Dear friends in Christ

October is the month of the Holy Rosary. Monsignor Ronald Knox once described the Holy Rosary as the furniture of our lives as Catholics. As such, we can take it rather for granted, perhaps like the sofa in our living room. It is the sort of devotion, he says, which causes us more scruples when we forget to say it than comfort us when we remember it. There is a special feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on 7th October to remind us of it’s meaning. There are other inanimate things in our Faith that we celebrate - the Holy Cross and the Chair of St Peter - but there is a warmth and familiarity about the Rosary which makes it most intimate and personal. It might be a good moment to remind ourselves at the start of October that the Rosary has some special qualities as a prayer. First, it is a source of meditation. As the beads occupy our fingers, the prayers are to occupy our minds, so that we can think-on the events in Our Lord’s life. Second, the Rosary can be said in private or in public and it links us with Catholics the Church over. Third, it is Our Lady’s way of highlighting for us the Incarnation. If we believe in God’s closeness to us how can we be but close to our neighbour wherever we find ourselves? It is the Word become flesh that links the beads. Knox says that we could think of the Holy Rosary as a musical composition in three moods: Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious. Joyful because of the birth of Our Lord, Sorrowful because of His death and Glorious because of His triumph over death in the Resurrection. Knox says again: Christ brought joy with Him into the world, and brought it first of all to her, to whom it belonged as as right because she was His Mother. May He, whose life, death and Resurrection has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, lead us by meditating on these mysteries of the most Holy Rosary, to both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise. God bless you all!

Msgr Kevin Hale