DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS FOR OCTOBER  2008.

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A Meditation for the Month of October in which we contemplate the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary+

A mystery is a sacred thing which is difficult to understand. The works of Our Lord Jesus Christ are all sacred and divine because He is God and man at one and the same time. The works of the Most Blessed Virgin are very holy because she is the most perfect and the most pure of God’s creatures. The works of Our Lord and of His Blessed Mother can be rightly called mysteries because they are so full of wonders and all kinds of perfections and deep and sublime truths which the Holy Spirit reveals to the humble and simple souls who honour these mysteries. The works of Jesus and Mary can also be called wonderful flowers; but their perfume can only be appreciated by those who study them carefully – and who open them and drink in their scent by diligent and sincere meditation.
Saint Dominic has divided up the lives of Our Lord and Our Lady into fifteen mysteries which stand for their virtues and their most important actions. These are the fifteen tableaux or pictures whose every detail must rule and inspire our lives. They are fifteen flaming torches to guide our steps through this earthly life. They are fifteen shining mirrors which help us to know Jesus and Mary and to know ourselves as well. They will also help light the fire of their love in our hearts. They are fifteen fiery furnaces which can consume us completely in their heavenly flames. Our Lady taught Saint Dominic this excellent method of praying and ordered him to preach it far and wide so as to reawaken the fervour of Christians and to revive in their hearts a love for Our Blessed Lord. [St.Louis de Montfort]

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Bishop Anthony writes: As I have pointed out more than once, the Rosary is the science of our eternal Salvation. The Rosary is NOT, as most protestants think, a lot of mumbo-jumbo prayers said by simple people who “worship the Virgin Mary”! We Catholics do not worship Our Lady: we love and honour and praise her because she is the Mother of Our Redeemer. It is because we adore JESUS and truly recognize that without His agony and death on Calvary we could never hope to see GOD, that we sing Mary’s praises – the praises which JESUS desires us to sing! There is no salvation without JESUS and it is Mary whose maternal love is the beacon pointing us to her Son. It is impossible to say the decades of the Rosary with their many Hail Marys without a steadfast belief in the truths of Christianity and what Christ has done for us. The Rosary begins with Our Lady’s obedience to God’s Will, proceeds through the earthly and heavenly mysteries which have wrought our Salvation and ends with the Coronation of Our Lady in Heaven when the Holy Spirit receives His own Spouse. Our Christian pilgrimage through this world is daily nourished by our meditations on the Birth, Life and Passion of Our Saviour and there is no better way to do so than by saying some part of the Rosary every day – a devotion given to us by Our Lady herself – through the Will of the Living God.

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Let us pray: God, Whose only begotten Son, by His life, death and resurrection, hath purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, we beseech Thee grant that we who meditate upon these mysteries in the most holy Rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary, may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.  Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer. +Amen+

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And a Passing Thought

If we fail to see our faults, it is because we have not looked at the lives of holy men and women.
(Saint Anthony of Padua)
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JESUS AND MARY, WE GIVE THEE OUR HEARTS AND OUR SOULS!
IMMACULATE MARY, QUEEN AND MISTRESS, KEEP US EVER FAITHFUL TO JESUS!
OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY, SACRED VIRGIN, WE BLESS THEE! O, BE OUR SALVATION!

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