The Importance of the Family Rosary

This article is taken from the booklet “Our Glorious Faith and How To Lose It” written by Fr. Hugh Thwaites, S.J. It contains different stories of how we can lose our faith but this paper will deal only with the Holy Rosary. 

 

Fr. Thwaites’ words on this subject are as follows:

 

Without delay now, I want to talk about my theme. It seems to me that a principal cause of the loss of faith is the dropping off in the practice of the family rosary.

 

In Austria, after World War II, there was a complete collapse of vocations. One year, apparently, no one at all entered the seminaries. So the bishops held a synod, to find out how it could be that this had happened. The conclusion they reached was that the war had so disrupted family life that the centuries-old practice of the rosary in the home had stopped, and had just not started up again. This is my experience, too; when the rosary goes, the faith soon collapses.

I remember someone telling me of a friend of his, a great Catholic, the pillar of the parish, whose children had all lapsed, one after the other. They had all fallen away from the sacraments and from attending Mass. So I said to him, “I wouldn’t mind betting that your friend had been brought up to recite the family rosary when he was a boy, and that his children haven’t.” The next time I saw him, he said that this was indeed true. His friend had recited the family rosary at home when he was a boy, and when he had got married and started his own family they ll said the rosary. But then, one evening when they were about to start the rosary, one of the children switched on the television, and that was that. The custom of the family rosary was dropped, and in due course, they gave up the practice of the faith.

 

After this life, that one unrebuked action will be seen to have affected the eternity of many people. God sent His Mother to Fatima to tell us that we had to say the rosary every day. There were no other prayers She asked us to say. Accordingly, we should do what She asked.

 

A layman I met once who did not say his rosary told me that he read the breviary every day. That is fine. It is what priests have to do. It is the prayer of the Church. So in a way it is better than the rosary. But it is not what Our Lady asked for. She asked for the rosary. If a mother sends her child to the shop for a bottle of milk, and he comes back instead with ice cream, is she pleased? In a way, ice cream is better than milk, but it is not what she asked for.

 

In that most holy home at Nazareth, do you think that Our Lady had to ask for anything twice? If we want in any way to be like Jesus, we must do what His Mother asks. If we do not, can we expect things to go right? We cannot with impunity disobey the Mother of God. She knows better than we the dangers of this spiritual warfare. She sees more clearly than we do the dangers that beset us. She warns us: You must say your rosary every day.

 

If the garage mechanic warns you that your car needs repairing or else it will break down, surely you would heed that warning. If the gas gauge warns you that you need more gas, do you do nothing about it? And if Our Lady comes to Fatima and tells us, not just once but six times, that we must say the rosary every day, do we disregard that warning? If we do, we have only ourselves to blame when we find that our children have lapsed from the faith.

 

I know that Fatima is only a private revelation, but nevertheless the Church has endorsed it, and that makes it rash for us to disregard it. If the Church informs us that Our Lady really did come to Fatima and tell us these things, then we must harken to her words. It really seems to me that those Catholics who do not take Fatima seriously and say the rosary every day in their homes are very akin to the Jews who laughed at Jeremiah. If God sends us His prophets and we do not take them seriously – well, we have the whole of the Old Testament to tell us what happens as a result. But at Fatima, God sent us, not His prophets, but His Immaculate Mother. So I think that the abandonment of the family rosary is a main reason why so many Catholics have lost the faith. It seems to me that the Church of the future is going to consist solely of those families who have been faithful to the rosary. But there will be vast numbers of people whose families used to be Catholic.

 

In my work of going round visiting homes, I have seen this conclusion borne out time and again. Homes can be transformed by starting the recitation of the daily rosary. I remember a woman telling me that she could not thank me enough for having nagged her into starting it; it had united her family as never before. And I remember another home where I called. There was a strange tension there: the children were silent and the wife seemed withdrawn, but the husband was willing to start the family rosary. When I called back again a couple of months later, the atmosphere was quite different. The children were chatty and the wife was friendly, and the husband walked down the road with me afterwards and said how amazing it was that the home was so much happier.

 

One reason, I think, why the daily rosary makes for a happy home, is this. From what some possessed people have said, and from what some of the saints have said, it seems certain that demons fear the rosary. It makes their hair stand on end, so to speak. Holy water certainly drives them out, but they come back again. The daily rosary drives them out and keeps them out. It is rather like living in an old house where there are mice everywhere. The only way to get rid of them is to bring cats. If you get a couple of cats, after a week or two there simply will not be any more mice. Mice fear the very smell of cats. And in a home where the rosary is said every day, after a time the demons realize they are impotent in front of Our Lady, and go elsewhere.

 

This must be one reason why, as they say, “the family that prays together stays together.” In that home, utterly free of evil spirits, there is an atmosphere one does not find outside. In a demon-infested city like London, where I live, such a home is an oasis of God’s grace, and people find a comfort and peace there which they enjoy greatly. We human beings are not meant to live in the company of demons, but with God and with the angels and saints in heaven.

 

So, as I see it, in this effort we are making to keep the faith and pass it on, the practice of the rosary is absolutely indispensable. Whatever else a person may do, even though they go to Mass every day, they still need to say the rosary in their home. It is the medicine our Mother has told us to take, to keep our faith strong and healthy.

 

From: https://www.pamphletstoinspire.com/

 

Pray the Rosary Every Day

On our 30th wedding anniversary, my wife and I stood side-by-side on a podium above the crowd at Fatima participating in the international Rosary that is prayed every day no matter what – the Rosary is prayed without fail. I know that Fatima is only a private revelation, but nevertheless the Church has endorsed it, and that makes it wrong for us to disregard it. The Church informs us that God sent His Mother to Fatima to tell us that we need to pray the rosary every day. There were no other prayers that She asked us to say every day. Other prayers can be said any time, once a day, if you like. But the Rosary was specifically asked for by our Blessed Mother. 

If my wife sends me to the store for a bottle of milk, and I come back with ice cream, is she pleased? In a way, ice cream is better than milk, but that is not what she asked for, she would not be pleased. And just as my wife trusts me to do what she asks, our Blessed Mother trusts us to do what She asks of us.

If we want to be like Jesus, we must do what His Mother asks. If we do not, how can we expect God the Father to hear us? We cannot with impunity disobey the Mother of God. She knows better than we the dangers of spiritual warfare. She sees more clearly than we the challenges of an earthly life and the demons that try to wipe away our faith in God and destroy our soul. At Fatima She warned us: You must say your rosary every day. 

If a mechanic warns you that your car needs repairing or it will break down, surely you would heed that warning. If the gas gauge warns you that you need more gas, do you do nothing about it? And if Our Lady comes to Fatima and tells us, not just once but six times, that we must say the rosary every day, do we disregard that warning? If we do, we have only ourselves to blame when we find that our children have lapsed from the faith, along with our own self and our spouse. 

Those who do not take Fatima seriously and say the rosary every day in their homes are like the Jews who laughed at Jeremiah. If God sends us His prophets and we do not take them seriously we have the whole of the Old Testament to tell us what happens as a result. But at Fatima, God sent us, not His prophets, but His Immaculate Mother. If we abandon the family rosary the Church of the future is going to consist solely of those families who have been faithful to the rosary. And there will be vast numbers of families who used to be Catholic. 

We need to start gathering our families together every day and pray the Rosary together. Before you say, “I don’t have the time, we are all on different schedules, my children have sports after school, we just can’t get together … ” Remember, all things are possible with God. 

Those of you with sons and daughters that have their own families, you need to witness to them the power of the Rosary and help them bring their family together in praying the Rosary. Remember, your children are as much a part of you as your spouse, no matter how old they are.

Start once a month with programs already being offered in your parish, like: First Friday Holy Hour, First Saturday Holy Hour, or come early to Sunday Mass with your family and pray the Rosary before Mass. Or start once a week, then twice, then three times a week, then once a day. 

The Rosary is often described as a powerful prayer, with many saints and popes emphasizing its importance. For example, Saint Padre Pio said, "The Rosary is the ‘weapon’ for these times," and Pope Leo XIII stated, "The Rosary is the most excellent form of prayer and the most efficacious means of attaining eternal life." - "If you say the Holy Rosary every day, with a spirit of faith and love, our Lady will make sure she leads you very far along her Son's path." -  Saint Josemaria Escriva

 

Sign of the Cross

We begin our Rosary like any other prayer, with a Sign of the Cross" prayer. 

 

The first thing we do for any prayer is make the sign of the Cross and say “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit I pray”. The reason for that comes from the Bible: “Amen Amen I say to you, whatever you ask from the Father, He will give it to you in My name” - John 16:23; “And "whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” - John 14:13; “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” - Luke 11:13. 

 

We Catholics believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. In our sign of the Cross, we mention all three names just as we would formally address a friend by using their first, middle and last name. By making the sign of the Cross and mentioning God’s name, we are telling him that what follows is in his name.

What did Jesus mean when He said He would give us “whatever you ask in my name”? In John 14, Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you . . . I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (verses 12–14). This promise seems to give us the right to ask for anything and everything we want, and Jesus is obligated to give it to us—but is that really what the Lord is saying here?

The entire fourteenth chapter of John serves as Jesus’ valedictory address to His disciples. The soon-coming crucifixion would leave His followers scared and confused, so Jesus provided them with comfort and assurance regarding a number of things, including how they would carry on His work. Part of this comfort was the promise that Jesus would hear and answer their prayers. Jesus tells them that anything they ask “in my name” would be granted to them.

Jesus is not promising to be a personal vending machine; rather, He is encouraging confidence and faithfulness in prayer. When Jesus says to pray “in my name,” He means that we can pray in His authority. He has provided the access we need to heaven. When our requests, made in the name of His Son, further God’s purposes and kingdom, God will act on our behalf, and in the end the Father will be “glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). A good example of such a prayer is Christ’s in the garden where He prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

In the old American West, before the days of credit cards, a shopkeeper would maintain a ledger book recording the activities of each customer’s account and the amount owed. The business owner knew his customers well and the work in which they were involved. A customer would at times send others to the shop for him to make purchases and bring back materials needed for his home or business. Those sent in the customer’s stead (e.g., his children) would be able to receive the goods “in the name of” the account owner. But, if they tried to purchase things not in line with what the shopkeeper knew the customer needed or wanted, the purchase would be denied.

Coming to God in Jesus’ name is similar to those old financial transactions. Jesus holds the account, and we are welcome to come to the Father in Jesus’ name to receive what we need. The Father willingly grants our requests because of Jesus’ standing. Of course, if we are asking for things that we don’t need or that are contrary to the character or will of Christ, then we cannot expect to receive those things (You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. - James 4:3).

When He said He would give “whatever you ask in my name,” Jesus was not delivering a magical formula for getting whatever we want. He was giving us a guiding principle to align one’s desires with God’s. When we pray “in Jesus’ name,” we pray according to the will of God; we pray for what will honor and glorify Jesus. God will provide the means necessary to accomplish His objectives, and He equips us as His servants. Ultimately, God receives all the glory and praise for what is done.

The practice of tracing the sign of the cross is most prominent in the Roman Catholic Church but is also practiced in the Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran, Anglican, and Episcopalian churches. The history of the sign of the cross goes back as far as Tertullian, the early church father who lived between A.D. 160 and 220. Tertullian wrote, "In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting off our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross."

Originally, a small cross was traced by the thumb or finger on one’s own forehead. While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the switch was made from tracing a small cross on the forehead to the modern practice of tracing a larger cross from forehead to chest and shoulder to shoulder, we do know that the switch had occurred by the eleventh century A.D., when the Prayer Book of King Henry provides an instruction to "mark with the holy cross the four sides of the body."

Catholics find support for the sign of the cross primarily in their many years of church tradition and, secondarily, in Exodus 17:9-14 and Revelation 7:3; 9:4; 14:1. While the passages do speak of a sign on the forehead for protection from God’s judgment, they must be interpreted in light of their context. On the basis of their context, there is no reason to believe any of the verses prescribe the ritualistic sign of the cross.

In the sixteenth century, one of the central tenets of the Protestant Reformation was “sola scriptura,” whereby any practice that didn’t line up with Scripture was jettisoned. The English Reformers believed the use of the sign of the cross should be left up to the individual, as was written in the Prayer Book of King Edward VI. "...Kneeling, crossing, holding up of hands, knocking upon the breast, and other gestures, they may be used, or left, as every man’s devotion serveth without blame." Protestants generally viewed the sign as a tradition that was unsupported by Scripture, or even as idolatrous, and it was therefore abandoned by most.

While the Bible does not instruct us to cross ourselves, the sign of the cross is not without biblical symbolism. The shape of the sign is a reminder of the cross of Christ. Historically, the sign has also been viewed as representing the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death on the cross, salvation is extended as a free gift to all of humanity. The doctrine of the trinity teaches the Godhead: one God existing in three distinct persons. Both doctrines are foundational to both Catholics and Protestants and are certainly well-founded biblically. The sign of the cross has at certain points been associated with supernatural powers such as repelling evil, demons, etc. This mystical aspect of the sign of the cross is completely false and cannot be supported biblically in any way.

The mystical aspect aside, tracing the sign of the cross is neither right nor wrong and can be positive if it serves to remind a person of the cross of Christ and/or the trinity. Unfortunately, such is not always the case, and many people simply go through the motions of the ritual of signing themselves without a knowledge of why they do it. A final analysis of the sign of the cross is that it is by no means required of Christians because it is not instructed by the Word of God.

I (Ken Harbit) make the sign of the Cross because I am calling on the Lord to hear my prayer and to tell me His will. It is an earthly sign of motion and voice that transcends the space between earth and heaven and between myself and God.

The Importance of the Family Rosary

This article is taken from the booklet “Our Glorious Faith and How To Lose It” written by Fr. Hugh Thwaites, S.J. It contains different stories of how we can lose our faith but this paper will deal only with the Holy Rosary. 

 

Fr. Thwaites’ words on this subject are as follows:

 

Without delay now, I want to talk about my theme. It seems to me that a principal cause of the loss of faith is the dropping off in the practice of the family rosary.

 

In Austria, after World War II, there was a complete collapse of vocations. One year, apparently, no one at all entered the seminaries. So the bishops held a synod, to find out how it could be that this had happened. The conclusion they reached was that the war had so disrupted family life that the centuries-old practice of the rosary in the home had stopped, and had just not started up again. This is my experience, too; when the rosary goes, the faith soon collapses.

I remember someone telling me of a friend of his, a great Catholic, the pillar of the parish, whose children had all lapsed, one after the other. They had all fallen away from the sacraments and from attending Mass. So I said to him, “I wouldn’t mind betting that your friend had been brought up to recite the family rosary when he was a boy, and that his children haven’t.” The next time I saw him, he said that this was indeed true. His friend had recited the family rosary at home when he was a boy, and when he had got married and started his own family they ll said the rosary. But then, one evening when they were about to start the rosary, one of the children switched on the television, and that was that. The custom of the family rosary was dropped, and in due course, they gave up the practice of the faith.

 

After this life, that one unrebuked action will be seen to have affected the eternity of many people. God sent His Mother to Fatima to tell us that we had to say the rosary every day. There were no other prayers She asked us to say. Accordingly, we should do what She asked.

 

A layman I met once who did not say his rosary told me that he read the breviary every day. That is fine. It is what priests have to do. It is the prayer of the Church. So in a way it is better than the rosary. But it is not what Our Lady asked for. She asked for the rosary. If a mother sends her child to the shop for a bottle of milk, and he comes back instead with ice cream, is she pleased? In a way, ice cream is better than milk, but it is not what she asked for.

 

In that most holy home at Nazareth, do you think that Our Lady had to ask for anything twice? If we want in any way to be like Jesus, we must do what His Mother asks. If we do not, can we expect things to go right? We cannot with impunity disobey the Mother of God. She knows better than we the dangers of this spiritual warfare. She sees more clearly than we do the dangers that beset us. She warns us: You must say your rosary every day.

 

If the garage mechanic warns you that your car needs repairing or else it will break down, surely you would heed that warning. If the gas gauge warns you that you need more gas, do you do nothing about it? And if Our Lady comes to Fatima and tells us, not just once but six times, that we must say the rosary every day, do we disregard that warning? If we do, we have only ourselves to blame when we find that our children have lapsed from the faith.

 

I know that Fatima is only a private revelation, but nevertheless the Church has endorsed it, and that makes it rash for us to disregard it. If the Church informs us that Our Lady really did come to Fatima and tell us these things, then we must harken to her words. It really seems to me that those Catholics who do not take Fatima seriously and say the rosary every day in their homes are very akin to the Jews who laughed at Jeremiah. If God sends us His prophets and we do not take them seriously – well, we have the whole of the Old Testament to tell us what happens as a result. But at Fatima, God sent us, not His prophets, but His Immaculate Mother. So I think that the abandonment of the family rosary is a main reason why so many Catholics have lost the faith. It seems to me that the Church of the future is going to consist solely of those families who have been faithful to the rosary. But there will be vast numbers of people whose families used to be Catholic.

 

In my work of going round visiting homes, I have seen this conclusion borne out time and again. Homes can be transformed by starting the recitation of the daily rosary. I remember a woman telling me that she could not thank me enough for having nagged her into starting it; it had united her family as never before. And I remember another home where I called. There was a strange tension there: the children were silent and the wife seemed withdrawn, but the husband was willing to start the family rosary. When I called back again a couple of months later, the atmosphere was quite different. The children were chatty and the wife was friendly, and the husband walked down the road with me afterwards and said how amazing it was that the home was so much happier.

 

One reason, I think, why the daily rosary makes for a happy home, is this. From what some possessed people have said, and from what some of the saints have said, it seems certain that demons fear the rosary. It makes their hair stand on end, so to speak. Holy water certainly drives them out, but they come back again. The daily rosary drives them out and keeps them out. It is rather like living in an old house where there are mice everywhere. The only way to get rid of them is to bring cats. If you get a couple of cats, after a week or two there simply will not be any more mice. Mice fear the very smell of cats. And in a home where the rosary is said every day, after a time the demons realize they are impotent in front of Our Lady, and go elsewhere.

 

This must be one reason why, as they say, “the family that prays together stays together.” In that home, utterly free of evil spirits, there is an atmosphere one does not find outside. In a demon-infested city like London, where I live, such a home is an oasis of God’s grace, and people find a comfort and peace there which they enjoy greatly. We human beings are not meant to live in the company of demons, but with God and with the angels and saints in heaven.

 

So, as I see it, in this effort we are making to keep the faith and pass it on, the practice of the rosary is absolutely indispensable. Whatever else a person may do, even though they go to Mass every day, they still need to say the rosary in their home. It is the medicine our Mother has told us to take, to keep our faith strong and healthy.

 

From: https://www.pamphletstoinspire.com/