I know many of you have joined me in taking up Pope Leo XIV’s call for us to pray the rosary for peace every day during this month dedicated to the holy rosary.
From the earliest centuries, Catholics have sought the Blessed Mother’s protection. One of our oldest known prayers, the “Sub tuum praesidium” (“Under your protection”), dates to the mid-third century: “We fly to your protection, O Holy Mother of God; do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.”
The rosary is, at its heart, a prayer for peace. By calling us to enter into the saving mysteries of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, this prayer invites us to receive the peace he promised to his disciples and sends us out to be peacemakers in the world.
We need this prayer now, in this moment of political violence and tense divisions in our society, in this moment when our world is torn by wars, conflicts, and persecutions of the faith.
Many people today complain loudly that “thoughts and prayers” are useless, that what is needed instead is action. But this misunderstands the truth of both prayer and action, and the deeper meaning of Jesus’ saving work in the world.
Jesus assured us that he would never leave us orphans, that he would remain with us until the end of the age, and that his Father and he are still at work in history.
So when we pray, we are talking personally to our Creator who walks beside us, who knows our hearts, our fears, and our hopes — our Creator whose plan for creation is still unfolding.
In prayer, our sense of responsibility for God’s plan begins. Prayer opens our eyes to see God as our Father and others as our brothers and sisters — hungry for daily bread, longing for forgiveness, yearning for deliverance from evil and death.
The rosary is a school of the heart, a pilgrim’s prayer. It gives us the rhythm for life’s journey, the beads marking steps along the path we walk in faith, drawing us ever deeper into the mystery of our life in Jesus Christ.
Each decade starts with the prayer that Jesus taught us, the prayer that opens our hearts to our Father’s loving will for our lives. The mysteries that pass before us, joyful, sorrowful, luminous, and glorious, are all scenes that Mary herself witnessed in the life of her Son.
With her, we follow the Child born from her womb through the joys of family life, through his mission of bringing the light of God’s love into the world, through the sorrows of his passion and death, and the glory of his resurrection and promise of new life.
The key is to always pray the rosary as children, looking at Jesus’ life through the eyes of his mother, who is also our mother.
As we meditate on the succession of mysteries, we enter more deeply into the mystery of his love, day by day the mysteries of his life becoming the mysteries of our own.
Through the joyful mysteries, we embrace his humility. Through the luminous, we walk with him as children of the light. Through the sorrowful mysteries, we learn to love as he commands, by self-giving. Through the glorious mysteries, we come to live as people bound for heaven.
The rosary teaches us to place our lives in Jesus’ hands and follow him, to seek his will and serve him in everything we do.
It is a prayer of contemplation that impels us to action, that leads us to say with Mary: “May it be done to me according to your word.”
Praying the rosary as children of God, we grow to see that life is not about us, but about God’s will and the service of others — our family and friends, our neighbors, the poor, the vulnerable, and the outcast.
Pray for me this week, and I will pray for you.
And in this nervous moment in our nation, we pray for peace. Peace in our hearts, in our families, and in our world.
We pray to be instruments of peace, living our faith in Jesus every day with confidence and joy and with sincere love for everyone, even those who oppose and disagree with us.
Prayer reminds us that each of us shares in God’s plan, that he gives us each a task: to bring hope where there is despair, reconciliation where there is division, and to lead others to friendship with Jesus.
We ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to be a mother to us, to show us the ways that make for peace, and to inspire in us a new desire to draw others to the beauty and peace that we have found in her Son.
