Editorial: The October Prayer

The October Prayer

In   the usual Hollywood scenario, . . .

. . . whenever someone steps into church to say a prayer, he is immediately surrounded by a halo of soft light and the sweet, gentle sound of organ music emanating from somewhere unknown. There is the customary look of rapture and contentment on the face of the one praying, and you are led to believe that, any minute now, the whole angelic choir is going to break into song.

As we all know, things just don’t happen this way in real life. Most of us can’t afford to hire an organist for the occasion, or persuade the choir of angels to supply incidental music. And quite a few of us find it impossible to look contented and enraptured even for a fleeting moment.

Prayer Should Be Simple, Direct and Uncluttered

None of this theatricality is necessary for prayer. All we really need is the willingness to get in touch with God, our Blessed Lady and the saints. We do so because we wish to honor them, thank them, express our sorrow for sin, and ask them for what we need in our daily lives.

Prayer should be as “un-Hollywood” as we can make it, as simple and direct as the prayer of the tax collector in the temple. “O God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” And because it should be simple, direct and uncluttered, we encourage our readers once again to reflect on the Rosary as the kind of prayer that meets all the specifications.

The Rosary is a prayer that is, above all, eminently pleasing to God and our Blessed Lady; one that will certainly draw their grace and blessing upon us.

It is first and most important of all, a meditation on the mysteries (events) in the life Of Christ and His Blessed Mother.  The Holy Rosary calls to mind their close union with each other in the work of our redemption. It takes us from the moment of the Incarnation of Christ, when He became “like us in everything but sin,” to the moment of His Mother’s glorious Coronation as Queen of heaven.

The Rosary Makes Us Live in Union . . .

The Rosary does not have us just think about the mysteries of our faith. It makes us live them in union with Christ and Our Lady, because it makes us pray those mysteries. What we do when we pray the Rosary is to make those mysteries come true for us in our own lives because their own particular grace and spiritual benefit is coming to life within us.

And we know that prayers like the Our Father and the Hail Mary are efficacious. Christ Himself gave us the Our Father when His apostles asked Him; “Lord, teach us to pray.” He taught us how to speak to God when He said; “Thus shall you pray: ‘Our Father, Who art in heaven . . . “. The stress is on God as an all-powerful and ever-loving Father who knows our needs and is more than willing to help us in everything.

. . . with Christ and Our Lady

The Hail Mary is God’s own prayer to the Blessed Virgin, spoken through the angel Gabriel, asking her to become the Mother of the Son of God: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women . . .”. It is continued by the Holy Spirit, speaking through her cousin Elizabeth: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb„ Jesus.”

The third prayer is the Glory Be. It reminds us that the basic reason for our existence is to give glory to God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It focuses our attention on the great mystery of the Blessed Trinity and the part that each One of them performed in our redemption.

No prayer, outside of the Holy Liturgy, has been more often commended and recommended to us by the Church. And the experience of millions of people throughout the ages is evidence enough of its power of invocation in bringing God’s grace to us through our Blessed Lady.

We stress the Rosary during the month of October, encouraging all our readers to deepen their love and appreciation of this particular prayer. Not only for the month of October, but throughout the entire year