+(Intro) Today we have the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. The rosary is a familiar form of prayer drawing us ever more deeply into Christ’s dying and rising so as we begin, let us be sorry for those ways we resist sharing in this mystery of our daily lives.
(After the gospel) This memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary has a long history that is nicely described in the new Butler’s Lives of the Saints. The Dominican Order helped to foster this devotion and one of them talked of the Psalter of St Mary. There was a time here at Gethsemani when the Lay Brothers prayed the rosary as a substitute for the divine office. `
Both our first reading from the prophet Jonah and our gospel reading from St Luke about Martha and Mary are fitting for this day. At Jonah’s call to conversion, the whole city of Nineveh repented of their evil in its midst. Through the use of the holy rosary, the hearts of countless people have been converted. In our gospel Jesus calls Martha, who is anxious and worried about many things to the one thing she needed most.
The rosary has a wonderful way of clearing our minds and hearts of all those things that distract us from the one thing that is the most important. Letting Christ’s love flow through our veins in all that we think, do and say is what make us to truly monks and the people of God.
Jonah 3:1-10; Luke10:38-42