"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)."
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).
"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.
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