He emphasizes, “In praying the Rosary we remain faithful to Scripture and that tradition.”
That the Holy Rosary is a “Christ-centered prayer, focusing on the life of Christ and the culmination of God’s great acts of salvation history for the redemption of the world” is another reason that makes the prayer special and powerful, Archbishop Brislin further says.
“This prayer, more than any other, helps us to remember and concentrate on the life of Christ, his teaching and his self-giving. It re-affirms our faith in the Incarnation, the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus, as well as our faith in the great gift of the Holy Spirit,” the 64-year-old Prelate explains in his October 7 reflection.
The Marian mysteries help us to meditate on the power of God to save since “Mary, after all, like all human beings, is saved by Jesus Christ and she represents all of us,” the South African Archbishop adds.
Another reason praying the Holy Rosary is special and powerful is that it is prayer of contemplation, Archbishop Brislin says, making reference to the 2001 Directory for Popular Piety and the Liturgy by Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments that described the recitation of the Holy Rosary as a “contemplative prayer, which requires tranquility of rhythm or even mental lingering, which encourages the faithful to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life.”
“The point about contemplative prayer is that it is not just about ‘thinking’ of the mysteries or calling them to mind,” the South African Prelate says and explains, “In contemplation, we are assimilating the mysteries into our lives, so that prayer is no longer just words we use, but becomes a living prayer – prayer that changes and transforms us so that we are able to live what we pray.”
The Archbishop who has served the people of God in Cape Town since December 2009 also finds praying the Rosary special and powerful because “it is a prayer that seeks the intercession of Our Lady.”
“One theologian described praying the Rosary as participating in the life of Mary whose focus was on Christ,” he says in reference to Romano Guardini and adds, “Like Mary, through the Rosary, we try more and more to focus our lives on Jesus.”
The Holy Rosary “is also a recognition that Jesus himself gave Mary to be mother of the Church and, indeed, mother of us all” he further says, making reference to the Gospel of John that recounts, “Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman this is your son.’ Then to the disciple, he said, ‘This is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.”
