St. Louis Marie de Montfort - The Secret of the Rosary

[James - a humble servant]

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

[odhiambo]

Yes, I'm a member Odhiambo. 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.

[odhiambo]

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 

[Shin]

It is certainly nicer to have it to hold! 

[odhiambo]

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.

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...."

[James - a humble servant]

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.

[odhiambo]

Third Rose

.......
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.

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?

[odhiambo]

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.

[Shin]

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?

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

[odhiambo]

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

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.

[James - a humble servant]

I wonder if James has heard of it?

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

[odhiambo]

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.

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.

[odhiambo]

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,

Just imagine that scene!

[odhiambo]

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."

[odhiambo]

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.

[Benedict]

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.