SAINT POPE PAUL VI ON THE HOLY ROSARY
Paul VI teaches that, through the rosary, “we try to pay our Lady the honour that is her due in accord with the excellence of her being and mission: a singular, surpassing honour, though we regret never being able to equal the honour God has shown her nor the honour deserved by the divine plan, which also depended on her. We render her an honour that she herself foretold when she prophesied that all generations would call her blessed. As Mary’s favourite prayer, the rosary unfailingly reaches her motherly heart, and wins for us abundant graces.Don’t fail to foster the praying of the rosary, said Paul VI. It is a prayer so pleasing to our Lady…. and enables the faithful to comply effectively and pleasingly with our divine Master’s command, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7).
Your rosary is like a ladder that you climb together, step by step, drawing closer to our Lady, which means finding Christ. For the most important and beautiful feature of the rosary is that, through Mary, it leads us to Christ. Christ is the goal of this long, repeated invocation to Mary. We speak to Mary in order to reach Christ. She is our Lord’s mother and brought him into the world. And she brings us to him if we are devoted to her.”
Saint Pope Paul VI, Speech, May 10, 1964
The Value of the Rosary
9. If evils increase, the devotion of the People of God should also increase. And so, venerable brothers, We want you to take the lead in urging and encouraging people to pray ardently to our most merciful mother Mary by saying the Rosary during the month of October, as We have already indicated. This prayer is well-suited to the devotion of the People of God, most pleasing to the Mother of God and most effective in gaining heaven’s blessings. The Second Vatican Council recommended use of the Rosary to all the sons of the Church, not in express words but in unmistakable fashion in this phrase: “Let them value highly the pious practices and exercises directed to the Blessed Virgin and approved over the centuries by the magisterium.” (9)
10. As the history of the Church makes clear, this very fruitful way of praying is not only efficacious in warding off evils and preventing calamities, but is also of great help in fostering Christian life. “It nourishes the Catholic faith which readily takes on new life from a timely commentary on the sacred mysteries, and it turns minds toward the truths that have been taught us by God (Pius XI, Encyc. Letter Ingravcentibus malis, Sept. 29, 1937).” Enc. Christi Matri, Sept. 15, 1966
We exhort all Catholic families to introduce this devotion [the rosary] into their lives, and to encourage its propagation. – Saint Pope Paul VI
Blessed are we if we are faithful in reciting that very popular and splendid prayer — the rosary — which is a kind of measured spelling out of our feelings of affection in the invocation: Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Our life will be a fortunate one if it is interwoven with this garland of roses, with this circlet of praise to Mary, to the mysteries of her Divine Son. – Saint Pope Paul VI
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