FIRST DECADE

The surpassing merit of the Rosary as seen in its origin and name.

First Rose

9 The Rosary is made up of two things: mental prayer and vocal

prayer. In the Rosary mental prayer is none other than meditation

of the chief mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus

Christ and of his blessed Mother. Vocal prayer consists in saying

fifteen decades of the Hail Mary, each decade headed by an Our

Father, while at the same time meditating on and contemplating

the fifteen principal virtues which Jesus and Mary practised in

the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.

In the first five decades we must honour the five Joyful

Mysteries and meditate on them; in the second five decades, the

Sorrowful Mysteries; and in the third group of five, the Glorious

Mysteries. So the Rosary is a blessed blending of mental and

vocal prayer by which we honour and learn to imitate the

mysteries and the virtues of the life, death, passion and glory

of Jesus and Mary.

Second Rose

10 Since the Rosary is composed, principally and in substance,

of the prayer of Christ and the Angelic Salutation, that is, the

Our Father and the Hail Mary, it was without doubt the first

prayer and the principal devotion of the faithful and has been

in use all through the centuries, from the time of the apostles

and disciples down to the present.

11 It was only in the year 1214, however, that the Church

received the Rosary in its present form and according to the

method we use today. It was given to the Church by St. Dominic,

who had received it from the Blessed Virgin as a means of

converting the Albigensians and other sinners.

I will tell you the story of how he received it, which is

found in the very well-known book De Dignitate Psalterii, by

Blessed Alan de la Roche. Saint Dominic, seeing that the gravity

of people's sins was hindering the conversion of the

Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse, where he

prayed continuously for three days and three nights. During this

time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances in order to

appease the anger of God. He used his discipline so much that his

body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma.

At this point our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three

angels, and she said, "Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the

Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?"

"Oh, my Lady," answered Saint Dominic, "you know far better

than I do, because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always

been the chief instrument of our salvation."

Then our Lady replied, "I want you to know that, in this

kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic

Psalter, which is the foundation-stone of the New Testament.

Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them

over to God, preach my Psalter."

So he arose, comforted, and burning with zeal for the

conversion of the people in that district, he made straight for

the cathedral. At once unseen angels rang the bells to gather the

people together, and Saint Dominic began to preach.

At the very beginning of his sermon, an appalling storm

broke out, the earth shook, the sun was darkened, and there was

so much thunder and lightning that all were very much afraid.

Even greater was their fear when, looking at a picture of our

Lady exposed in a prominent place, they saw her raise her arms

to heaven three times to call down God's vengeance upon them if

they failed to be converted, to amend their lives, and seek the

protection of the holy Mother of God.

God wished, by means of these supernatural phenomena, to

spread the new devotion of the holy Rosary and to make it more

widely known.

At last, at the prayer of Saint Dominic, the storm came to

an end, and he went on preaching. So fervently and compellingly

did he explain the importance and value of the Rosary that almost

all the people of Toulouse embraced it and renounced their false

beliefs. In a very short time a great improvement was seen in the

town; people began leading Christian lives and gave up their

former bad habits.

Third Rose

12 The miraculous way in which the devotion to the holy Rosary

was established is something of a parallel to the way in which

God gave his law to the world on Mount Sinai, and it obviously

proves its value and importance.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, instructed by the Blessed

Virgin as well as by his own experience, Saint Dominic preached

the Rosary for the rest of his life. He preached it by his

example as well as by his sermons, in cities and in country

places, to people of high station and low, before scholars and

the uneducated, to Catholics and to heretics.

The Rosary, which he said every day, was his preparation for

every sermon and his little tryst with our Lady immediately after

preaching.

13 One day he had to preach at Notre Dame in Paris, and it

happened to be the feast of St. John the Evangelist. He was in

a little chapel behind the high altar prayerfully preparing his

sermon by saying the Rosary, as he always did, when our Lady

appeared to him and said: "Dominic, even though what you have

planned to say may be very good, I am bringing you a much better

sermon."

Saint Dominic took in his hands the book our Lady proffered,

read the sermon carefully and, when he had understood it and

meditated on it, he gave thanks to her.

When the time came, he went up into the pulpit and, in spite

of the feast day, made no mention of Saint John other than to say

that he had been found worthy to be the guardian of the Queen of

Heaven. The congregation was made up of theologians and other

eminent people, who were used to hearing unusual and polished

discourses; but Saint Dominic told them that it was not his

desire to give them a learned discourse, wise in the eyes of the

world, but that he would speak in the simplicity of the Holy

Spirit and with his forcefulness.

So he began preaching the Rosary and explained the Hail Mary

word by word as he would to a group of children, and used the

very simple illustrations which were in the book given him by our

Lady.

14 Carthagena, the great scholar, quoting Blessed Alan de la

Roche in De Dignitate Psalterii, describes how this took place.

"Blessed Alan writes that one day Father Dominic said to him

in a vision, 'My son, it is good to preach; but there is always

a danger of looking for praise rather than the salvation of

souls. Listen care-fully to what happened to me in Paris, so that

you may be on your guard against this kind of mistake. I was to

preach in the great church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and

I was particularly anxious to give a fine sermon, not out of

pride, but because of the high intellectual stature of the

congregation.

"'An hour before the time I had to preach, I was dutifully

saying my Rosary - as I always did before giving a sermon - when

I fell into ecstasy. I saw my beloved friend, the Mother of God,

coming towards me with a book in her hand. "Dominic," she said,

"your sermon for today may be very good indeed, but no matter how

good it is, I have brought you one that is very much better."

"'Of course I was overjoyed, and I took the book and read

every word of it. Just as our Lady had said, I found exactly the

right things to say in my sermon, so I thanked her with all my

heart.

"'When it was time to begin, I saw that the University of

Paris had turned out in full force, as well as a large number of

noblemen. They had all seen and heard of the great things that

the good Lord had been doing through me.

"'I went up into the pulpit. It was the feast of Saint John

the Evangelist but all I said about him was that he had been

found worthy to be the guardian of the Queen of Heaven. Then I

addressed the congregation:

"'My Lords and illustrious doctors of the University, you

are accustomed to hearing learned sermons suited to your refined

tastes. Now I do not want to speak to you in the scholarly

language of human wisdom but, on the contrary, to show you the

Spirit of Cod and his greatness."'

Here ends the quotation from Blessed Alan, after which

Carthagena goes on to say in his own words, "Then Saint Dominic

explained the Angelic Salutation to them, using simple

comparisons and examples from everyday life."

15 Blessed Alan, according to Carthagena, mentioned several

other occasions when our Lord and our Lady appeared to Saint

Dominic to urge him and inspire him to preach the Rosary more and

more in order to wipe out sin and convert sinners and heretics.

In another passage Carthagena says, "Blessed Alan said our

Lady revealed to him that, after she had appeared to Saint

Dominic, her blessed Son appeared to him and said, 'Dominic, I

rejoice to see that you are not relying on your own wisdom and

that, rather than seek the empty praise of men, you are working

with great humility for the salvation of souls.

"'But many priests want to preach thunderously against the

worst kinds of sin at the very outset, failing to realize that

before a sick person is given bitter medicine, he needs to be

prepared by being put into the right frame of mind to really

benefit by it.

"'That is why, before doing anything else, priests should

try to kindle a love of prayer in people's hearts and especially

a love of my Angelic Psalter. If only they would all start saying

it and would really persevere, God in his mercy could hardly

refuse to give them his grace. So I want you to preach my

Rosary."'

16 In another place Blessed Alan says, "All priests say a Hail

Mary with the faithful before preaching, to ask for God's grace.'

They do this because of a revelation that Saint Dominic had from

our Lady. 'My son,' she said one day, 'do not be surprised that

your sermons fail to bear the results you had hoped for. You are

trying to cultivate a piece of ground which has not had any rain.

Now when God planned to renew the face of the earth, he started

by sending down rain from heaven - and this was the Angelic

Salutation. In this way God reformed the world.

"'So when you give a sermon, urge people to say my Rosary,

and in this way your words will bear much fruit for souls.'

"Saint Dominic lost no time in obeying, and from then on he

exerted great influence by his sermons." (This last quotation is

from "The Book of Miracles of the Holy Rosary," written in

Italian, also found in Justin's works, Sermon 143.)

17 I have been very pleased to quote these well-known authors

word for word for the benefit of those who might otherwise have

doubts as to the marvellous power of the Rosary.

As long as priests followed Saint Dominic's example and

preached devotion to the holy Rosary, piety and fervour thrived

throughout the Christian world and in those religious orders

which were devoted to the Rosary. But since people have neglected

this gift from heaven, all kinds of sin and disorder have spread

far and wide.

Fourth Rose

18 All things, even the holiest, are subject to change,

especially when they are dependent on man's free will. It is

hardly to be wondered at, then, that the Confraternity of the

Holy Rosary only retained its first fervour for a century after

it was instituted by Saint Dominic. After this it was like a

thing buried and forgotten.

Doubtless, too, the wicked scheming and jealousy of the

devil were largely responsible for getting people to neglect the

Rosary, and thus block the flow of God's grace which it had drawn

upon the world.

Thus, in 1349 God punished the whole of Europe with the most

terrible plague that had ever been known. Starting in the east,

it spread throughout Italy, Germany, France, Poland and Hungary,

bringing desolation wherever it went, for out of a hundred men

hardly one lived to tell the tale. Big cities, towns, villages

and monasteries were almost completely deserted during the three

years that the epidemic lasted.

This scourge of God was quickly followed by two others, the

heresy of the Flagellants and a tragic schism in 1376.

19 Later on, when these trials were over, thanks to the mercy

of God, our Lady told Blessed Alan to revive the former

Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Blessed Alan was one of the

Dominican Fathers at the monastery at Dinan, in Brittany. He was

an eminent theologian and a famous preacher. Our Lady chose him

because, since the Confraternity had originally been started in

that province, it was fitting that a Dominican from the same

province should have the honour of re-establishing it.

Blessed Alan began this great work in 1460, after a special

warning from our Lord. This is how he received that urgent

message, as he himself tells it:

One day when he was offering Mass, our Lord, who wished to

spur him on to preach the holy Rosary, spoke to him in the Sacred

Host. "How can you crucify me again so soon?" Jesus said. "What

did you say, Lord?" asked Blessed Alan, horrified. "You crucified

me once before by your sins," answered Jesus, "and I would

willingly be crucified again rather than have my Father offended

by the sins you used to commit. You are crucifying me again now

because you have all the learning and understanding that you need

to preach my Mother's Rosary, and you are not doing it. If you

only did that, you could teach many souls the right path and lead

them away from sin. But you are not doing it, and so you yourself

are guilty of the sins that they commit."

This terrible reproach made Blessed Alan solemnly resolve

to preach the Rosary unceasingly.

20 Our Lady also said to him one day to inspire him to preach

the Rosary more and more, "You were a great sinner in your youth,

but I obtained the grace of your conversion from my Son. Had such

a thing been possible, I would have liked to have gone through

all kinds of suffering to save you, because converted sinners are

a glory to me. And I would have done that also to make you worthy

of preaching my Rosary far and wide."

Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan as well and told him

of the great results of his ministry: he had preached the Rosary

unceasingly, his sermons had borne great fruit and many people

had been converted during his missions.

He said to Blessed Alan, "See what wonderful results I have

had through preaching the Rosary. You and all who love our Lady

ought to do the same so that, by means of this holy practice of

the Rosary, you may draw all people to the real science of the

virtues."

Briefly, then, this is the history of how Saint Dominic

established the holy Rosary and of how Blessed Alan de la Roche

restored it.

Fifth Rose

21 Strictly speaking, there can be only one kind of

Confraternity of the Rosary, that is, one whose members agree to

say the entire Rosary of 150 Hail Marys every day. However,

considering the fervour of those who say it, we may distinguish

three kinds: Ordinary Membership, which entails saying the

complete Rosary once a week; Perpetual Membership, which requires

it to be said only once a year; Daily Membership, which obliges

one to say it all every day, that is, the fifteen decades made

up of 150 Hail Marys.

None of these oblige under pain of sin. It is not even a

venial sin to fail in this duty because such an undertaking is

entirely voluntary and supererogatory. Needless to say, people

should not join the Confraternity if they do not intend to fulfil

their obligation by saying the Rosary as often as is required,

without, however, neglecting the duties of their state in life.

So whenever the Rosary clashes with a duty of one's state

in life, holy as the Rosary is, one must give preference to the

duty to be performed. Similarly, sick people are not obliged to

say the whole Rosary or even part of it if this effort might tire

them and make them worse.

If you have been unable to say it because of some duty

required by obedience or because you genuinely forgot, or because

of some urgent necessity, you have not committed even a venial

sin. You will then receive the benefits of the Confraternity just

the same, sharing in the graces and merits of your brothers and

sisters in the Rosary, who are saying it throughout the world.

And, my dear Catholic people, even if you fail to say your

Rosary out of sheer carelessness or laziness, as long as you do

not have any formal contempt for it, you do not sin, absolutely

speaking, but you forfeit your participation in the prayers, good

works and merits of the Confraternity. Moreover, because you have

not been faithful in things that are little and of

supererogation, almost without knowing it you may fall into the

habit of neglecting big things, such as those duties which bind

under pain of sin; for "He that scorns small things shall fall

little by little."

Sixth Rose

22 From the time Saint Dominic established the devotion to the

holy Rosary up to the time when Blessed Alan de la Roche

reestablished it in 1460, it has always been called the Psalter

of Jesus and Mary. This is because it has the same number of Hail

Marys as there are psalms in the Book of the Psalms of David.

Since simple and uneducated people are not able to say the Psalms

of David, the Rosary is held to be just as fruitful for them as

David's Psalter is for others.

But the Rosary can be considered to be even more valuable

than the latter for three reasons:

1 Firstly, because the Angelic Psalter bears a nobler

fruit, that of the Word incarnate, whereas David's

Psalter only prophesies his coming;

2 Just as the real thing is more important than its

prefiguration and the body surpasses the shadow, so

the Psalter of our Lady is greater than David's

Psalter, which did no more than prefigure it;

3 Because our Lady's Psalter or the Rosary made up of

the Our Father and Hail Mary is the direct work of the

Blessed Trinity.

Here is what the learned Carthagena says about it:

The scholarly writer of Aix-la-Chapelle says in his book,

The Rose Crown, dedicated to the Emperor Maximilian: "It cannot

be maintained that Salutation of Mary is a recent innovation. It

spread almost with the Church itself. For at the very beginnings

of the Church the more educated members of the faithful

celebrated the praises of God in the 150 psalms of David. The

ordinary people, who encountered more difficulty in divine

service, thus conceived a holy emulation of them.... They

considered, which is indeed true, that the heavenly praises of

the Rosary contained all the divine secrets of the psalms, for,

if the psalms sing of the one who is to come, the Rosary

proclaims him as having come.

"That is how they began to call their prayer of 150

Salutations 'The Psalter of Mary,' and to precede each decade

with an Our Father, as was done by those who recited the psalms."

23 The Psalter or Rosary of our Lady is divided into three

chaplets of five decades each, for the following reasons:

1 to honour the three persons of the Blessed Trinity;

2 to honour the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ;

3 to imitate the Church triumphant, to help the members

of the Church militant, and to bring relief to the

Church suffering;

4 to imitate the three groups into which the psalms are

divided, the first being for the purgative life, the

second for the illuminative life, and the third for

the unitive life;

5 to give us graces in abundance during life, peace at

death, and glory in eternity.

Seventh Rose

24 Ever since Blessed Alan de la Roche re-established this

devotion, the voice of the people, which is the voice of God,

gave it the name of the Rosary, which means "crown of roses."

That is to say that every time people say the Rosary devoutly

they place on the heads of Jesus and Mary 153 white roses and

sixteen red roses. Being heavenly flowers, these roses will never

fade or lose their beauty.

Our Lady has approved and confirmed this name of the Rosary;

she has revealed to several people that each time they say a Hail

Mary they are giving her a beautiful rose, and that each complete

Rosary makes her a crown of roses.

25 The Jesuit brother, Alphonsus Rodriguez, used to say his

Rosary with such fervour that he often saw a red rose come out

of his mouth at each Our Father, and a white rose at each Hail

Mary, both equaL in beauty and differing only in colour.

The chronicles of St. Francis tell of a young friar who had

the praiseworthy habit of saying this crown of our Lady every day

before dinner. One day, for some reason or other, he did not

manage to say it. The refectory bell had already been rung when

he asked the Superior to allow him to say it before coming to the

table, and, having obtained permission, he withdrew to his cell

to pray.

After he had been gone a long time, the Superior sent

another friar to fetch him, and he found him in his room bathed

in a heavenly light in the presence of our Lady and two angels.

Beautiful roses kept issuing from his mouth at each Hail Mary,

and the two angels were taking them one by one and placing them

on our Lady's head, while she smilingly accepted them. Finally,

two other friars who had been sent to find out what had happened

to the first two saw the same scene, and our Lady did not leave

until the whole Rosary had been said.

So the complete Rosary is a large crown of roses and each

chaplet of five decades is a little wreath of flowers or a little

crown of heavenly roses which we place on the heads of Jesus and

Mary. The rose is the queen of flowers, and so the Rosary is the

rose of devotions and the most important one.

Eighth Rose

26 It is scarcely possible for me to put into words how our

Lady esteems the Rosary and how she prefers it to all other

devotions. Nor can I sufficiently express how wonderfully she

rewards those who work to make known the devotion, to establish

it and spread it nor, on the other hand, how strictly she

punishes those who work against it.

St. Dominic had nothing more at heart during his life than

to praise our Lady, to preach her greatness, and to inspire

everybody to honour her by saying her Rosary. As a reward he

received countless graces from her. This powerful Queen of heaven

crowned his labours with many miracles and prodigies. God always

granted him what he asked through our Lady. The greatest favour

of all was that she helped him to crush the Albigensian heresy

and made him the founder and patriarch of a great religious

order.

27 As for Blessed Alan de la Roche, who restored the devotion

of the Rosary, he received many privileges from our Lady; she

graciously appeared to him several times to teach him how to work

out his salvation, to become a good priest and perfect religious,

and how to pattern himself on our Lord.

He used to be horribly tempted and persecuted by devils, and

then a deep sadness would fall upon him and sometimes he would

be near to despair. But our Lady always comforted him by her

presence, which banished the clouds of darkness from his soul.

She taught him how to say the Rosary, explaining its value

and the fruits to be gained by it; and she gave him a great and

glorious privilege, which was the honour of being called her new

spouse. As a token of her chaste love for him, she placed a ring

upon his finger and a necklace made of her own hair about his

neck and gave him a Rosary.

Fr. TritŠme, the learned Carthagena and Martin of Navarre,

as well as others, have spoken of him in terms of highest praise.

Blessed Alan died at Zwolle, in Flanders, on September 8th, 1475,

after having brought more than a hundred thousand people into the

Confraternity.

28 Blessed Thomas of St. John was well known for his sermons

on the holy Rosary, and the devil, jealous of his success,

tortured him so much that he fell ill and was sick for such a

long time that the doctors gave him up. One night, when he really

thought he was dying, the devil appeared to him in the most

terrible form imaginable. There was a picture of our Lady near

his bed; he looked at it and cried with all his heart and soul

and strength, "Help me, save me, my dearest Mother." No sooner

had he said this than the picture seemed to come alive and our

Lady put out her hand, took him by the arm and said, "Do not be

afraid, Thomas my son, here I am and I am going to save you; get

up now and go on preaching my Rosary as you used to do. I promise

to shield you from your enemies."

When our Lady said this, the devil fled and Blessed Thomas

got up, finding himself in perfect health. He then thanked our

Lady with tears of joy. He resumed his Rosary apostolate, and his

sermons were wonderfully successful.

29 Our Lady not only blesses those who preach her Rosary but

she highly rewards all those who, by their example, get others

to say it.

Alphonsus, King of Leon and Calicia, very much wanted all

his servants to honour the Blessed Virgin by saying the Rosary,

so he used to hang a large rosary on his belt, though he never

said it himself. Nevertheless, his wearing it encouraged his

courtiers to say the Rosary devoutly.

One day the King fell seriously ill and when he was given

up for dead he found himself, in spirit, before the judgment-seat

of our Lord. Many devils were there accusing him of all the sins

he had committed, and our Lord was about to condemn him when our

Lady came forward to speak in his favour. She called for a pair

of scales and had his sins placed in one of the balances, while

she put the large rosary which he had always worn on the other

scale, together with all the rosaries that had been said through

his example. It was found that the Rosaries weighed more than his

sins.

Looking at him with great kindness, our Lady said, "As a

reward for the little service you did for me in wearing my

rosary, I have obtained a great grace for you from my Son. Your

life will be spared for a few more years. See that you spend

those years wisely, and do penance."

When the King regained consciousness he cried out, "Blessed

be the Rosary of the most holy Virgin Mary, by which I have been

de-livered from eternal damnation."

After he had recovered his health, he spent the rest of his

life in spreading devotion to the Rosary, and said it faithfully

every day.

People who love the Blessed Virgin ought to follow the

example of King Alphonsus and that of the saints whom I have

mentioned, so that they too may win other souls for the

Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. They will receive great graces

here on earth and finally eternal life. "Those who explain me

will have life everlasting."

Ninth Rose

30 It is very wicked indeed and unjust to hinder the progress

of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. God has severely

punished many of those who have been so benighted as to scorn the

Confraternity and have sought to destroy it.

Even though God has set his seal of approval on the Rosary

by many miracles, and though it has been approved by the Church

in many papal bulls, there are only too many people who are

against the holy Rosary today. Such are free-thinkers and those

who scorn religion, who either condemn the Rosary or try to turn

others away from it.

It is easy to see that they have absorbed the poison of hell

and that they are inspired by the devil; for no one can condemn

devotion to the holy Rosary without condemning all that is most

holy in the Catholic faith, such as the Lord's prayer, the Hail

Mary and the mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus

Christ and his holy Mother.

These freethinkers, who cannot bear to have people saying

the Rosary, often fall into an heretical state of mind without

realizing it and come to hate the Rosary and its mysteries.

To have a loathing for confraternities is to fall away from

God and true piety, for our Lord himself has told us that he is

always in the midst of those who are gathered together in his

name. No good Catholic would neglect the many great indulgences

which the Church has granted to confraternities. Finally, to

dissuade others from joining the Rosary Confraternity is to be

an enemy of souls, because the Rosary is a means of avoiding sin

and leading a good life.

St. Bonaventure says in his "Psalter" that whoever neglects

our Lady will die in his sins. What, then, must be the punishment

in store for those who turn people away from devotion to her?

Tenth Rose

31 While St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary in Carcassone,

a heretic made fun of his miracles and the fifteen mysteries of

the Rosary, and this prevented other heretics from being

converted. As a punishment God allowed fifteen thousand devils

to enter the man's body.

His parents took him to Father Dominic to be delivered from

the evil spirits. He started to pray and he begged everyone who

was there to say the Rosary out loud with him, and at each Hail

Mary our Lady drove a hundred devils out of the man, and they

came out in the form of red-hot coals.

After he had been delivered, he abjured his former errors,

was converted and joined the Rosary Confraternity. Several of his

associates did the same, having been greatly moved by his

punishment and by the power of the Rosary.

32 The learned Franciscan, Carthagena, as well as several other

authors, says that an extraordinary event took place in 1482. The

venerable Fr. James Sprenger and the religious of his order were

zealously working to re-establish devotion to the Rosary and its

Confraternity in the city of Cologne. Unfortunately, two priests

who were famous for their preaching ability were jealous of the

great influence they were exerting through preaching the Rosary.

These two Fathers spoke against this devotion whenever they had

a chance, and as they were very eloquent and had a great

reputation, they persuaded many people not to join the

Confraternity. One of them, the better to achieve his wicked end,

wrote a special sermon against the Rosary and planned to give it

the following Sunday. But when the time came for the sermon he

did not appear and, after a certain amount of waiting, someone

went to fetch him. He was found to be dead, and he had evidently

died without anyone to help him.

After persuading himself that this death was due to natural

causes, the other priest decided to carry out his friend's plan

and give a similar sermon on another day, hoping to put an end

to the Confraternity of the Rosary. However, when the day came

for him to preach and it was time to give the sermon, God

punished him by striking him down with paralysis which deprived

him of the use of his limbs and of his power of speech.

At last he admitted his fault and that of his friend and in

his heart he silently besought our Lady to help him. He promised

that if only she would cure him, he would preach the Rosary with

as much zeal as that with which he had formerly fought against

it. For this end he implored her to restore his health and his

speech, which she did, and finding himself instantaneously cured

he rose up like another Saul, a persecutor turned defender of the

holy Rosary. He publicly acknowledged his former error and ever

afterwards preached the wonders of the Rosary with great zeal and

eloquence.

33 I am quite sure that freethinkers and ultra-critical people

of today will question the truth of the stories in this little

book, as they question most things, but all I have done has been

to copy them from very good contemporary authors and, in part,

from a book written a short time ago, The Mystical Rose-tree, by

Fr. Antonin Thomas, O.P.

Everyone knows that there are three different kinds of faith

by which we believe different kinds of stories. To stories from

Holy Scripture we owe divine faith; to stories on non-religious

subjects which are not against common sense and are written by

trustworthy authors, we pay the tribute of human faith; and to

stories about holy subjects which are told by good authors and

are not in any way contrary to reason, to faith or to morals

(even though they may sometimes deal with happenings which are

above the ordinary), we pay the tribute of a pious faith.

I agree that we must be neither too credulous nor too

critical, and that we should keep a happy medium in all things

in order to find just where truth and virtue lie. But on the

other hand, I know equally well that charity easily leads us to

believe all that is not contrary to faith or morals: "Charity

believes all things," in the same way as pride induces us to

doubt even well authenticated stories on the plea that they are

not to be found in Holy Scripture.

This is one of the devil's traps; heretics of the past who

denied tradition have fallen into it, and over-critical people

of today are falling into it too, without even realizing it.

People of this kind refuse to believe what they do not understand

or what is not to their liking, simply because or their own

spirit of pride and independence.