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The Secret of the Rosary
by St. Louis De Montfort

PART I - WHAT THE ROSARY IS

First Rose

The prayers of the Rosary

The rosary is made up of two things: mental prayer and vocal prayer. In the Holy Rosary mental prayer is none other than meditation of the chief mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ and of His Blessed Mother. Vocal prayer consists in saying fifteen decades of the Hail Mary, each decade headed by an Our Father, while at the same time meditating on and contemplating the fifteen principal virtues which Jesus and Mary practised in the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

In the first five decades we must honor the five Joyous Mysteries and meditate on them; in the second five decades the Sorrowful Mysteries and in the third group of five, the Glorious Mysteries. So the Rosary is a blessed blending of mental and vocal prayer by which we honor and learn to imitate the mysteries and virtues of the life, death, passion and glory of Jesus and Mary.

Second Rose

Origin

Since the Holy Rosary is composed, principally and in substance, of the Prayer of Christ and the Angelic Salutation, that is, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, it was without doubt the first prayer and the first devotion of the faithful and has been in use all through the centuries from the time of the Apostles and disciples down to the present.

But it was only in the year 1214, however, that Holy Mother Church received the Rosary in its present form and according to the method we use today. It was given to the Church by Saint Dominic who had received it from the Blessed Virgin as a powerful means of converting the Albigensians and other sinners.

I will tell you the story of how he received it, which is found in the very well-known book "De Dignitate Psalterii" by Blessed Alan de la Roche [1]. Saint Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances in order to appease the anger of Almighty God. He used his discipline so much that his body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma.

At this point Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three angels, and she said:

"Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?"

"Oh, my Lady," answered Saint Dominic, "you know far better than I do because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation."

Then Our Lady replied:

"I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter."

So he arose, comforted, and burning with zeal, for the conversion of the people in that district he made straight for the Cathedral. At once unseen angels rang the bells to gather the people together and Saint Dominic began to preach.

At the very beginning of his sermon an appalling storm broke, out, the earth shook, the sun was darkened, and there was so much thunder and lightning that all were very much afraid. Even greater was their fear when looking at a picture of Our Lady exposed in a prominent place they saw her raise her arms to heaven three times to call down God's vengeance upon them if they failed to be converted, to amend their lives, and seek the protection of the Holy Mother of God.

God wished, by means of these supernatural phenomena, to spread the new devotion of the Holy Rosary and to make it more widely known.

At last, at the prayer of Saint Dominic, the storm came to an end, and he went on preaching. So fervently and compellingly did he explain the importance and value of the Holy Rosary that almost all the people of Toulouse embraced it and renounced their false beliefs. In a very short time a great improvement was seen in the town; people began leading Christian lives and gave up their former bad habits.

[1]. De Dignitate Psalterii. The importance and Beauty of the Holy Rosary, by Blessed Alan de la Roche, O.P., French Dominican Father and Apostle of the Holy Rosary.

Any interest in reading this short book online with a little discussion together folks?

Yeah, sounds good. I have this book and still haven't finished it. I'll join ya' Sir Mr. Shin !!!

Any others? Or perhaps instead St. Louis Marie de Montfort's other book?

I'm looking for what has the most support!  :D

Well perhaps we'll try a few chapters of this one and see if folks join in or not, and that'll be the test.  ;D

Anyone can copy past a chapter or portion thereof for reading of this book to this thread to move it along! Please do!

My favorite book by De Montfort is True Devotion to Mary.

I'm open for whatever we choose to read :)

Does anyone want to start a thread with a first chapter of True Devotion? Or shall I?

 :D

Now it is 20 decades of Hail Mary.

Well, no, it's the 15 decade Rosary. Some folks add on five more mysteries, some folks don't.  :D

I am glad that it is not mandatory to pray the Luminous Mystery on Thursdays; I did not know this, I just assumed that this is the sate of affairs in our Church as far as the Holy Rosary is concerned.
I am all for Tradition, I do not like additions and subtractions.

We will learn from Saint Dominic and embrace this Devotion.
 What I am not sure about is the 15 Mysteries daily. I wonder why the Church assigns different days for the four groups of mysteries yet the earlier practice has been to pray them all daily.
I pray though that the Blessed Virgin Mary helps me with this.

Third Rose

12 The miraculous way in which the devotion to the holy Rosary was established is something of a parallel to
the way in which God gave his law to the world on Mount Sinai, and it obviously proves its value and
importance.
 Inspired by the Holy Spirit, instructed by the Blessed Virgin as well as by his own experience, Saint Dominic
preached the Rosary for the rest of his life. He preached it by his example as well as by his sermons, in cities
and in country places, to people of high station and low, before scholars and the uneducated, to Catholics and
to heretics.
 The Rosary, which he said every day, was his preparation for every sermon and his little tryst with our Lady
immediately after preaching.
13 One day he had to preach at Notre Dame in Paris, and it happened to be the feast of St. John the
Evangelist. He was in a little chapel behind the high altar prayerfully preparing his sermon by saying the
Rosary, as he always did, when our Lady appeared to him and said: "Dominic, even though what you have
planned to say may be very good, I am bringing you a much better sermon." Saint Dominic took in his hands the book our Lady proffered, read the sermon carefully and, when he had
understood it and meditated on it, he gave thanks to her.
 When the time came, he went up into the pulpit and, in spite of the feast day, made no mention of Saint
John other than to say that he had been found worthy to be the guardian of the Queen of Heaven. The
congregation was made up of theologians and other eminent people, who were used to hearing unusual and
polished discourses; but Saint Dominic told them that it was not his desire to give them a learned discourse,
wise in the eyes of the world, but that he would speak in the simplicity of the Holy Spirit and with his
forcefulness.
 So he began preaching the Rosary and explained the Hail Mary word by word as he would to a group of
children, and used the very simple illustrations which were in the book given him by our Lady.
14 Carthagena, the great scholar, quoting Blessed Alan de la Roche in De Dignitate Psalterii, describes how
this took place.
 "Blessed Alan writes that one day Father Dominic said to him in a vision, 'My son, it is good to preach; but
there is always a danger of looking for praise rather than the salvation of souls. Listen care-fully to what
happened to me in Paris, so that you may be on your guard against this kind of mistake. I was to preach in the
great church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and I was particularly anxious to give a fine sermon, not out of
pride, but because of the high intellectual stature of the congregation.
 "'An hour before the time I had to preach, I was dutifully saying my Rosary - as I always did before giving a
sermon - when I fell into ecstasy. I saw my beloved friend, the Mother of God, coming towards me with a book
in her hand. "Dominic," she said, "your sermon for today may be very good indeed, but no matter how good it
is, I have brought you one that is very much better."
 "'Of course I was overjoyed, and I took the book and read every word of it. Just as our Lady had said, I
found exactly the right things to say in my sermon, so I thanked her with all my heart.
 "'When it was time to begin, I saw that the University of Paris had turned out in full force, as well as a large
number of noblemen. They had all seen and heard of the great things that the good Lord had been doing
through me.
 "'I went up into the pulpit. It was the feast of Saint John the Evangelist but all I said about him was that he
had been found worthy to be the guardian of the Queen of Heaven. Then I addressed the congregation:
 "'My Lords and illustrious doctors of the University, you are accustomed to hearing learned sermons suited
to your refined tastes. Now I do not want to speak to you in the scholarly language of human wisdom but, on
the contrary, to show you the Spirit of Cod and his greatness."'
 Here ends the quotation from Blessed Alan, after which Carthagena goes on to say in his own words,
"Then Saint Dominic explained the Angelic Salutation to them, using simple comparisons and examples from
everyday life."
15 Blessed Alan, according to Carthagena, mentioned several other occasions when our Lord and our Lady
appeared to Saint Dominic to urge him and inspire him to preach the Rosary more and more in order to wipe
out sin and convert sinners and heretics.
 In another passage Carthagena says, "Blessed Alan said our Lady revealed to him that, after she had
appeared to Saint Dominic, her blessed Son appeared to him and said, 'Dominic, I rejoice to see that you are
not relying on your own wisdom and that, rather than seek the empty praise of men, you are working with great
humility for the salvation of souls.
 "'But many priests want to preach thunderously against the worst kinds of sin at the very outset, failing to
realize that before a sick person is given bitter medicine, he needs to be prepared by being put into the right
frame of mind to really benefit by it.
 "'That is why, before doing anything else, priests should try to kindle a love of prayer in people's hearts and
especially a love of my Angelic Psalter. If only they would all start saying it and would really persevere, God in
his mercy could hardly refuse to give them his grace. So I want you to preach my Rosary."'
16 In another place Blessed Alan says, "All priests say a Hail Mary with the faithful before preaching, to ask
for God's grace.' They do this because of a revelation that Saint Dominic had from our Lady. 'My son,' she said
one day, 'do not be surprised that your sermons fail to bear the results you had hoped for. You are trying to
cultivate a piece of ground which has not had any rain. Now when God planned to renew the face of the earth, he started by sending down rain from heaven - and this was the Angelic Salutation. In this way God reformed
the world.
 "'So when you give a sermon, urge people to say my Rosary, and in this way your words will bear much
fruit for souls.'
 "Saint Dominic lost no time in obeying, and from then on he exerted great influence by his sermons." (This
last quotation is from "The Book of Miracles of the Holy Rosary," written in Italian, also found in Justin's works,
Sermon 143.)
17 I have been very pleased to quote these well-known authors word for word for the benefit of those who
might otherwise have doubts as to the marvellous power of the Rosary.
 As long as priests followed Saint Dominic's example and preached devotion to the holy Rosary, piety and
fervour thrived throughout the Christian world and in those religious orders which were devoted to the Rosary.
But since people have neglected this gift from heaven, all kinds of sin and disorder have spread far and wide.

I always understood that as that was the mystery you began with that day, and then you finished the full Rosary.


A sad state of affairs and too true in these times too!

I also have the impression that only praying a third or less was something more oriented towards beginners or children.  :D


Blessed simplicity and clarity! Nothing like the ambiguity of the devil!

There's nothing like tradition!  :D

Oh, O.K.

Assuredly!

Is anyone here a member of the The Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary?
I want it clarified whether members pray the fifteen decades daily, three times a week or pray the 15 decades in the course of one week, i.e. 5 decades daily for three days in a week ?

Yes, I'm a member Odhianbo. I try to do a daily Rosary, but the obligation is for 15 mysteries a week. I pray the 20. So your looking at one Rosary a week for your obligation. But daily is even better :)

Thank you James.
I want to join.  I have been saying the traditional 5 decades daily for some time now so once I join, I just have to make sure that I keep up the practice and whenever possible, say more.

I came across this book yesterday and bought it. Reading on line is difficult for me.
I prefer touching the book and turning the pages  ;D

It is certainly nicer to have it to hold!  ;D

The way the Rosary is often prayed, I do not see that time is allowed for meditation. As a matter of fact I do not much like group rosaries because it tends to be said too fast from my point of view. We aught to find a way to solve this problem because the Saint says later on in the book that "...the Rosary said without the meditations on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would almost be a body without a soul...."

I whole heartedly agree Shin. I've prayed in group rosaries that go so fast you don't even have time to take a breath. That's why I like scriptural rosaries. You have time to reflect during and after reading the passage.

How I would have loved to just lay eyes on that book, leave a lone touch it! Do we know if the book was preserved?

Fourth Rose

 All things, even the holiest, are subject to change, especially when they are dependent on man's free will.
It is hardly to be wondered at, then, that the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary only retained its first fervour for a century after it was instituted by Saint Dominic. After this it was like a thing buried and forgotten.
 Doubtless, too, the wicked scheming and jealousy of the devil were largely responsible for getting people to neglect the Rosary, and thus block the flow of God's grace which it had drawn upon the world.
 Thus, in 1349 God punished the whole of Europe with the most terrible plague that had ever been known.
Starting in the east, it spread throughout Italy, Germany, France, Poland and Hungary, bringing desolation wherever it went, for out of a hundred men hardly one lived to tell the tale. Big cities, towns, villages and monasteries were almost completely deserted during the three years that the epidemic lasted.
 This scourge of God was quickly followed by two others, the heresy of the Flagellants and a tragic schism in 1376.
19 Later on, when these trials were over, thanks to the mercy of God, our Lady told Blessed Alan to revive the former Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Blessed Alan was one of the Dominican Fathers at the monastery at Dinan, in Brittany. He was an eminent theologian and a famous preacher. Our Lady chose him because, since the Confraternity had originally been started in that province, it was fitting that a Dominican from the same
province should have the honour of re-establishing it.
 Blessed Alan began this great work in 1460, after a special warning from our Lord. This is how he received that urgent message, as he himself tells it:
 One day when he was offering Mass, our Lord, who wished to spur him on to preach the holy Rosary, spoke to him in the Sacred Host. "How can you crucify me again so soon?" Jesus said. "What did you say, Lord?" asked Blessed Alan, horrified. "You crucified me once before by your sins," answered Jesus, "and I would willingly be crucified again rather than have my Father offended by the sins you used to commit. You are crucifying me again now because you have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach my Mother's Rosary, and you are not doing it. If you only did that, you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin. But you are not doing it, and so you yourself are guilty of the sins that they commit."
 This terrible reproach made Blessed Alan solemnly resolve to preach the Rosary unceasingly.
20 Our Lady also said to him one day to inspire him to preach the Rosary more and more, "You were a great sinner in your youth, but I obtained the grace of your conversion from my Son. Had such a thing been possible, I would have liked to have gone through all kinds of suffering to save you, because converted sinners are a glory to me. And I would have done that also to make you worthy of preaching my Rosary far and wide."
 Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan as well and told him of the great results of his ministry: he had preached the Rosary unceasingly, his sermons had borne great fruit and many people had been converted during his missions.
 He said to Blessed Alan, "See what wonderful results I have had through preaching the Rosary. You and all who love our Lady ought to do the same so that, by means of this holy practice of the Rosary, you may draw all people to the real science of the virtues."
 Briefly, then, this is the history of how Saint Dominic established the holy Rosary and of how Blessed Alan de la Roche restored it.

I don't know but I will keep an ear open or an eye out so to speak! :D I wonder if James has heard of it?

I have joined and received my Membership Number. So glad :)
It appears that there are in fact three kinds of membership of the Confraternity.
Ordinary Membership where we are.  Members need say the complete Rosary only once a week.
Perpetual Membership which requires just once a year saying of the complete Rosary and finally the Daily Membership which obliges members to say the whole 15 Decade Rosary every day.

Well, I know the story but as to if the book is still around I'll have to do some checking.  :)

Wars; floods; earthquakes; Jihads and the doctrine of hate and terrorism; incurable diseases, name it.
Surely the current world too is being punished but we do not seem aware of the fact.

Just imagine that scene!

Fifth Rose
 Strictly speaking, there can be only one kind of Confraternity of the Rosary, that is, one whose members
agree to say the entire Rosary of 150 Hail Marys every day. However, considering the fervour of those who say
it, we may distinguish three kinds: Ordinary Membership, which entails saying the complete Rosary once a
week; Perpetual Membership, which requires it to be said only once a year; Daily Membership, which obliges
one to say it all every day, that is, the fifteen decades made up of 150 Hail Marys.
 None of these oblige under pain of sin. It is not even a venial sin to fail in this duty because such an
undertaking is entirely voluntary and supererogatory. Needless to say, people should not join the Confraternity
if they do not intend to fulfil their obligation by saying the Rosary as often as is required, without, however,
neglecting the duties of their state in life. So whenever the Rosary clashes with a duty of one's state in life,
holy as the Rosary is, one must give preference to the duty to be performed. Similarly, sick people are not
obliged to say the whole Rosary or even part of it if this effort might tire them and make them worse.
 If you have been unable to say it because of some duty required by obedience or because you genuinely
forgot, or because of some urgent necessity, you have not committed even a venial sin. You will then receive
the benefits of the Confraternity just the same, sharing in the graces and merits of your brothers and sisters in
the Rosary, who are saying it throughout the world.
 And, my dear Catholic people, even if you fail to say your Rosary out of sheer carelessness or laziness, as
long as you do not have any formal contempt for it, you do not sin, absolutely speaking, but you forfeit your
participation in the prayers, good works and merits of the Confraternity. Moreover, because you have not been
faithful in things that are little and of supererogation, almost without knowing it you may fall into the habit of
neglecting big things, such as those duties which bind under pain of sin; for "He that scorns small things shall
fall little by little."

Sixth Rose

From the time Saint Dominic established the devotion to the holy Rosary up to the time when Blessed
Alan de la Roche reestablished it in 1460, it has always been called the Psalter of Jesus and Mary. This is
because it has the same number of Hail Marys as there are psalms in the Book of the Psalms of David. Since
simple and uneducated people are not able to say the Psalms of David, the Rosary is held to be just as fruitful
for them as David's Psalter is for others.
 But the Rosary can be considered to be even more valuable than the latter for three reasons:
 1 Firstly, because the Angelic Psalter bears a nobler fruit, that of the Word incarnate,
 whereas David's Psalter only prophesies his coming;
 2 Just as the real thing is more important than its prefiguration and the body surpasses
 the shadow, so the Psalter of our Lady is greater than David's Psalter, which did no
 more than prefigure it;
 3 Because our Lady's Psalter or the Rosary made up of the Our Father and Hail Mary
 is the direct work of the Blessed Trinity.
 Here is what the learned Carthagena says about it:
 The scholarly writer of Aix-la-Chapelle says in his book, The Rose Crown, dedicated to the Emperor
Maximilian: "It cannot be maintained that Salutation of Mary is a recent innovation. It spread almost with the
Church itself. For at the very beginnings of the Church the more educated members of the faithful celebrated
the praises of God in the 150 psalms of David. The ordinary people, who encountered more difficulty in divine
service, thus conceived a holy emulation of them.... They considered, which is indeed true, that the heavenly praises of the Rosary contained all the divine secrets of the psalms, for, if the psalms sing of the one who is to
come, the Rosary proclaims him as having come.
 "That is how they began to call their prayer of 150 Salutations 'The Psalter of Mary,' and to precede each
decade with an Our Father, as was done by those who recited the psalms."
The Psalter or Rosary of our Lady is divided into three chaplets of five decades each, for the following
reasons:
 1 to honour the three persons of the Blessed Trinity;
 2 to honour the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ;
 3 to imitate the Church triumphant, to help the members of the Church militant, and to
 bring relief to the Church suffering;
 4 to imitate the three groups into which the psalms are divided, the first being for the
 purgative life, the second for the illuminative life, and the third for the unitive life;
 5 to give us graces in abundance during life, peace at death, and glory in eternity.

SEVENTH ROSE
 CROWN OF ROSES
EVER SINCE Blessed Alan de la Roche re-established this devotion the voice of the people, which is the voice of God, called it the Rosary.
The word Rosary means “Crown of Roses,” that is to say that every time people say the Rosary devoutly they placea crown of one hundred and fifty-three red roses and sixteen white roses upon the heads of Jesus and Mary.
Being heavenly flowers these roses will never fade or lose their exquisite beauty. Our Lady has shown her thorough approval of the name Rosary;
she has revealed to several people that each time they say a Hail Mary they are giving her a beautiful rose and that each complete Rosary makes her a crown of roses.
The well-known Jesuit, Brother Alphonsus Rodriguez, used to say his Rosary with such fervor that he often saw a red rose come out of his mouth at each Our Father and a white rose at each Hail Mary.
The red and white roses were equal in beauty and fragrance, the only difference being in their color.
The chronicles of Saint Francis tell of a young friar who had the praiseworthy habit of saying the Crown of Our Lady (the Rosary) every day before dinner. One day for some reason or other he did not manage to say it.
 The refectory bell had already been rung when he asked the Superior to allow him to say it before coming to the table, and having obtained the permission he withdrew to his cell to pray.
After he had been gone a long time the Superior sent another Friar to fetch him, and he found him in his room bathed in a heavenly light facing Our Lady who had two Angels with her.
Beautiful roses kept issuing from his mouth at each Hail Mary; the Angels took them one by one, placing them on Our Lady’s head, and she smilingly accepted them.
Finally two other friars who had been sent to find out what had happened to the first two saw the same lovely scene, and Our Lady did not go away until the whole Rosary had been said.
So the complete Rosary is a large crown of roses and the Rosary of five decades is a little wreath of flowers or a small crown of heavenly roses which we place on the heads of Jesus and Mary.
The rose is the queen of flowers, and so the Rosary is the rose of all devotions and it is therefore the most important one.

EIGHTH ROSE
 MARVELS OF THE ROSARY IT WOULD HARDLY be possible for me to put into words how much Our Lady thinks of the Holy Rosary and of how she vastly prefers it to all other devotions.
Neither can I sufficiently express how highly she rewards those who work to preach the devotion, to establish it and spread it, nor on the other hand how firmly she punishes those who work against it.
All during life, Saint Dominic had nothing more at heart than to praise Our Lady, to preach her greatness and to inspire everybody to honor her by saying her Rosary.
As a reward he received countless graces from her; exercising her great power as Queen of Heaven she crowned his labors with many miracles and prodigies.
Almighty God always granted him what he asked through Our Lady.
The greatest honor of all was that she helped him crush the Albigensian heresy and made him the founder and patriarch of a great religious order.
As for Blessed Alan de la Roche who restored the devotion to the Rosary, he received many privileges from Our Lady;
she graciously appeared to him several times to teach him how to work out his salvation, to become a good priest and perfect religious, and how to pattern himself on Our Lord.
He used to be horribly tempted and persecuted by devils, and then deep sadness would fall upon him and sometimes he used to be near to despair—
but Our Lady always comforted him by her sweet presence which banished the clouds of darkness from his soul.
She taught him how to say the Rosary, explaining its value and the fruits to be gained by it and gave him a great and glorious privilege: the honor of being called her new spouse.
As a token of her chaste love for him she placed a ring upon his finger and a necklace made of her own hair about his neck and gave him a Rosary.
 Father Triteme, Carthagena and Martin of Navarre (both very learned men) and others as well have spoken of him in terms of the highest praise.
Blessed Alan died at Zunolle in Flanders September 8th, 1475, after having brought over one hundred thousand people into the Confraternity.
Blessed Thomas of Saint John was well known for his sermons on the Most Holy Rosary, and the devil, jealous of the success he had with souls, tortured him so much that he fell ill and was sick so long that the doctors gave him up.
One night when he really thought that he was dying, the devil appeared to him in the most horrible form imaginable.
There was a picture of Our Lady near his bed; he looked at it and cried with all his heart and soul and strength: “Help me, save me, my sweet, sweet Mother!”
No sooner had he said this than the picture seemed to come alive and Our Lady put out her hand, took him by the arm and said:
“Do not be afraid, Thomas my son, here I am and I am going to save you: get up now and go on preaching my Rosary as you used to do. I promise to shield you from your enemies.”
When Our Lady said this the devil fled and Blessed Thomas got up, finding that he was in perfect health.
He then thanked the Blessed Mother with tears of joy. He resumed his Rosary apostolate and his sermons were marvelously successful.
Our Lady blesses not only those who preach her Rosary, but she highly rewards all those who get others to say it by their example.
Alphonsus, King of Leon and Galicia, very much wanted all his servants to honor the Blessed Virgin by saying the Rosary.
So he used to hang a large rosary on his belt and always wore it, but unfortunately never said it himself.
Nevertheless his wearing it encouraged his courtiers to say the Rosary very devoutly.
One day the King fell seriously ill and when he was given up for dead he found himself, in a vision, before the judgment seat of Our Lord.
Many devils were there accusing him of all the sins he had committed and Our Lord as Sovereign Judge was just about to condemn him to Hell when Our Lady appeared to intercede for him.
She called for a pair of scales and had his sins placed in one of the balances whereas she put the Rosary that he had always worn on the other scale, together, with all the Rosaries that had been said because of his example.
It was found that the Rosaries weighed more than his sins. Looking at him with great kindness Our Lady said: “As a reward for this little honor that you paid me in wearing my Rosary, I have obtained a great grace for you from my Son.
Your life will be spared for a few more years. See that you spend these years wisely, and do penance.”
When the King regained consciousness he cried out: “Blessed be the Rosary of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, by which I have been delivered from eternal damnation!”
After he had recovered his health he spent the rest of his life in spreading devotion to the Holy Rosary and said it faithfully everyday.
People who love the Blessed Virgin ought to follow the example of King Alphonsus and that of the Saints whom I have mentioned so that they too may win other souls for the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary.
They will then receive great graces on earth and eternal life later on. “They that explain me shall have life everlasting.”

NINTH ROSE
 ENEMIES
IT IS VERY WICKED indeed and unfair to other souls to hinder the progress of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary.
Almighty God has severely punished many of those who have been so benighted as to scorn the Confraternity and who have sought to destroy it.
Even though God has set His seal of approval on the Holy Rosary by many miracles, and in spite of the Papal Bulls that have been written approving it,
 there are only too many people who are against the Holy Rosary today.
These freethinkers and those who scorn religion either condemn the Rosary or try to turn others away from it.
It is easy to see that they have absorbed the poison of Hell and that they are inspired by the devil—
for nobody can condemn devotion to the Holy Rosary without condemning all that is most holy in the Catholic Faith,
 such as the Lord’s Prayer, the Angelic Salutation and the mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ and of His Holy Mother.
 These freethinkers who cannot bear others to say the Rosary often fall into a really heretical state of mind without even realizing it and some to hate the Rosary and its holy mysteries.
 To have a loathing for confraternities is to fall away from God and true piety, for Our Lord Himself has told us that He is always in the midst of those who are gathered together in His name.
 No good Catholic should forget the many great indulgences which Holy Mother Church has granted to Confraternities.
 Finally, to dissuade others from joining the Rosary Confraternity is to be an enemy of souls because the Rosary is a sure means of curing oneself of sin and of embracing a Christian life.
Saint Bonaventure said (in his Psalter) that whoever neglected Our Lady would perish in his sins and would be damned: “He who neglects her will die in his sins.”
If such is the penalty for neglecting her, what must be the punishment in store for those who actually turn others away from their devotions!

TENTH ROSE
 MIRACLES
WHILE SAINT DOMINIC was preaching the Rosary in Carcassone, a heretic made fun of the miracles and the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary, and this prevented other heretics from being converted.
As a punishment God suffered fifteen thousand devils to enter the man’s body. His parents took him to Father Dominic to be delivered from the evil spirits.
He started to pray and begged everyone who was there to say the Rosary out loud with him, and at each Hail Mary Our Lady drove one hundred devils out of the heretic’s body and they came out in the form of red hot coals.
After he had been delivered he abjured his former errors, was converted and joined the Rosary Confraternity. Several of his associates did the same, having been greatly moved by his punishment and by the power of the Rosary.
The learned Franciscan, Carthagena, as well as several other authors, says that an extraordinary event took place in 1482:
The Venerable James Sprenger and other religious of his order were zealously working to re-establish devotion to the Holy Rosary and also to erect a Confraternity in the city of Cologne.
Unfortunately two priests who were famous for their preaching ability were jealous of the great influence they were exerting through preaching the Rosary.
So these two Fathers spoke against this devotion whenever they had a chance, and as they were very eloquent and had a great reputation they persuaded many people not to join the Confraternity.
One of them, bound and determined to achieve his wicked end, wrote a special sermon against the Rosary and planned to give it the following Sunday.
But when it came time for the sermon he never appeared and, after a certain amount of waiting somebody went to fetch him.
He was found dead, and evidently had died all alone without anyone to help him and without seeing a priest.
After convincing himself that death had been due to natural causes, the other priest decided to carry out his friend’s plan and to give a similar sermon on another day.
In this way he hoped to put an end to the Confraternity of the Rosary.
However, when the day came for him to preach and it was time to give the sermon God punished him by striking him down with paralysis which deprived him both of the use of his limbs and of his power of speech.
At last he admitted his sin and likewise that of his friend and immediately, in his heart of hearts, he silently besought Our Lady to help him.
He promised her that if she would only cure him he would preach the Holy Rosary with as much zeal as that with which he had formerly fought against it.
For this end he implored her to restore his health and speech which she did, and finding himself instantaneously cured he rose up like another Saul, a persecutor turned defender of the Holy Rosary.
He publicly acknowledged his former error and ever after preached the wonders of the Most Holy Rosary with great zeal and eloquence.
I am quite sure that freethinkers and ultra-critical people of today will question the truth of the stories in this little book,
 in the very same way that they have always questioned most things, but all that I have done has been to copy them from very good contemporary writers and also, in part,
 from a book that was written only a short time ago: The Mystical Rose Tree, by the Reverend Antonin Thomas, O.P. Everyone knows that there are three different kinds of faith by which we believe different kinds of stories:
To stories of Holy Scripture we owe Divine faith;
To stories concerning other than religious subjects, which do not militate against common sense and which are written by trustworthy authors, we pay the tribute of human faith;
whereas To stories about holy subjects which are told by good authors and are not in the slightest degree contrary to reason, faith or morals
(even though they may sometimes deal with happenings which are above the ordinary run of events) we pay the tribute of pious faith.
I agree that we must be neither too credulous nor too critical and that we should remember that “virtue takes the middle course”—keeping a happy medium in all things in order to find just where truth and virtue lie.
But on the other hand I know equally well that charity easily leads us to believe all that is not contrary to faith or morals: “Charity . . . believeth all things;”
 in the same way pride induces us to doubt even well authenticated stories on the plea that they are not to be found in the Bible.
This is one of the devil’s traps; heretics of the past who denied Tradition have fallen into it and over-critical people of today are falling into it too without even realizing it.
People of this kind refuse to believe what they do not understand or what is not to their liking, simply because of their own spirit of pride and independence.

ELEVENTH ROSE
 THE CREED
THE CREED or the Symbol of the Apostles which is said on the Crucifix of the Rosary is a holy summary of all Christian truths.
It is a prayer that has great merit because faith is the root, foundation and beginning of all Christian virtues, of all eternal virtues and also of all prayers that are pleasing to Almighty God.
“He that cometh to God, must believe . . .” Whosoever wishes to come to God must first of all believe and the greater his faith the more merit his prayer will have, the more powerful it will be, and the more it will glorify God.
I shall not take time here to explain the Creed word for word but I cannot resist saying that the first few words “I believe in God” are marvelously effective as a means of sanctifying our souls and of putting devils to rout,
because these three words contain the acts of the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.
It was by saying I believe in God that the Saints overcame temptations, especially those against faith, hope or charity—whether they came during their lifetime or at their death.
 They were also the last words of St. Peter, Martyr; a heretic had cleft his head in two by a cruel blow of his sword and St. Peter was almost at his last gasp, but he somehow managed to trace these words in the sand with his finger before he died.
 The Holy Rosary contains many mysteries of Jesus and Mary and since faith is the only key which opens up these mysteries for us we must begin the Rosary by saying the Creed very devoutly, and the stronger our faith the more merit our Rosary will have.
This faith must be lively and informed by charity; in other words, to recite properly the Rosary, it is necessary to be in God’s grace, or at least in quest of it.
 This faith must be strong and constant, that is, one must not be looking for sensible devotion and spiritual consolation in the recitation of the Rosary;
 nor should one give it up because his mind is flooded with countless involuntary distractions or one experiences a strange distaste in the soul and an almost continual and oppressive fatigue in the body.
Neither feeling, nor consolation, nor sighs, nor transports, nor the continual attention of the imagination are needed; faith and good intentions are quite enough. “Faith alone suffices.”

TWELFTH ROSE
 THE OUR FATHER, PART 1
THE OUR FATHER or the Lord’s Prayer has great value—above all because of its Author Who is neither a man nor an Angel, but the King of Angels and men, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
 Saint Cyprian says that it was fitting that our Savior by Whom we were reborn into the life of grace should also be our heavenly Master and should teach us how to pray.
The beautiful order, the tender forcefulness and the clarity of this Divine Prayer pay tribute to our Divine Master’s wisdom.
It is a short prayer but can teach us so very much and it is well within the grasp of uneducated people, while scholars find it a continual source of meditation on the mysteries of our Faith.
The Our Father contains all the duties we owe to God, the acts of all the virtues and the petitions for all our spiritual and corporal needs. Tertullian says that the Our Father is a summary of the New Testament.
Thomas à Kempis says that it surpasses all the desires of all the Saints; that it is a condensation of all the beautiful sayings of all the Psalms and Canticles; that in it we ask God for everything that we need;
that by it we praise Him in the very best way; that by it we lift up our souls from earth to Heaven and unite them with God. Saint John Chrysostom says that we cannot be our Master’s disciples unless we pray as He did and in the way that He showed us.
Moreover God the Father listens more willingly to the Prayer that we have learned from His Son rather than those of our own making which have all our human limitations.
We should say the Our Father with the certitude that the eternal Father will hear it because it is the prayer of His Son Whom He always hears and we are His members.
God will surely grant our petitions made through the Lord’s Prayer because it is impossible to imagine that such a good Father could refuse a request couched in the language of so worthy a Son, reinforced by His merits, and made at His behest.
Saint Augustine says that whenever we say the Our Father devoutly our venial sins are forgiven.
The just man faIls seven times a day, but in the Lord’s Prayer he will find seven petitions which will both help him to avoid downfalls and will protect him from his spiritual enemies.
Our Lord, knowing how weak and helpless we are, and how many difficulties we get into, made His Prayer short and easy to say, so that if we say it devoutly and often we can be sure that Almighty God will quickly come to our aid.
I have a word for you, devout souls, who pay little attention to the prayer that the Son of God gave us Himself and asked us all to say: It is high time for you to change your way of thinking.
You only like prayers that men have written—as though anybody, even the most inspired man in the whole world, could possibly know more about how we ought to pray than Jesus Christ Himself!
You look for prayers in books written by other men almost as though you were ashamed of saying the Prayer that Our Lord told us to say.
You have managed to convince yourself that the prayers in these books are for scholars and for rich people of the upper classes and that the Rosary is only for women and children and the lower classes.
As if the prayers and praises which you have been reading were more beautiful and more pleasing to God than those which are to be found in the Lord’s Prayer!
It is a very dangerous temptation to lose interest in the Prayer that Our Lord gave us and to take up prayers that men have written instead.
Not that I disapprove of prayers that the Saints have written so as to encourage the faithful to praise God, but it is not to be endured that they should prefer the latter to the Prayer which was uttered by Wisdom Incarnate.
If they ignore this Prayer it is just as though they pass up the spring to go after the brook and refusing the clear water, drink dirty water instead.
Because the Rosary made up of the Lord’s Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, is this clear and ever flowing water which comes from the Fountain of Grace, whereas other prayers which they look for in books are nothing but tiny streams which spring from this fountain.
People who say Our Lord’s Prayer carefully, weighing every word and meditating upon it, may indeed call themselves blessed for they find therein everything that they need or can wish for.
When we say this wonderful prayer we touch God’s heart at—the very outset by calling Him by the sweet name of Father—Our Father.
He is the dearest of fathers: all-powerful in His creation, wonderful in the way He maintains the world, completely lovable in His Divine Providence,—always good and infinitely so in the Redemption.
We have God for our Father, so we are all brothers—and Heaven is our homeland and our heritage.
This should be more than enough to teach us to love God and our neighbor and to be detached from the things of this world.
So we ought to love our Heavenly Father and should say to Him over and over again:
OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN,
Thou Who dost fill Heaven and earth With the immensity of Thy Being, Thou Who art present everywhere—
Thou Who art in the Saints By Thy glory, In the damned By Thy Justice, In the good By Thy grace—
And even in sinners By the patience With which Thou dost tolerate them—
Grant we beseech Thee That we may always remember That we come from Thee; Grant that we may live As Thy true children ought to live—
Grant that we may set our course Towards Thee And never swerve—
Grant that we may use Our every power, Our hearts and souls and strength To tend towards Thee And THEE ALONE.
HALLOWED BE THY NAME: King David, the prophet, said that the name of the Lord is holy and awe-inspiring, and Isaias that Heaven is always echoing with the praises of the Seraphim who unceasingly praise the holiness of the Lord God of Hosts.
We ask here that all the world may learn to know and adore the attributes of our God Who is so great and so holy.
We ask that He may be known, loved and adored by pagans, Turks, Jews, barbarians and by all infidels—that all men may serve and glorify Him by a living faith, a staunch hope, a burning charity and by renouncing all erroneous beliefs.
This all adds up to say that we pray that all men may be holy, because our God Himself is all-holy.
THY KINGDOM COME: Do Thou reign in our souls By Thy grace So that after death We may be found meet To reign with Thee In Thy Kingdom In perfect and unending bliss.
Oh Lord we firmly believe In this happiness to come; We hope for and we expect it, Because God the Father Has promised it In His great goodness; It was purchased for us By the merits of God the Son And God the Holy Spirit He Who is the Light Has made it known to us. THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN: As Tertullian says, this sentence does not in the least mean that we are afraid of people thwarting God’s designs because nothing whatsoever can happen without Divine Providence having foreseen it and having made it fit into His plans beforehand.
No obstruction in the whole world can possibly prevent the will of God from being carried out.
Rather, when we say Thy will be done, we ask God to make us humbly resigned to all that He has seen fit to send us in this life. We also ask Him to help us to do, in all things and at all times, His Holy will, made known to us by the Commandments, promptly, lovingly and faithfully as the Saints and Angels do it in Heaven.
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD: Our Lord taught us to ask God for everything that we need whether in the spiritual or temporal order.
By asking for our daily bread we humbly admit our own poverty and insufficiency and pay tribute to our God, knowing that all temporal goods come from His Divine Providence.
When we say bread we ask for that which is just necessary to live; and, of course, this does not include luxuries.
We ask for this bread today this day which means that we are concerned only for the present, leaving the morrow in the hands of Providence.
And when we ask for our daily bread we recognize that we need God’s help every day and that we are entirely dependent upon Him for His help and protection.
FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US:
Every sin, say Saint Augustine and Tertullian, is a debt which we contract towards Almighty God and His justice demands payment down to the very last farthing.
Unfortunately we all have these sad debts.
No matter how many they may be we should go to God in all confidence and with true sorrow for our sins, saying
“Our Father Who art in Heaven, forgive us our sins of thought and those of speech, forgive us our sins of commission and omission which make us infinitely guilty in the eyes of Thy Divine Justice. “
We dare to ask this because Thou art our loving and merciful Father and because we have forgotten those who have offended us, out of obedience to Thee and out of charity.
“Do not permit us, in spite of our infidelity to Thy graces, to give in to the temptations of the world, the devil and the flesh.”
 BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL: The evil of sin and also of temporal punishment and everlasting punishment which we know that we have rightly deserved.
AMEN (SO BE IT). This word at the end of Our Father is very consoling and Saint Jerome says that it is a sort of seal of approbation that Almighty God puts at the end of our petitions to assure us that He will grant our requests—
very much as though He Himself were answering: “Amen! May it be as you have asked, for verily you have obtained what you asked for.” This is what is meant by the word “Amen.”

THIRTEENTH ROSE
THE OUR FATHER, PART 2
EACH WORD of the Lord’s Prayer is a tribute we pay to the perfections of God. We honor His fertility by the name of Father:
FATHER,
Thou
Who throughout eternity
Dost beget a Son
Who is God like Thee—
Eternal, consubstantial with Thee
WHO Is the very same essence As Thee;
And is of like power And goodness
 And wisdom
As Thou art . . .
Father and Son
Who from Thy mutual love
Produce the Holy Spirit
Who is God like unto Thee;
Three Persons But one GOD.
Our Father—this means that He is the Father of mankind because He has created us and continues to sustain us, and because He has redeemed us.
He is also the merciful Father of sinners, the Father Who is the friend of the just and the glorious Father of the blessed in Heaven.

When we say Who art, by these words we pay tribute to the infinity and immensity and fullness of God’s essence. God is rightly called “He Who is’’49; that is to say, He exists of necessity, essentially, and eternally, because He is the Being of beings and the cause of all beings. He possesses within Himself, in a supereminent degree, the perfections of all beings and He is in all of them by His essence, by His presence and by His power, but without being bounded by their limitations. We honor His sublimity and His glory and His majesty by the words Who art in Heaven, that is to say, “Who is seated as on a throne, holding sway over all men by Thy justice.”

When we say hallowed be Thy name we worship God’s holiness; and we make obeisance to His Kingship and bow to the justice of His laws by the words Thy Kingdom come, praying that men will obey Him on earth as the Angels do in Heaven.

We show our trust in His Providence by asking for our daily bread, and we appeal to His mercy when we ask for the forgiveness of our sins.

We look to His great power when we beg Him not to lead us into temptation, and we show our faith in His goodness by our hope that He will deliver us from evil.

The Son of God has always glorified His Father by His works and He came into the world to teach men to give glory to Him. He showed men how to praise Him by this prayer which He taught us with His Own lips. It is our duty, therefore, to say it often—we should say it reverently and attentively and in the spirit in which Our Lord taught it.