Once, I had the pleasure of having dinner with two older Portuguese people; a brother and a sister. They told me the story of their father’s conversion.
Their father was a very proud, abusive man who was an avowed atheist who actively persecuted Christians. On October 13, 1917, he left the house to heckle and throw stones at three young children who claimed to be having visions of Mary. On that day, Mary promised a miracle that everyone could see.
Some time passed, the couple remembered when all od saddened their father burst through their front door, fell on his knees and began to recite the Rosary. He told them he had seen the Sun dancing in the sky and falling to the earth.
Their father prayed the rosary every day of his life, on his knees and was a changed man, kind, humble, compassionate.
This month of October is traditionally dedicated to the Holy Rosary. Friday, we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima, who asks you to pray the rosary for the conversion of sinners.
In the beginning, the rosary was prayed to provide victory for competing armies, but today, our approach should broaden to include victory over the spirit of deception. In his call to holiness, the Holy Father John Paul II stressed the importance of the Rosary as an instrument in prayer and meditation helping us become more intimate in our relationship with Christ and more powerful in overcoming sin.
The rosary is the prayer of humanity, reflecting the spirit of Mary in uniting the image and the cross of her Son to the image and cross of each human person. The rosary then is our prayer, our meditation and our key to the mysteries of Christ’s life as well as our own in His mystical body.
If we do not continue to exercise our faith, we risk losing it.
St. Paul says so well, “your thoughts should be directed to all that is true, all that deserves respect all that is honest and virtuous. Live according to what you have learned and the God of peace will be with you.”
Re-discover the rosary; re-discover a more intimate dimension of the life of Jesus in your life and pray for the conversion of all sinners.