Synopsis: The Rosary connects us to the Cross where we find identity, the Theological Virtues, and unites our lives to Jesus. This keeps us from being swayed by the winds of life and share in the victory of Christ and Rosary.
During this month, in honor of our Lady of the Rosary, we remember the Rosary’s victories. There is the victory at Lepanto, the Fatima children converting prisoners, and Bl. Bartolo Longo, a Satanist priest, was converted due to the holy Rosary and ended up promoting it throughout the world. The list is endless, but we must remember that our Blessed Mother invites us to share in the victory by living out the wisdom embodied in the Rosary.
This wisdom starts by unpacking a statement from St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She writes, “Look upon yourself as a tree planted beside the water, which bears its fruit in due season; the more the wind shakes it, the deeper it strikes its roots into the ground.”
St. Margaret Mary asks us to look upon ourselves as a tree, and so does our Blessed Mother in the Rosary. We start the rosary with the tree of the cross. On that cross, we say the Creed, which is a symbol of our faith. This faith is what gives us our identity as a child of God because we are baptized into this Faith. This Faith roots us in Christ for our life- journey. So we take up the first lesson of the Rosary, which starts at the Cross, a lesson about development and growth. A good tree develops; it does not evolve. Our faith began in seed form with our Lord, and then it grew roots, a trunk, a vine (Cf, Jn. 15:5), branches, and bears good fruit that comes from the Holy Spirit. It does not “evolve” as that would mean it changes into something it was never meant to be, thus it is a rotting tree. This rotting tree which we shall call the Rotting Tree of Innovative Convictions, may appear to start with seeds of faith, even “good intentions,” but evolves into poison (Deut. 32: 32-33) ivy, then a goat (Matt. 25:32-33), and then malicious beast (Rev. 13:14)! This is the reason the Church has us begin our Rosary with the Tree of Faith which has developed over the last 2000 years but is always rooted in Christ (Tradition and Scripture). It does not begin with the Rotting Tree of Innovative Convictions, which evolves into numerous disjointed beliefs. This Rotting Tree has the guise of Faith but ultimately has no power to save, bring us joy, or strengthen our baptismal roots. It only disconnects us from Tradition and Scripture, thus, ultimately, Jesus Christ.
Consequently, the Church continually uproots the Rotting Tree of Innovative Convictions. Our Faith cannot evolve. This has been a continuous teaching that Vatican I, Vatican II, and Pope Pius X declared. Pius X made the motto of his Papacy “to restore all things in Christ.” To restore Christ, the tree of “evolving Faith” must be chopped down and pulled out by its very roots, as he explains:
Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they [the Modernist] express absolute truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sentiment in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sentiment. But the object of the religious sentiment, since it embraces that absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner, he who believes may pass through different phases. Consequently, the formulae too, which we call dogmas, must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. An immense collection of sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and as clearly flows from their principles. … Blind that they are, and leaders of the blind, inflated with a boastful science, they have reached that pitch of folly where they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true nature of the religious sentiment; with that new system of theirs they are seen to be under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but despising the holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, condemned by the Church, on which, in the height of their vanity, they think they can rest and maintain truth itself.
However, this doctrine of experience is also under another aspect entirely contrary to Catholic truth. It is extended and applied to tradition, as hitherto understood by the Church, and destroys it. … For the Modernists, to live is proof of truth since, for them, life and truth are one and the same thing. Hence, again, it is given to us to infer that all existing religions are equally true, for otherwise they would not live (Pius X, On the Doctrines of the Modernist, sec. 13, 15) [emphasis mine].
Our faith also cannot be rooted simply in personal experience. The first Vatican Council said we must uproot this idea when it declared, “If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs and that therefore men and women ought to be moved to faith only by each one’s internal experience or private inspiration: let him be anathema” (Vatican Council I, On the Faith, can. 3).
Our Faith, even when going out to the “next bead of life” or to others like the Rosary points us to do, we must be rooted in the Cross, the Faith of the Church as Vatican II notes in its Decree on Ecumenism:
In order to establish this His holy Church everywhere in the world till the end of time, Christ entrusted to the College of the Twelve the task of teaching, ruling, and sanctifying. Among their number, He selected Peter and, after his confession of faith, determined that on him. He would build His Church. Also, to Peter, He promised the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and after His profession of love, entrusted all His sheep to him to be confirmed in faith and shepherded in perfect unity. Christ Jesus Himself was forever to remain the chief cornerstone and shepherd of our souls.
Jesus Christ, then, willed that the apostles and their successors – the bishops with Peter’s successor at their head – should preach the Gospel faithfully, administer the sacraments, and rule the Church in love. It is thus, under the action of the Holy Spirit, that Christ wills His people to increase, and He perfects His people’s fellowship in unity: in their confessing the one faith, celebrating divine worship in common, and keeping the fraternal harmony of the family of God (Vatican II, Decree on Ecumenism: Unitatis Redintegratio, sec. 2) [emphasis mine].
In short, we start with the Cross, the symbol of our faith, because it is the tree on which Jesus died so we can have the fullness of God’s Revelation. He tells us, I have called you friends because He has revealed everything from the Father (see Jn. 15:15). So as a friend, we must keep the gift that Christ has given us in totality; otherwise, we degrade its value. In degrading its value, we cheapen its worth (the Faith), and in cheapening its worth, ironically, we cheapen OUR WORTH and OUR CHURCH, which we are called to stay in and travel to the horizons of eternal life. We remain in the Church without a doubt, but we cannot allow Her to have rotten wood in her bark; otherwise, she will start to sink. As a result, the Sacred Heart of Jesus tells us, “your value should not be cheapened; you don’t need ‘cheap’ or ‘easy’ faith; you deserve the best faith because you are ‘wonderfully made’ (Ps. 139:14), priceless; I have loved and ‘redeemed you…you are mine’ (see Is. 47:1).”
Since we are the Lord’s and He shows us the way (Jn. 14:6), we move to the following three beads of Faith, Hope, and Love. This is the second lesson of the Rosary. There is the bead of faith, which we have noted discloses our identity. The Church is not something we “do,” but it is who we are. We are a child of God! We are loved by God! We are Catholic and Christian! This is our identity, and we find it in living as a child of God, embracing the fact that we are loved by Him, and being faithful to the Church. Our identity compels us to hope as we trust that God will provide everything necessary for us to get to Heaven. This fills up our souls so that we can then go out and give this good news to others because you cannot provide what you do not have. This leads to charity. Charity is that grace in which God sends us to be instruments to help others get to heaven. God asks us to take in His Word and then reciprocate the Word in Love, mirroring the Most Blessed Trinity. Just as the Father in Divine Economy (how the Trinity interacts with Creation) sends His Word to redeem, reflect, and restore creation and then sends the Spirit to sanctify and renew it, so too with the theological virtues. Faith (as identity) leads to hope (an embodiment of Divine Mercy as we internalize, “Jesus, I trust in you”), which compels us to charity (to carry out the work of the Sacred Heart, which is to love others as Jesus loves them. Thus, making reparation for the lack of love and rejection of His Sacred Heart in the world).
This three-fold connection to the Trinity brings us to the last lesson of the rosary, which is connecting it to our lives. We have now arrived at praying and meditating upon the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries. In this, we fulfill the desires of Our Lady of Fatima, who asked for us to meditate upon the mysteries of the Rosaries for at least 15 minutes (especially on First Saturdays) as well as the 33 Visits devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as we take time to spend resting upon the heart of Our Lord! We also walk in the life of Christ through our Blessed Mother’s intercession so we can know that He continually walks in our lives. His story of joys, sorrows, glories, and light becomes our story of joys, sorrows, glories, and light. And vice versa- we come to know that our joys, sorrows, glories, and enlightenments are close to His heart. Our stories become one, and together, we make HISTORY (His story). When we meditate on the joyful events in life, Christ is born anew in our hearts, just as we meditate upon the Joyful Mysteries. When we take the time to meditate on life and embrace the teachings of Christ, like in the Luminous Mysteries, we produce the best wine, such as at the Wedding Feast of Cana (the Second Luminous Mystery). His-story (i.e., History) may involve hardships, but when meditating upon the Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries, we know “the sorrow may last for a night, but joy comes with the morning” (see Ps. 30:5). When we stay in the story of Christ, we know how it ends. It ends in glory! It ends in Victory! It ends in the fulfillment of our identities as being blessed for all eternity!
In conclusion, let us live the lessons of the Holy Rosary and share in its victory this month and always. Let us remember the 50 Hail Marys, which point us to the new Pentecost of living the HISTORY of Christ (Christ the Head with Christ His Mystical Body), making His life part of ours and our lives as belonging to Him. Let us remember the 3 Hail Marys as saying “yes” to the invitations of Faith, Hope, and Love. Finally, let us always begin with the Cross and allow everything to return to it. Jesus told us, “If you wish to follow me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me” (Lk. 9:23). Let us take up the Creed and our Catholic Identity daily and thus embrace the strong roots of what the Lord has handed on to us. Let us uproot the rotting trees of innovative convictions trusting in money, titles, a culture of death, false ideologies, and teachings because they are poison. Our Lord came so that we might have life, so we won’t sway in the wind, as St. Margaret Mary reminded us at the beginning of this article! Let our lives be a living Magnificat holding high the cross and proclaiming the victory of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary through our daily rosary!
For more on the Sacred Heart, Divine Mercy, and the Victory of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary that brings Peace to our lives, listen to Deacon Anthony’s Seminar on the Sacred Heart sponsored by St. Dominic’s Catholic Media as well as pick up a copy of His book, Peaceful Hearts, Zealous Hearts: How the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy Devotions’ Complementary Messages Make Us New.
