October 15 - The living Rosary and the fruits of holiness

The third method of St. Ignatius is the simplest and easiest. It traces the Mysteries of God in the heart of the person praying, making him or her feel satisfaction and deep joy. This method, called application of the senses, is based on the requirement to connect what our lips say, the vocal prayers, and how we use the senses of our body: the participation of our eyes, ears, smell, touch, taste. How do our senses enable us to pray, to pray better, and to progress spiritually on the path of holiness? How do the gifts of God and the virtues, like flowers and fruits of a beautiful garden, embellish the souls of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the other holy persons who are in the mysteries? (Pauline Jaricot, The Living Rosary, op. Cit., p. 111).

By engaging one’s imagination of the senses can imagine a large room in the Praetorium where the Pilate’s soldiers lead Jesus Christ after having brutally scourged him. The divine Master is naked, bloody and ready to receive even more pain and suffering. The executioners plait together a crown of thorns and push it onto his head. Oh Lord, such a crown! (Pauline Jaricot, Le Rosaire vivant, op. Cit., p. 112). This type of meditation emphasises the imagination and devotion. A decade of the Rosary recited in any devout and simple manner while gazing with compassionate eyes at Jesus in his suffering, while receiving the crown of thorns even upon his heart, will be a good and true decade of Rosary prayer.  (Pauline Jaricot, The Living Rosary, op. Cit., p. 114). It is possible to imagine the face of Jesus in the face of excessive humiliation, the way in which the Man-God reacts in the face of pain, but also the expression of his gentleness, his patience, and the way in which he and Heaven keep silent. Anyone can be instructed when praying to the Lord and Mary, using their senses to meditate on suffering, pain, humility, abasement and kenosis (emptying oneself to reveal God's being and love; see Phil 2:5-11; 1 Cor 9:15; 2 Cor 9:3) through obedience, the mysteries of humanity's salvation. The application of the senses provides knowledge of the mysteries of God, of the tenderness of God’s love.” (Pauline Jaricot, The Living Rosary, op. Cit., p. 110)

The fruits of holiness are not quantifiable, but it is possible to evoke all the transformations that take place in the hearts of those who recite the Rosary, not only in Europe, but also in the Indies, America, Africa and elsewhere. The Christian world can say of this devotion what Solomon said of Wisdom: all kinds of good things came to me with it. (Pauline Jaricot, Le Rosaire vivant, op. Cit., p. 116). For St. Francis de Sales, the Rosary is a very useful devotion for sinners and for spiritual people. He himself was miraculously cured of his scruples and temptations to despair, by which God tested him, by vowing to say the Rosary every day of his life. He also advised the people he directed to wear the Rosary as a holy mark by which they would proclaim that they wished to be servants of God, of the Savior and of his blessed and ever-virgin Mother. (Pauline Jaricot, Le Rosaire vivant, op. Cit., p. 117). Other saints, such as Charles Borromeo, Vincent Ferrier or Alphonse de Liguori prayed the Rosary with a particular devotion to honor Mary, to fight against sin, to progress in holiness and to invite their contemporaries to accept salvation in Jesus Christ. Some wore the entire Rosary under their clothes or hung it around their necks to recite it every day, contemplating its mysteries. (Pauline Jaricot, Le Rosaire vivant, op. Cit., p. 115).

Cardinal Bellarmine recited the Rosary during his recreations while walking going from one obligation to another and when he was forced to wait. A woman who had a rich husband, who led a life very unworthy of a Christian, came to St. Dominic to consult him about the means to be taken to bring her husband back to the path of virtue. Our saint advised her to recite the Rosary for a fortnight, as devoutly as possible. This pious woman obeyed; and the very day she began, God touched the heart of this man so deeply with the fear of hell that he went, trembling and with his eyes bathed in tears, to find Saint Dominic, asked for a rosary, and lived sanctified for the rest of his days. (Pauline Jaricot, Le Rosaire vivant, op. Cit., p. 121) According to Pauline, St. Francis Xavier honored the Blessed Virgin and loved her all his life, with feelings full of reverence and tenderness. To show that he was her servant and that he prided himself on being so, he usually wore a rosary hanging around his neck. He used this rosary most often to work miracles in order to encourage his Neophytes to become fond of this devotion.