159: Holding your Rosary during the Prayer of the Heart 2/2

Some Spiritual Aspects of the use of the Rosary

during the Prayer of the Heart

1- Mary's Fire, God's transformative Beam

Mary's is purity itself and it is the absence of anything that is not God in Her that precipitates this transformation. She is fully moved by God, the Holy Spirit.

2- Establishing Peace

What is Peace? No obstacles or impurities or any created thing between us and God.

Peace: Jesus is the king of Peace. He established in us and amongst us God's Peace. He purified us, removing all what is not God in us. Peace is the very nature of God. Anything that is not God in us is "war" fighting against God. Peace is to be "from God to God". It is being united to God. It is participating in the very Life of God, breathing from His "oxygen", the Holy Spirit, the Divine Breath. The purer we become, the greater is the Peace of God in us.

The Holy Spirit is the author of this "pacifying" work of God in us. He removes all what is not God from us, and He does it at all levels: the deepest and most hidden one is the roots of our being, our spirit, or heart (the supra-conscious part in us, operating above the level of our conscious rational thought). During the Prayer of the Heart, the Holy Spirit works in that important part of our being - like water that works giving life to the roots of a tree. This action is essential and is allowed to happen when we practise the Prayer of the Heart. So God directs the Beam of His Light and Love, the Holy Spirit, towards our heart and purifies it, introducing a closer communion with him: this creates the Peace between us and God.

3- Apostolate, Mary's Apostolate

Reciting the Rosary, in the form of Prayer of the Heart is a central weapon of conquest (Evangelisation) and the most powerful one. It places us at the front of the "war" of conquest deep in the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

Saying silently and quietly: praying the rosary is like: directing the beam of Mary's Fire on the needs or obstacles of our brothers and sisters, until they are resolved (until it dilutes). St. Therese of the Child Jesus explains what happens when we say it automatically and we don't think of a specific person. (Please see this post commenting quotes from St Therese on intercessory prayer).

It is in the forefront, helping to spread the Peace of God, communion with Him and therefore removing all obstacles between our brothers and Jesus.

Mary Star of the New Evangelisation

4- The Deep Contemplative Way

When we enter in the Prayer of the Heart while holding our Rosary and saying silently the prayers of "Our Father" and "Hail Marys" and "Glory be”, we are in fact entering deeper with Mary into the very life of the Trinity, participating in the Trinity's Being and Life in its operations and acts.

The Trinity has two inner operations:

1. The Father begets the Son,
2. The Father and the Son love one another in one movement: the spiration of the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity has outer operations:

1. The Father sends the Son to each human being (so He grows in him) and
2. The Father sends the Holy Spirit, His love, to each human being.

Practising the Prayer of the Heart with Mary, in Mary, allows

1. God's Being,
2. The inner operations and
3. The outer operation that happens in us and through us, here on earth.

Nobody can see that action, even though it is the most important action, communication, change, on earth, but it happens. Practising the Prayer of the Heart with Mary is participating in the transformation of ourselves and the entire world through us and in us.

This way of praying the Rosary is not an alternative to the usual way of saying the Rosary (meditating Jesus' Mysteries: the Joyful, Light, Sorrowful, and Glorious), it is a complementary way just as there are two parts in the Mass: the Liturgy of the Word - that would be the meditation of the Rosary as it is commonly known, and the Liturgy of the Body and Blood of Christ (the explanation here of Prayer of the Heart). Both are prayed "with Mary and in Mary". They are like two “digestive” processes of the two aspects of the Bread we receive in the Mass (Word and Body of Jesus). Which means: when we we meditate on the daily readings before or fater the Mass, doing Lectio Divina we take time to digest the Word of God given to us during the Mass. When we practice the Prayer of the Heart, before or after the Mass (at any time of the day) in fact we are taking time to digest the grace of our last Communion.

5- Mary is Jesus' Gift to each one of us

Only Jesus is God. But Mary is "flesh of his flesh". Through the incarnation of the Jesus, Mary is the archetype of Jesus' disciple (see Catechism of the Catholic Church numbers: 148-149, 165, 273, 411, 466-469, 484-506-511, 529, 721-726, 773, 829, 963-967-975, 1014, 1172, 2617-2619, 2673-2676, 2679, 2682). In Mary we find the fullness of Jesus. Mary's way of knowing and Loving Jesus is the most perfect gift from God to us giving us access to her life in Jesus Christ. In Baptism God gives us Himself and Faith. In giving us Mary's Faith, we receive both the 'New Wine' and the 'New Wineskin'. God doesn't give us only one thing: i.e. the New Wine, or the New Seed. He gives us two things: not only the New Wine (Himself, the Trinity, Jesus) but also He gives us the capacity to receive him, to know him and to love him. This capacity is embodied in Jesus' principal disciple, Mary. Mary is personally given to us. This is why it was a fundamental act when Jesus was giving himself on the Cross to us, to give us the capacity to receive him, when He said: Behold! Here is your mother (John 19).

Holding the Rosary in our hands is humbly confessing that we receive Mary in our place, in our life, and that we understand who she is in God's eyes.

When we hold the Rosary, we confess the whole totality of our Faith and not just part of it. We hold the most secure understanding and practice of our faith.

6- Conquering Peace

Sometimes when we pray the Prayer of the Heart when we don’t have the gentle peace or the

feeling of the divine grace poured in us, how should we pray? This is when we should hold our Rosary, saying it in this contemplative way of Prayer of the Heart. In doing so, we are akin to directing the beam of the Holy Spirit on the conflict in our feelings of "war". We do so until it subsides and often toward the end of the hour, we find that Peace returns. A battle was won. Did you see or watch any details of this battle? No. It is Mary. We don't need anything more than the presence of Mary.. We just do our part, as faithful soldiers. Mary manages the rest.

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