Our Lady of the Rosary

At Nazareth, Saint Gabriel the Archangel greeted Our Lady as full of grace, and she was deeply troubled, wondering what kind of greeting it was. He told her not to be afraid, for she had found favour with God, and that she would bear a son and name him Jesus, and when she asked how, since she had no husband, he said the Holy Spirit would come upon her. Our Lady gave her consent.

The angel had told her that her relative Saint Elizabeth, who had conceived a son in her old age, was in her sixth month, and Our Lady set out in haste for the hill country of Judah. At the sound of her voice the child in St. Elizabeth's womb leapt for joy, and St. Elizabeth called her the mother of her Lord. Our Lady answered with a hymn of praise to God and stayed about three months.

Saint Joseph went up to Bethlehem to be enrolled, because he was of the house of David, and Our Lady, who was with child, went with him. She gave birth to her Son there and laid him in a manger, and shepherds came at an angel's word. At the time of her purification she and St. Joseph presented him in the Temple, where Saint Simeon, a devout man promised by the Holy Spirit that he would see the Lord's Christ before he died, told her a sword would pierce her heart.

When he was twelve, she and St. Joseph lost him on the road home from Jerusalem, and after three days of searching they found him in the Temple. When she asked him why he had treated them so, he answered that he had to be in his Father's house, and they did not understand what he meant. Pope Saint John Paul II wrote that the memories she kept in her heart were, in a way, the rosary she prayed throughout her earthly life.

Saint John the Baptist baptised her Son in the Jordan. Our Lady was a guest at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and her Son and his disciples were invited too. When the wine ran out she told her Son, and he answered that his hour had not yet come.

Then she told the servants to do whatever he told them. Pope St. John Paul II wrote in Rosarium Virginis Mariae that Cana shows her as a teacher, urging the servants to do what Jesus commands. The water in six stone jars became wine, the first of his signs, and his disciples believed in him.

Her Son went into Galilee preaching the gospel of God, and the Second Vatican Council teaches that during his preaching she heard him call blessed those who hear the word of God and keep it, as she was doing.

On a mountain, Moses and Elijah appeared talking with him before Saints Peter, James and John. At the Passover supper in Jerusalem he instituted the Eucharist, taking the cup, giving thanks and sharing it among the apostles. Saint Bartolo Longo, founder of the Shrine of Pompeii, wrote that the Eucharist is the living Rosary and that all the mysteries are found in the Holy Sacrament.

After the Passover supper Our Lady's Son prayed in anguish on the Mount of Olives. Judas betrayed him there with a kiss, and all the disciples ran away. In the morning Pilate released Barabbas and handed Jesus over to be crucified.

Her Son was scourged, and the soldiers crowned him with thorns, dressed him in purple and mocked him as a king. Pope Leo XIII wrote that in the scourging and the crowning with thorns, those who pray the Rosary also reflect on his Mother's grief.

Jesus went out carrying his own cross to Golgotha, and Simon of Cyrene, a man coming in from the country, was made to carry it for him. By the cross stood Our Lady, her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Saint Mary Magdalene. Pope Pius XII wrote that St. Simeon's sword pierced her heart as she stood under the cross.

From the cross Jesus entrusted his mother to Saint John the Apostle, the disciple he loved, and gave St. John to her as her son. The Catechism teaches that even at the foot of the Cross she held without wavering to the consent she had given the angel at the Annunciation. Jesus said that it was finished, bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

At dawn on the first day of the week, an angel told St. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at the tomb that Jesus had risen. Pope St. John Paul II wrote that on Easter morning Our Lady's gaze was radiant with the joy of the Resurrection. For forty days the risen Lord appeared to the apostles, and then a cloud took him from their sight.

The apostles stayed together in the upper room in Jerusalem and prayed there with several women and with Our Lady. At Pentecost tongues as of fire came to rest on each of those gathered. Pope St. John Paul II wrote that Pentecost reveals the face of the Church as a family gathered together with Our Lady.

As Catholic Tradition tells it, in the account Saint Alphonsus Liguori gathers, the apostles came to Our Lady's bedside as her death drew near, and she blessed them. The Church teaches that when the course of her earthly life was finished, she was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory. Pope Pius XII defined this as a dogma of faith at St. Peter's on November 1, 1950 AD.

The Church also teaches that the Lord exalted her as Queen over all things. Pope Pius XII wrote that Christians have long meditated on her reign as Queen in the fifth glorious mystery of the Rosary. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux said in her last illness that Our Lady is more Mother than Queen.