Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary / Our Lady of Victories

OCTOBER 7^th is the feast day of the Blessed Virgin and the Rosary prayer in honor of her. That this day was at one time called Our Lady of Victories is telling: the Rosary is recognized to be a weapon in spiritual warfare.

The word ‘Rosary’ comes from the middle English word for a rose garden, that in turn comes from the Latin word rosarium, meaning the same thing. Gardens have a typological or analogical meaning: while some have said that the Rosary is like a private chapel of the soul, it is perhaps better seen as a pleasant private garden, where the soul can retreat for a while and achieve a certain rest from the worries of the world. Let us recall that while roses are beautiful and fragrant, they also have thorns which can pierce the flesh. Beauty and suffering go together in this world, as the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary remind us. However all of the mysteries have both a joyful and a sorrowful component to them.

As a devotion, the Rosary signifies much of Latin Catholicism, especially of the more traditional sort:

• It is a physical sacramental; an actual chain of beads is blessed by a cleric and is used in the prayer.
• The prayer addresses many persons: God the Father and God the Son individually, the Trinity, and Mary, the Mother of God.
• It has an essential feminine aspect to it, like the churches of old which were adorned like a bride for her wedding.While we are not surprised by a young mother praying the Rosary while suckling her infant, we can be quite edified by a soldier on a battlefield doing the same.
• It has developed over a very long time, and many regional and linguistic variations can be found.
• It is an exceedingly humble prayer, especially since it is simple and mainly addressed to Mary. The proud reject the Rosary.
• The Rosary incorporates number symbolism in its counting and repetition of the prayers, including the number 3, a symbol of the Trinity and the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and love; the number 5, a symbol of the Virgin Mary, and the number 10, a symbol of the human body with its ten fingers and toes. Many other symbolic interconnections among the mysteries and number can be elaborated.
• It incorporates the human imagination, especially when meditating on the various mysteries. The rhythm of the Rosary helps encourage a meditative state.
• It can be prayed individually, but just as easily in community.
• The prayers in both Latin and the vernacular are familiar, even in our present day.

If ever you see the beads in a bad Hollywood film, know that soon some evil-but-pious Catholic is about to strangle someone with them. But simple experience will show that most Rosary chains are easily breakable. The Rosary is a weapon, but of the spiritual and not material kind.

Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Supremi Apostolatus Officio, greatly recommends the Rosary, especially in its use against the evils of heresy and aggression:

There is none among you, venerable brethren, who will not remember how great trouble and grief God's Holy Church suffered from the Albigensian heretics, who sprung from the sect of the later Manicheans, and who filled the South of France and other portions of the Latin world with their pernicious errors, and carrying everywhere the terror of their arms, strove far and wide to rule by massacre and ruin. Our merciful God, as you know, raised up against these most direful enemies a most holy man, the illustrious parent and founder of the Dominican Order. Great in the integrity of his doctrine, in his example of virtue, and by his apostolic labours, he proceeded undauntedly to attack the enemies of the Catholic Church, not by force of arms; but trusting wholly to that devotion which he was the first to institute under the name of the Holy Rosary, which was disseminated through the length and breadth of the earth by him and his pupils. Guided, in fact, by divine inspiration and grace, he foresaw that this devotion, like a most powerful warlike weapon, would be the means of putting the enemy to flight, and of confounding their audacity and mad impiety. Such was indeed its result. Thanks to this new method of prayer-when adopted and properly carried out as instituted by the Holy Father St. Dominic-piety, faith, and union began to return, and the projects and devices of the heretics to fall to pieces. Many wanderers also returned to the way of salvation, and the wrath of the impious was restrained by the arms of those Catholics who had determined to repel their violence.

The efficacy and power of this devotion was also wondrously exhibited in the sixteenth century, when the vast forces of the Turks threatened to impose on nearly the whole of Europe the yoke of superstition and barbarism. At that time the Supreme Pontiff, St. Pius V., after rousing the sentiment of a common defence among all the Christian princes, strove, above all, with the greatest zeal, to obtain for Christendom the favour of the most powerful Mother of God. So noble an example offered to heaven and earth in those times rallied around him all the minds and hearts of the age. And thus Christ's faithful warriors, prepared to sacrifice their life and blood for the salvation of their faith and their country, proceeded undauntedly to meet their foe near the Gulf of Corinth, while those who were unable to take part formed a pious band of supplicants, who called on Mary, and unitedly saluted her again and again in the words of the Rosary, imploring her to grant the victory to their companions engaged in battle. Our Sovereign Lady did grant her aid; for in the naval battle by the Echinades Islands, the Christian fleet gained a magnificent victory, with no great loss to itself, in which the enemy were routed with great slaughter. And it was to preserve the memory of this great boon thus granted, that the same Most Holy Pontiff desired that a feast in honour of Our Lady of Victories should celebrate the anniversary of so memorable a struggle, the feast which Gregory XIII. dedicated under the title of “The Holy Rosary.” Similarly, important successes were in the last century gained over the Turks at Temeswar, in Pannonia, and at Corfu; and in both cases these engagements coincided with feasts of the Blessed Virgin and with the conclusion of public devotions of the Rosary. And this led our predecessor, Clement XL, in his gratitude, to decree that the Blessed Mother of God should every year be especially honoured in her Rosary by the whole Church.

It is significant that the Saint Dominic's Order of Preachers, known for their philosophy, are also known for the humble Rosary — but isn't that fitting? If you want to master worldly learning, you ought to be humble in matters spiritual, otherwise pride will destroy you.

We find further recommendation in the encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariæ by Pope John Paul II:

A number of historical circumstances also make a revival of the Rosary quite timely. First of all, the need to implore from God the gift of peace. The Rosary has many times been proposed by my predecessors and myself as a prayer for peace. At the start of a millennium which began with the terrifying attacks of 11 September 2001, a millennium which witnesses every day innumerous parts of the world fresh scenes of bloodshed and violence, to rediscover the Rosary means to immerse oneself in contemplation of the mystery of Christ who “is our peace”, since he made “the two of us one, and broke down the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14). Consequently, one cannot recite the Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear commitment to advancing peace, especially in the land of Jesus, still so sorely afflicted and so close to the heart of every Christian.

A similar need for commitment and prayer arises in relation to another critical contemporary issue: the family, the primary cell of society, increasingly menaced by forces of disintegration on both the ideological and practical planes, so as to make us fear for the future of this fundamental and indispensable institution and, with it, for the future of society as a whole. The revival of the Rosary in Christian families, within the context of a broader pastoral ministry to the family, will be an effective aid to countering the devastating effects of this crisis typical of our age.

Amen.

On an Art Curriculum

FROM THE ARTICLE An Art Curriculum for Catholic Children, over at New Liturgical Movement:

...The approach is anchored highly on the human person as an image of God and how the invisible and visible meet in Man. This means that we take image making from two poles, one which is based on proportion, rule and ideal, and one which is based on observation, detail and particularity. Drawing exercises move along those poles as we work towards finding balance between the two. All students begin by learning to draw a face through discovery of proportion, balance and symmetry found therein. This approach is extended to the human body. Then as the children perfect their knowledge of the ideal form, they will also be brought to draw strictly from observation, a hand, a drapery or another child’s face. As the student’s knowledge grows, we integrate basic Christian iconology, and so for example the children will learn the elements of a crucifixion and will be asked to produce one based on what they have learned, copying as well from traditional images.

I have found this approach to give amazing results as even the children that seemed to have the least “talent” have advanced their drawing skills by leaps and bounds and have learned to enjoy something they had once found daunting....

The Catholic Church was the greatest patron of the arts in history, and the Body of Christ has in its possession some of the most magnificent works of art ever made. The theory of art that she preserved, elaborated, and upholds therefore ought to be of great importance.

Art, according to the traditional definition, is recta ratio factibilium, that is, “right reason applied to things made,” and so all parts of life include an aspect of art, not simply those artifacts that happen to be exhibited in a museum. Instead, we ought to desire that all things be made artfully. Also, art is not simply an expression of an artist's feelings (although these are not unimportant), but are the products of rational consideration, where the intellect judges feelings and the external senses.

Note that according to the traditional theory, aesthetics is not directly mentioned, but rather it flows out from considerations of first principles. In the quote above, both direct observation as well as theories of proportion, balance, and symmetry are considered important. Good art requires consideration of things from above and from below in the order of Creation. Beauty, the main and most perfect component of aesthetics, comes from above and is expressed by the proportions and symmetries mentioned. When we observe the natural world, this beauty is best expressed in light and in the multitude of colors.

As art is an application of human reason, we can expect that humans with a minimal capacity for reason, such as children, should be able to make good art with enough knowledge and practice. It doesn't take innate genius, as even those who seem to be particularly predisposed to making art still need to learn theory and to develop by practice.

Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

St. Francis Contemplating a Skull, by Francisco de Zurbarán, at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

FROM A LETTER of Saint Francis of Assisi to all the faithful:

...We ought also to fast and to abstain from vices and sins and from superfluity of food and drink, and to be Catholics. We ought also to visit Churches frequently and to reverence clerics not only for themselves, if they are sinners, but on account of their office and administration of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which they sacrifice on the altar and receive and administer to others. And let us all know for certain that no one can be saved except by the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the holy words of the Lord which clerics say and announce and distribute and they alone administer and not others. But religious especially, who have renounced the world, are bound to do more and greater things, but “not to leave the other undone.”

We ought to hate our bodies with [their] vices and sins, because the Lord says in the Gospel that all vices and sins come forth from the heart. We ought to love our enemies and do good to them that hate us. We ought to observe the precepts and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ought also to deny ourselves and to put our bodies beneath the yoke of servitude and holy obedience as each one has promised to the Lord. And let no man be bound by obedience to obey any one in that where sin or offense is committed....

Peter Elliott, auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, last Sunday, during his homily at Saint Mary of Victories Church, in Saint Louis, Missouri.

UPDATE: audio recordings from Bishop Elliott's visit to Saint Louis can be found at the link here.

"I got it!"

THERE IS A gentleman whose hobby is catching home run baseballs.



While that isn't uncommon, he also takes videos while doing it: with a baseball glove in one hand, and a video camera in the other.