Our Lady of the Rosary

It is, fortunately, the first  Friday of the month as well the day we remember ' Our Lady of the Rosary'.  It is also a day when I recall that  Ian has also used Byzantine art to illuminate another Catholic devotion with 'light from the east'; the Holy Rosary.    You can read about his  Icons of the Holy Rosary for the Shrine of our Lady  of Mount in Anjara, Jordan HERE And  read his fascinating blog HERE.  They are really magnificent!  The devotion to the Rosary and to the Sacred Heart are closely related as can be seen in Blessed John Paul's statements on the Rosary especially Marialis Cultus (READ HERE)  and  RosariumVirginis Mariae (READ HERE),

If the Sacred Heart is the summary of the Christian faith, then as Pius XII and Blessed John Paul remind us, the Holy Rosary is the  complete 'compendium of the Gospels'!  John Paul says that the Rosary  has all the 'depth of the Gospel message in its entirety' !

Here are a few extracts from Rosarium Virginis Mariae:

Against the background of the words Ave Maria the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the complete series of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, and they put us in living communion with Jesus through – we might say – the heart of his Mother.

To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.

The Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a typically meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the “prayer of the heart” or “Jesus prayer” which took root in the soil of the Christian East.

To pray the rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother

The Rosary's place within Christian spirituality is therefore  ' as a true doorway to the depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of joy and of light, of suffering and of glory.'

Ian's Joyful Mysteries , Anjara

(To really appreciate them, look at the close up pictures on his blog!)

As we contemplate and pray with the aid of an icon of the Sacred Heart, we have to remember this: the Rosary  is the doorway to the 'depths of the Heart of Christ.'  Saying the Rosary whilst contemplating an icon of the Sacred Heart is consequently a powerful experience as we are using both the summary of our faith and a compendium of the gospels!

Teilhard constantly referred to the idea that Christ is a point of cosmic convergence: all things are being pulled towards Him and everything in creation as leading to Him.  This is what we see in our icon.   Blessed John Paul reminds of the same idea when he observes in RosariumVirginis Mariae  that :

the first thing to note is the way the beads converge upon the Crucifix, which both opens and closes the unfolding sequence of prayer. The life and prayer of believers is centred upon Christ. Everything begins from him, everything leads towards him, everything, through him, in the Holy Spirit, attains to the Father.