Rosary III: Jesus-Centric

I love this picture of Our Lady.  She's cradling the Infant Jesus in her arms.  Protective.  Loving.  Yet she isn't looking at Him (though her attention to His every need is unwavering).  Instead, she is looking at all of us, beckoning with her maternal eyes to come.  She is saying, "Come, my children.  Come to me and see the Gift that I hold for you.  Come to me and I shall share with you my most Perfect and Beautiful Son.  He is God and Mercy, Love and Truth.  Come to me, and I shall share Him with you."

Oh, how I love this picture!  You can see the hay from His manger, and the rocks from the cave at Bethleham in the background.  From the earliest moments of His Life, she was there... offering Him to the world.  First to St. Joseph, then to the shepherds and wisemen, and perpetually to us. 

Anyway, the reason I chose this picture is to explain why the Rosary isn't just a Marian prayer.  Mary, as she pointed out in her beautiful "Magnificat," said "My soul doth magnify the Lord."  She is nothing of herself, for she understands that she is a reflection of God - a glorious crystal which He has chosen to magnify His Love, Grace and Mercy for all humanity.  The same is true of the Rosary.  As the wonderful Scott Hahn pointed out once, the Blessed Mother doesn't keep all the prayers of the Rosary to herself.  She doesn't revel in the Hail Marys, hoarding them all to herself.  She takes each prayer and lovingly offers them to Her Son, who in turn offers them to God the Father. 

Remember... the Magnificat was Our Lady's response to her cousin, Elizabeth, at the Visitation.  When Elizabeth humbled herself before the Queen of Heaven, feeling unfit to be in the Presence of God and of she who carried God within her womb, Mary gently offered those prayers of humiliation and joy to God through the Magnificat.  She took what Elizabeth offered and handed the glory straight-away to God, the true reason for ALL Glory.

So with that in mind, I offer the Rosary as a Christ-centric prayer.  A photo album in which Jesus is WHOLLY present in each picture.  We begin the Rosary with the Sign of the Cross, Christ's victory over death and sin.  Each decade begins with the Our Father.  Note, especially, the words "And give us this day our daily bread."  Unwittingly, we ask God the Father time and again to grant those graces most necessary for our salvation!  God (the Eternal Now) grants us these graces - most notably the Mysteries of the Rosary - through these prayers.  He gives us the Nativity... He gives us the Crucifixion... He gives us the Resurrection, Pentecost and even the Coronation!  We ask for these things, unwittingly, each time we begin a decade of the Rosary.  And then, to complete the circle of thanks, we give glory to the Trinity at the close of each decade with the Glory Be.

And the Haily Mary... oh, let's not forget the Hail Mary.  My next entry will be dedicated to this wonderous prayer.

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