The Secret of the Rosary: With Preparation for Consecration

The great St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, within the pages of this marvelous devotional, explains that through each well-prayed Rosary, the Mother truly unites her most beautiful and all-powerful voice to ours, making of our prayer a truly pleasing and fragrant offering unto each of the persons of the Most Holy Trinity. In it, the Father rejoices in receiving sublime consolation from His creation through the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of His Son; the Son eagerly presses to His Most Sacred Heart all hearts that have been entrusted and offered to Him by His Most Holy Mother; the Spirit, or the Divine Advocate, is irresistibly drawn to each soul in whom His well-beloved spouse, the created Advocate – Mary – has made her dwelling. Finally, it goes without saying that our Spiritual Mother leaps with joy each and every time she is greeted, by one of her many beloved children, in the same manner that she was greeted by St. Gabriel, who, in announcing to her the exalted vocation to which she had been called by God, greeted her with that sweet “Ave.” Thus, after the supremely perfect glory and honor offered to God in the Liturgical celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it would not be an exaggeration to state that the Holy Trinity receives its greatest adoration, glorification, gratitude, supplication and expiation from those individuals who, through, with and in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the masterpiece of God’s creation and the treasury of God’s greatest graces, allow themselves to be transformed ever more perfectly into Christ’s image and likeness through their meditation on the Salvific mysteries of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, as they repeat the words of the Angelic Salutation. The Rosary involves both meditative and vocal prayer, and quite often leads one into a passive state of contemplation, whereby the soul ceases to be active and rather rests in the peace, love and presence of God Himself. We must understand the distinction between meditation and contemplation. The former involves activity on our part; that is, as we meditate on any of the 20 mysteries of the Rosary, we simultaneously pray out loud to Our Lady, rendering unto her the praise and veneration that is Her due, and asking her to exercise her maternal mediation on our behalf. Contemplative prayer, on the other hand, is a free gift bestowed upon an individual who is properly disposed to receive this gift. We prepare ourselves precisely by performing the activities of both vocal and meditative prayer. Contemplation can be defined as the passive, phenomenological experience of the soul resting in the presence of God. Moreover, it should be noted that we do not pray in order to receive this free gift of contemplative prayer; God may or may not choose to impart this gift upon a soul, knowing, in His perfect Wisdom, precisely what each individual soul needs at any given time. Rather, we, having committed ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, have promised to stay united to her Most Immaculate Heart, and this is accomplished through, with and in the recitation of her prayer, the Most Holy Rosary, and active meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation.