The Sister's Constant Companion

Credit: Fr. Lawrence, O.P.

"We sit at the School of Mary as she teaches us in the Rosary to contemplate
the beauty of the face of Christ, to experience the depths of His love,
and to draw down the specific graces of each mystery here and now
upon Christ’s living members, most especially our Holy Father." 
- MSSR Constitutions

The Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary is essential to the life of religious and their personal growth in holiness. Holy Mother Church even mentions its necessity to the obligation of religious in Canon 663§4: "With special veneration, they are to honor the Virgin Mother of God, the example and protector of all consecrated life, also through the Marian rosary."  In recognizing that Our Lady is Queen of the Religious Life, Holy Mother Church points the gaze of the religious toward the life of the Blessed Mother as the model to follow in the spiritual life because she lived perfection imitation of Son. 

And who better to teach us to follow in the way of Christ than His Mother? In the words of Pope St. John Paul II, ​"The Rosary mystically transports us to Mary's side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Christ in the home of Nazareth. This enables her to train us and to mold us with the same care, until Christ is “fully formed” in us (cf. Gal 4:19)." ​

Through the rosary, we contemplate the face and mysteries of Christ with and through Our Lady. She helps us meditate upon God the Son incarnate in her womb; the Divine Countenance of His infant Face; His tender eyes which hold deep truths, while proclaiming the Gospel or calling souls to conversion; the face of the Man of Sorrows in His agony, scourging, and crucifixion; His radiance in His Resurrection and Ascension - and so much more. No one knew our Lord on earth better than His Blessed Mother, and it is to her that we turn to receive instruction. In  contemplating the life of Christ with Mary. she leads us to a "profound and inward knowledge of" Him Whom we are called to imitate. ​

Though Our Lady could not physically be with her Son at every moment of His earthly life during His ministry, she was always with Him spiritually. This too the religious seeks to imitate. Aided by "the Rosary and crucifix [which] we wear at our side,  [the sister is reminded] to daily enter more deeply into the redemptive mysteries of Jesus Christ" (MSSR Constitutions).

​In the apostolate, the Rosary is the sister's constant companion as she often takes a break during the Lord's work to redirect her mind and heart toward the disposition of her Spouse as He went about the Father's Will. At home, the Rosary is a method of instruction for those in formation, as they pray and meditate together on how our Lord and His Mother lived poverty, chastity, and obedience. On Sundays, our love for the Blessed Mother manifests itself through the communal recitation of the Rosary, where we can unite with one voice in supplication to the Mother of God. 

"The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer ... It is an echo of the prayer of Mary." (Pope St. John Paul II - Rosarium Virginis Mariae) This is the goal of every religious sister - to be an echo of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to each other, to the world, and to God Almighty. 

Let us have recourse to the Mother of God and pray her most holy rosary. May she intercede for us, grant us the graces that are held within each mystery, and draw us into a more intimate relationship with her Beloved Son. ​