Since the Rosary is a meditation on the life of Christ, and contains the prayer that He Himself composed (the Our Father), and contains the message that the Father gave to our Blessed Mother (the Hail Mary - the first part is St Gabriel’s words), it is not suprising or wrong to say that the Rosary saves us BY bringing us to Christ who saves us through the Cross. The Rosary and Christ are not opposites, are not in competition with each other. Jesus saves us, but when we say the Rosary “saves us” it’s because it brings us TO Jesus
it helps us to respond to His salvation, grace, and the Cross.
If anyone would like to learn more about the Rosary, please read the book “Secret of the Rosary” by St Louis de Montfort
God bless
Monica, I would never contradict you, neither in this life nor in the next.
Having said that, I will share what I say to our men in formation. I’m the Formation Director of my community. Here goes.
**Every cutlure has its language. Language has shared meaning, so that the members of a specific culture use language that conveys these shared meanings.
We must remember that what is comprehensible to us, because we have a common culture is not always comprehensible to those outside of our culture. For those who are not Franciscans of Life, much of our language is foreign to them and can be easily be misunderstood. The meaning of a word to us is not the same to them.
It is of the utmost importance to remember that when we speak among ourselves we can omit words, restate them so that they are more poetic, use allegories and metaphors that are clear to us. Yet, these may be very unclear and even confuse those outside of our culture.
When speaking to those who are outside of our culture, it is important to double check to ensure that they have understood us and equally important to use words that they understand, but have a shared meaning with the words that we would use. This way the message remains constant, even when the words change.**
The language of St. Louie may not be appropriate for the non-Catholic or even for some Catholics.
I had a hard time understanding St.Louie until I read The Silence of Mary by Ignacio Larañaga, a Capuchin Franciscan. Friar Ignacio takes the theology of St. Louie and restates it in Franciscan and Augustinian language.
After reading The Silence of Mary, I went back to St. Louie and he made perfect sensse to me. I found that he was saying much more than what the average Catholic thinks he says. The average Catholic is not well trained in Augustine, Bonaventure and Duns Scotus. St. Louie was. He relies heavily on them in writing theology. He uses their methodology and their concepts in his language to sustain his thesis statement, which speaks about more than just the rosary. The rosary is the icing on the cake. It’s what he says about Mary’s role in salvation history, that is really the crux of his thesis.
I had trouble seeing beneath everything he said about the Rosary, until I saw Mary in my own cultural context using language with which I was familiar. Then St. Louie made all the sense in the world. Prior to that, I had no idea that he has borrowed from Augustine, Bonaventure and Scotus. I kept asking myself, “Where did he get this from?” I did not doubt his honestly or his intelligence, but I felt that his thesis lacked solid ground. It sounded very sentimental. I knew that St. Louie was not given to sentiment. He was an excellence cold and calculated theologian. This work on the Rosary was out of character, until I read Larañaga. Then Louie made sense.
What he did was to study everything he could find in Augustine, Bonaventure, and Scotus, formulate a thesis statement about Mary, then he set out to write his work on the Rosary. But in the book, he does not tell you about his prior research, because that was not the custom of the time. People wrote about their thesis, not about what led to it.
Many who are unafamiliar with the language that Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims use to talk about Mary are uncomfortable, because they have no idea where this language came from. We have to make an effort to say the same thing in language that they understand. We do this with many things.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
, it was at the Council of Trent that the Church clarified that it was appropriate to ask Our Lady to intercede for us. I try not to bring up the Council of Trent in this discussion, because it is often misinterpreted by Catholics to mean that the Council declared this dogmatically. That is not the case. First, not everything that came from Trent was dogma. Second, this particular belief dates back to the early Church. The Concil put it on paper, but it was in practice for centuries. It may even be possible that the prayer of petition in the Ave existed for centuries and was simply not in popular use. I’m not an expert in these matters. There certainly were many other prayers of petition. Our own Holy Father St. Francis wrote several Marian prayers in the 13th century, some were praises and some petition. St. Bernard wrote the Memorare in the 12th century. That’s a prayer of petition.