Monday 7th October each year is special for me. It is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. My life’s education began in a family of a parish of Our Lady of the Rosary and in a school of Our Lady of the Rosary.
This October 7th was also the first-year anniversary of the dread incursion out of Gaza with the troubling aftermath that has since followed. I have been trying to understand it all. I have spent hours on my own and with others in study of history and in prayer for justice and peace. Peace seemed impossible until we decided to return to Our Lady.
So it was that on last Monday evening 7th October I joined a sizable number of people in our Chapel of Our Lady of Fatima – for a “scripture” Rosary. We followed the five Joyful Mysteries, all the usual prayers of the Rosary, with readings from the Gospel and brief meditations at the beginning of each of the mysteries.
I came home with something striking me quite deeply. It was the reading before the fourth mystery, the Presentation of the Child Jesus at the Temple, where Simeon first blesses God saying:
Now, Master, you are letting your servant
go in peace according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
which you have made ready in the presence of all nations;
a light for revelation to the gentiles
and for the glory of your people Israel.
Then as the child’s father and mother were wondering at the things that were being said about him, Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Look he is destined for the fall and for the rise of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is opposed – and a sword will pierce your soul too – so that the thoughts of many may be laid bare’ . +
+References above to Luke 2, v. 29-35, prayer and prophecy of Simeon
What I have to admit is that – in the hours that followed – it was my own troubled thoughts that these verses “laid bare” !
I am looking forward to more rosaries in the times ahead praying with those who will go before the Lord to pray for those who would guide our feet into the way of peace. ++
++References to Luke 1 prophecy of Zechariah
