As a gift to our Heavenly Queen and Mother at the beginning of the month of May, I have produced a new booklet entitled:
Rosarium Aureum
The Golden Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary
A Concise Guide
It incorporates the beautiful images by J-J Tissot (familiar to readers of this website) together with the fifty mysteries, accompanied by the original Latin verses and a parallel English text.
In the pipeline is a companion volume which will contain excerpts from Scripture, a guide to the Latin vocabulary, a literal translation plus other explanatory materials.
Here is an extract from the Foreword:
The Most Holy Rosary: Rich in Meaning
• A heavenly garden fragrant with prayer
• A life-line and life-preserver
• A powerful weapon
• A trans-millennial drama in five acts
The word 'rosary' is said to derive from ‘rosarium’ or rose-garden. Recalling the heavenly garden created by God for man in Paradise, the Rosary in this sense becomes a little piece of Heaven here on earth. The beads of the Rosary are like seeds we plant in the garden of our soul. The seeds are our little prayers. We prepare the ground through penance and water it with our tears, so that the seeds, taking root, may grow into fragrant flowers we can offer up to Mary, in honour of the 'Mystical Rose', our heavenly Queen and Mother.
In another sense, the chaplet is a life-line or life-preserver which our Blessed Mother offers to those poor souls floundering in the tempestuous floods of sin so that she may draw them back to the Ark of Salvation.
“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.” Sister Lucia dos Santos of Fatima.
The Rosary is also a most powerful weapon in the war against the rulers of the world and the spirits of wickedness in the high places.
“The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin…”Pius XI (Pope from 1922-1939)
“The Rosary is the weapon for these times.” Padre Pio (1887-1968)
“Here is an example to help you understand the efficacy of the Rosary. You remember the story of David who vanquished Goliath. What steps did the young Israelite take to overthrow the giant? He struck him in the middle of the forehead with a pebble from his sling. If we regard the Philistine as representing evil and all its powers: heresy, impurity, pride, we can consider the little stones from the sling capable of overthrowing the enemy as symbolizing the Aves of the Rosary.” Dom Columba Marmion (1858-1923), Christ, the Ideal of the Priest.
The beads of the Rosary are typically divided into five sets of ten (“decades”). In the Golden Rosary, these five decades represent five Acts in a supernatural drama. Each bead is a scene in this drama. The first scene opens with the pivotal event of human history: the Incarnation of our Divine Saviour, Jesus Christ, at the Annunciation. Although Our Lady will remain as our guide through the ensuing scenes, it is her Son who occupies centre stage as we contemplate the principal events of His hidden life and His public ministry, culminating with His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension. The drama continues after Pentecost with Mary’s Assumption and her Coronation in Heaven. The closing scenes transport us to the Second Coming of her Son and the General Judgement of the living and the dead. It is a salutary conclusion to the Rosary that our minds should contemplate the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.
Beata Dei Genitrix Maria,
Virgo perpetua, templum Domini, sacrarium Spiritus Sancti:
sola sine exemplo placuisti Domino nostro Jesu Christo:
ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo sexu.
Blessed Mother of God Mary,
ever a Virgin, temple of the Lord, shrine of the Holy Ghost:
alone without peer thou didst please our Lord Jesus Christ:
pray for the people, intervene for the clergy, intercede for consecrated women.
[From Lauds in the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary]
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam
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