the statue before walling her up. This gesture is very beautiful since it shows they did not want to wall up the statue without a tribute. Those lamps represented their hopes that the statue would be venerated once again. Thus, the walled-up place was like a little chapel.

A miracle confirmed their hopes. This most beautiful miracle of confidence consisted of the lamps that burned for 300 years. They continued to burn when the statue was found in the wall. It is a miracle as great as the multiplication of loaves in the Gospel. Its marvelous message is that one can expect such things from Our Lady. Although things may appear defeated and crushed, something irreversibly victorious remains in them.

These are encouraging words for the difficult days we find ourselves in. Trust Mary. She will not be defeated.

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From "The Miracle of Our Lady of Almudena Teaches Us Confidence," at the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property.

Is My Prayer Good Enough?

Have you sometimes felt that your personal prayers might not be lofty enough, pious enough, to send up to Jesus and Mary? In the compact prayer book Blessed Be God (1925), the authors address this hesitation in their opening chapter on "How to Pray":

People often find it difficult to pray because they have an exaggerated notion of prayer, not really understanding what it means and erroneously believing that it consists in very lofty thoughts, which must be expressed in correspondingly elevated words and sentences; whereas the very opposite is the truth. How simple are the Our Father and the Hail Mary! How unaffected the thoughts and words of the centurion, the leper, the blind man, and others mentioned in the Gospel, who sought help from our Lord and were heard!

 Neither is it necessary for a prayer to be long to be perfect; it need not be said in any particular place or at any special time; nor need it be said kneeling or standing. We may turn our hearts to God at all times, in all places, and in any posture of body, whether we be in the street or in the church, at home or abroad; and this is not only prayer, but devout prayer. 

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From Blessed Be God: A Complete Catholic Prayer Book by Very Rev. Charles J. Callan, O.P., S.T.M., and Very Rev. John A. McHugh, O.P., S.T.M., published by P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 1925.

Pictured: Innocence by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

Times that Try Men's Souls

Battle of Lepanto, in which the rosary prevailed.

In the confused and anxiety-producing aftermath of this election, we can easily sink into doubt and even despair. Instead, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano exhorts us to turn to an earnest use of our rosaries to defeat the lies and evil that are (always) at work.

Read his inspiring message here and spread the word.

Hard to Find the Time

The late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, declared Venerable in 2012, loved to promote the rosary. He was a practical man and understood that for many of us it is hard to find time in the day to pray a full rosary. He had this to say:

To develop that spiritual comradeship with Jesus and Mary, the rosary is most effective. The word rosary means a "garland of roses" culled from the Garden of Prayer. . . . 

If you do not say it all at once and on your knees, then say one decade when you arise in the morning, another decade on your way to work, another decade as you sweep the house or wait for your check at the noon lunch hour, another decade just before you go to bed; the last decade you can say in bed just before falling off to sleep.

So do not let a scarcity of time rob you of the chance to greet Mary and reflect on her Son, even if only for a few moments at a time. These can be the crucial moments that bring us a course correction as we sail through our day.