Our Lady of the Rosary and more...

Saint Dominic being given the Rosary by Mary, Mother of God and Jesus

"When we pray, we are not doing God a favor. He is gracing us with the awesome privilege of communicating with Him." -Fr. Mabura

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which for Church is a Memorial, but for the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) is a feast day. In the Liturgy of the Hours the explanation for this feast day is summarized as such:

"This commemorative feast was established by Saint Pius V (Dominican) on the anniversary of the naval victory won by Christian fleet at Lepanto. The victory was attributed to the help of the holy Mother of God whose aid was invoked through praying the rosary. The celebration of this day invites all to meditate upon the mysteries of Christ, following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary who was so singularly associated with the incarnation, passion, and glorious resurrection of the Son of God."

Though that is the reason for this feast day, for me this feast is a reminder of the great power of praying the rosary. The rosary for Dominicans as I have been told many times, is our sword. In the opinion of this baby Catholic and novice Dominican, while the sword is the Rosary, the shield is Scared Scripture and the armor is the scapular.

What is the rosary, for many they condemn it as a worship to Mary, in turn that is false, we HONOR our MOTHER by praying for intercession to her. The rosary is in turn recalling of Jesus' life through the eyes of His mother who in turn He gave to us to be our Mother.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's 20s Group (website ) Gospel study, which is discussing the coming Gospel reading for Sunday. This Sunday's reading is Matthew 22:1-14,

"Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, "Tell those invited: "Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast."" Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, 'the feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. God out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.' The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. The said to him, 'My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?' But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Many are invited, but few are chosen."

We (20s Group) split into two small groups, and so though I have no clue what group 2 spoke about, I do know what group 1 talked about. Group 1 main focus was really on was our intital reactions, which took us away from the discussion questions a little bit, and I actually liked that because it shows truly the depths of the Word.

I would like to share with all of you my thoughts on this parable that I discussed within the group. My intital reaction was on the wedding garment, for why would the king cast this one guest that does not have a wedding garment into the darkness?

Well, I and most of the group found the wedding to a metaphor to the invitation to Heaven and this one guest was a person who I would consider ritualistic Christian (Catholic and non-Catholic), the wedding garment is based upon their external and internal holiness, for which this one person only believed because they were going to church or were considering themselves Christian that it would not matter of their holiness.

This one guest refused to wear holiness, they turned themselves away from God, which is something else that we felt this parable was speaking of, how your free will to not love God or to seek holiness (or as I said my Granny old saying, "Go to church on Sunday, and cuss on Monday") is the guest without a wedding garment.

But the question came up 'if God loves us so much that He would still cast us out into the darkness?' that is a very good question, and the answer I gave and others gave were amazing thought out and compelling. In short, is it not true that God loves all His creatures, even if they are good or bad, but it is in turn our free will, He casts us out because we ourselves casts ourselves out.

When you read the parable and how the king speaks to the guest, he says 'my friend', if this is truly a man whom the king hated would he had called him 'friend', so that in turn shows that it is the guest who has done the damage.

My final thought about this parable and well all the parables is that we will never truly know the full meaning of any of them until we come face to face with God who created us. What I do believe is that each time you read the parables you were find something new that will add to your intital thoughts of the parable, kind of like building upon a foundation.

God Bless,
Nikita