Devotion to the Holy Rosary: the school of Mary
The Holy Rosary: "school of Mary"
The Holy Rosary is the "School of Mary": this expression was written by Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae of 16 October 2002. With this Apostolic Letter Pope John Paul II gave the Church the gift of a year of the Rosary which runs from October 2002 to October 2003.
The Pope expressly says that with the Holy Rosary "the Christian people go to Mary's school", and this expression that makes us see Mary Most Holy as Teacher, and us, her children, as pupils at her nursery school, is beautiful. Shortly afterwards the Pope reiterated that he had written the Apostolic Letter on the Rosary to exhort us to know and contemplate Jesus "in the company and at the school of his Most Holy Mother": it could be thought, here, that with the Rosary in hand we are "in company »Of Mary Most Holy, because her children, and we are« at the school of Mary »because her pupils.
If we think of great art, we can remember the wonderful paintings of the great artists who depicted the Child Jesus with a book of Sacred Scripture in the arms of the divine Mother, while this teaches him to read the book of the Word of God. Most Holy Mary is she was the first and only Teacher of Jesus, and she always wants to be the first and only teacher of the Word of life for all the brothers of the "firstborn" (Rom 8,29:XNUMX). Every child, every man who recites the Rosary next to his mother, can resemble the Child Jesus who learns the Word of God from Our Lady.
If the Rosary, in fact, is the gospel story of the life of Jesus and Mary, no one like her, the divine Mother, could tell us that divine-human story, since she was the only supporting protagonist of the existence of Jesus and of the his redemptive mission. It could also be said that the Rosary, in its substance, is a "rosary" of facts, episodes, events, or better yet of "memories" of the life of Jesus and Mary. And "it was those memories - Pope John Paul II writes brightly - that in a certain sense constituted the" rosary "that she herself constantly recited in the days of her earthly life".
On this historical basis, it is evident that the Rosary, Mary's school, is a school not of theories but of living experiences, not of words but of salvific events, not of arid doctrines but of lived life; and all his "school" is synthesized in Christ Jesus, the Incarnate Word, the universal Savior and Redeemer. Mary Most Holy, in essence, is the Teacher who teaches us Christ, and in Christ teaches us everything, because only "in him everything has consistency" (Col 1,17:XNUMX). The fundamental thing on our part, then, as the Holy Father says, is above all that of "learning Him", learning "the things He taught".
It makes us "learn" Christ
And rightly the Pope John Paul II asks: «But which teacher, in this, is more expert than Mary? If on the divine side the Spirit is the inner Master who leads us to the full truth of Christ (cf. Jn 14,26:15,26; 16,13; XNUMX:XNUMX), among human beings, nobody knows Christ better than she, nobody like her. Mother can introduce us to a deep knowledge of her mystery ». This is why the Pope concludes his reflection on this point, writing, with brightness of words and content, that "going with Mary through the scenes of the Rosary is like going to Mary's" school "to read Christ, to penetrate his secrets, to understand its message ».
The thought according to which the Rosary places us at the "school of Mary", that is, at the school of the Mother of the Incarnate Word, at the school of the See of Wisdom, at the school that Christ teaches us, illuminates us with Christ, is holy and healthy. , leads us to Christ, unites us to Christ, makes us "learn" Christ, to the point of Christifying us deeply as brothers of Him, the "Firstborn" of Mary (Rom 8,29:XNUMX).
Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, reports a very significant text by that great apostle of the Rosary, Blessed Bartolo Longo, who says verbatim as follows: "Like two friends, practicing frequently together, they also know how to conform in customs , so we, conversing familiarly with Jesus and the Virgin, in meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, and forming together the same life with Communion, can become, as far as our baseness is capable, similar to them, and learn from them exemplary exemplary humble, poor, hidden, patient and perfect living ». The Holy Rosary, therefore, makes us pupils of the Most Holy Mary, binds us and immerses us in her, to make us resemble Christ, to make us become the perfect image of Christ.