Father Amorth: I explain to you what the most powerful prayer is and why it should be recited

Father Gabriele Amorth, perhaps the best known exorcist in the world. He has devoted most of his books to exorcisms and the figure of the devil. «I believe that the rosary is the most powerful prayer», he writes in the introduction to his book "My Rosary" (Edizioni San Paolo) Today ninety years old and retired he has finally decided to reveal to the readers and the faithful who follow him and for the which has been a point of reference for years, the source of the inner strength that has supported him in these long years in which, for the diocese of Rome, he carried out the hard "service" of fighting daily against the most subtle manifestations of the evil one: the Rosary prayer together with reflections on the twenty mysteries that he recites every day.

We report the most significant passages in one of the two appendices where the author deals with the relationship of the Pontiffs with the Holy Rosary, which illuminate us on the perspective and sentiment that animated each of them in the face of the "mystery" of the Rosary.

Pope John XIII, taking up the beautiful definition of Pope Pius V thus expresses himself:

«The rosary, as is known to all, is an excellent way of meditating prayer, constituted in the form of a mystical crown, in which the prayers of the Pater noster, the Ave Maria and the Gloria intertwine with the consideration of the highest mysteries of the our faith, for which the drama of the incarnation and redemption of our Lord is presented to the mind as in so many paintings ».

Pope Paul VI, in the encyclical Christi Matri recommends being friends of the rosary with these words:

"The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, although not expressly, but with a clear indication, has inflamed the soul of all the children of the Church for the rosary, recommending to highly esteem the practices and exercises of piety towards her (Mary), as they have been recommended by the Magisterium over time ».

Pope John Paul I in the face of disputes to the rosary, from a born catechist he was, responds with these words marked by firmness, simplicity and vivacity:

«The rosary is contested by some. They say: it is prayer that falls into automatism, reducing itself to a hasty, monotonous and cloying repetition of Ave Maria. Or: it's stuff from other times; today there is better: reading the Bible, for example, which stands at the rosary like the flower of bran flour! Allow me to say a few impressions of soul pastor on this subject.
First impression: the rosary crisis comes later. In the antecedence there is today the crisis of prayer in general. People are all taken by material interests; thinks very little of the soul. The noise then invaded our existence. Macbeth could repeat: I killed sleep, I killed silence! For the intimate life and the "dulcis sermocinatio", or sweet conversation with God, it is difficult to find a few crumbs of time. (...) Personally, when I speak alone to God and to Our Lady, rather than an adult, I prefer to feel I am a child; the submachine gun, the skullcap, the ring disappear; I send the adult and the bishop on vacation, with relative grave demeanor, laid and thoughtful to abandon myself to the spontaneous tenderness that a child has in front of dad and mom. Being - at least for a few hours - before God what I really am with my misery and the best of myself: feeling the child of the past emerge from the bottom of my being who wants to laugh, chat, love the Lord and that sometimes he feels the need to cry, because mercy is used, he helps me to pray. The rosary, a simple and easy prayer, in turn, helps me to be a child, and I'm not ashamed of it ».

John Paul II, confirming his special Marian devotion that leads him to integrate the mysteries of Light into the rosary, in the encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariae urges us to resume daily practice with faith:

«The history of the rosary shows how this prayer was used especially by the Dominicans, in a difficult moment for the Church because of the spread of heresy. Today we are facing new challenges. Why not take the Crown back with the faith of those who preceded us? The rosary retains all its strength and remains a non-negligible resource in the pastoral equipment of every good evangelizer ".

John Paul II encourages us to consider the rosary as a contemplation of the face of Christ in the company and school of his Most Holy Mother, and to recite it with this spirit and devotion.

Pope Benedict XVI invites us to rediscover the strength and topicality of the rosary in addition to its function of making us retrace the mystery of the incarnation and resurrection of the Son of God:

«The holy rosary is not a practice of the past as a prayer from other times to think about with nostalgia. On the contrary, the rosary is experiencing a new spring. This is undoubtedly one of the most eloquent signs of the love that the younger generations have for Jesus and for his Mother Mary. In such a dispersed world today, this prayer helps to place Christ at the center, as did the Virgin, who meditated inwardly all that was said of her Son, and then what He did and said. When the rosary is recited, the important and significant moments of the history of salvation are relived; the various stages of Christ's mission are retraced. With Mary the heart is oriented to the mystery of Jesus. Christ is placed at the center of our life, of our time, of our cities, through the contemplation and meditation of his holy mysteries of joy, light, pain and glory. (...). When the rosary is prayed in an authentic, not mechanical and superficial but profound way, it brings peace and reconciliation. It contains within itself the healing power of the most holy Name of Jesus, invoked with faith and love at the center of every Hail Mary. The rosary, when it is not a mechanical repetition of traditional formulas, is a biblical meditation that makes us retrace the events of the life of the Lord in the company of the Blessed Virgin, keeping them, like her, in our hearts ».

For Pope Francis «The rosary is the prayer that always accompanies my life; it is also the prayer of the simple and the saints ... it is the prayer of my heart ».

These words, written by hand on 13 May 2014, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, represent the invitation to read placed at the beginning of the book "The Rosary. Prayer of the heart ".

Father Amorth thus concludes his introduction, underlining the absolute centrality of Our Lady in the fight against Evil which he personally led as an exorcist, and which in a universal perspective represents the greatest challenge that the modern world has before him.

«(...) I dedicate this book to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on which the future of our world depends. So I understood from Fatima and from Medjugorje. Our Lady already in 1917 in Fatima announced the ending: «In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph».