The Holy Rosary: the prayer that binds Heaven and Earth
There is a delightful thought of Saint Teresina who explains to us simply how the crown of the Holy Rosary is a link that unites Heaven to earth. «According to a graceful image, - says the Carmelite Saint - the Rosary is a long chain that links heaven to earth; one of the ends is in our hands and the other in those of the Holy Virgin ».
This image makes us understand that when we have the crown of the Rosary in our hands and devoutly shell it, with faith and love, we are in direct relationship with Our Lady who also makes the Rosary beads flow, confirming our poor prayer with his maternal and merciful grace.
Do we remember what was happening in Lourdes? When the Immaculate Conception appeared to Saint Bernardetta Soubirous it happened that the little Saint Bernardetta took the crown of the Rosary and began the recitation of the prayer: at that point, the Immaculate Conception, who had the splendid golden crown in her hands, also began to open the crown, without saying the words of the Hail Mary, pronouncing, instead, the words of the Glory to the Father.
The luminous teaching is this: when we take the crown of the Rosary and begin to pray with faith and love, she too, the divine Mother, opens the crown with us, confirming our poor prayer, almost shelling thanks and blessings on those who recite devoutly the Holy Rosary. In those minutes, therefore, we find ourselves truly bound to Her, since the crown of the Rosary is the link between Her and us, between Heaven and earth.
Every time we recite the Holy Rosary it would be very healthy to remember this, trying to rethink Lourdes and to keep in mind the Immaculate Conception who accompanied the prayer of the humble Saint Bernardetta's Rosary in Lourdes by widening the blessed crown with her. This memory and the image of Saint Teresina can help us to recite the Holy Rosary better, in the company of the divine Mother, looking at Her who looks at us and accompanies us in opening the crown.
«Incense at the feet of the Almighty»
Another beautiful image that Saint Teresina teaches us, regarding the Rosary, is that of incense: every time we take the holy crown to pray, "the Rosary - says the Saint - rises like incense at the feet of the Almighty. Mary immediately sends him back as a beneficial dew, which comes to regenerate hearts ».
If the teaching of the saints is ancient, they affirm that prayer, every prayer, is like perfumed incense that rises towards God, with regard to the Rosary, Saint Teresina completes and embellishes this teaching by explaining that the Rosary not only makes prayer rise as incense. to Mary, but she also gets the "beneficial dew", that is, the response in graces and blessings that come "to regenerate hearts" from the divine Mother.
We can well understand, therefore, that the Rosary prayer rises to the top with an uncommon efficacy, mainly due to the direct participation of the Immaculate Conception, that is, to that participation which she also showed externally in Lourdes accompanying the Rosary prayer of the humble Bernardetta Soubirous in shelling the holy crown. This behavior of Our Lady in Lourdes makes it clear that she is precisely the Mother close to the children, and it is the Mother who prays with her children in the recitation of the holy crown. We should never forget the scene of the apparition and recitation of the Rosary of the Immaculate Conception with Saint Bernardetta in Lourdes.
From this beautiful and significant detail it is clear that the Holy Rosary truly presents itself as the "favorite" prayer of Our Lady, and therefore as the most fruitful prayer of other prayers to obtain "immediately" the grace of the "beneficial dew" that "regenerates the hearts »of the children when they piously widen the holy crown, placing all hope in Her, in the Heart of the Queen of the Holy Rosary.
It can also be understood, consequently, that the "favorite" prayer of Our Lady cannot fail to be the dearest and most powerful prayer within the Heart of God, for which she obtains what other prayers cannot obtain, easily bending the Heart of God to the requests that she makes in favor of the devotees of the Holy Rosary. This is why Saint Teresina, with her teaching of humble and great Doctor of the Church, still teaches by affirming with simplicity and security that "there is no prayer that is more pleasing to God than the Rosary", and Blessed Bartolo Longo confirms this when he says that the Rosary, in fact, is the "sweet chain that links us to God".