The month of the Rosary

Birthday greetings. Last Monday, October 13, was the 78th birthday of UV president and first district congressman Eduardo R. Gullas. Belated greetings, Kuya Eddie. All Visayanians and all those whose lives you have touched as governor, congressman, and university president – their hearts are full of good wishes for you and family. May the Santo Niño and the Holy Mother of God be with you always.

A significant day. October 13 is a very significant day for Catholics. It is the day of the sixth apparition of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, the day when 70,000 people were astounded by the miracle of the sun. Accepted by the Church as an authentic event, the apparition with its messages of prayer and penance is a landmark in the contemporary history of the Catholic faith.

September is the birth month of the Virgin Mary but why is October chosen for the Church’s solemnities in honor of the Mother of God? Perhaps, because it is in this month when she stressed the importance of the Holy Rosary as a prayer most pleasing to God. She said at Fatima: “Pray the Rosary every day, to obtain peace for the world.”

Pope Paul VI was a strong advocate of the Rosary which he considered, “a prayer so dear to Our Lady and so highly recommended by the Supreme Pontiffs”.

Pope Pius II said: “There is no surer means of calling down God’s blessings upon the family… than the daily recitation of the Rosary.”

And the modern day champion of the Rosary as a family devotion, Fr. Patrick Peyton, says: “If families will but listen to my message and give Our Lady ten minutes of their twenty four hours by reciting the daily Family Rosary, I assure them that their homes will become, by God’s grace, peaceful, prayerful places – little heavens, which God, the Author of home life has intended they should be.”

Conflicts. World peace, family peace – is there a closer relationship? From a prayerful family come prayerful individuals who as ordinary citizens or as leaders of nation will become workers for peace. Unfortunately, this seems not to be happening. World War II ended 63 years ago, yet armed conflicts have been continuing phenomena in the twentieth and now twenty-first century. From the Korean war to Vietnam hostilities, from Desert Storm to Iraq and Afghan confrontations – these, plus localized genocidal happenings such as those in Kosovo, Nigeria, Darfur and other African states as well as the civil strife in Sri Lanka, Tibet, and even in the Philippines – these are indications that the quest for peace, global or national, has been a frustrating one.

The breaking of families. Why is peace so elusive a commodity in today’s world? And why is a Catholic country like the Philippines being unceasingly harassed by insurgency, ethnic rebellion, and organized crimes? The reason could be that the family is no longer functioning as a prayer-centered social unit.

In fact, in Western societies the family is breaking apart. Divorce is a frequent occurrence. Abortion is extensively practiced. And same sex marriage is emerging as socially acceptable. The horror is that Philippine political leadership seems naively attracted to these trend, that’s why Congress is coming up with the euphemistically labeled Reproductive Health Bill.

False claims: There’s no abortion there, its proponents claim. But they have put in provisions that make abortifacient birth control methods institutionalized. There’s no sex inducement for adolescents. But they want pubescent kids exposed to sex practices and the use of anti-birth gadgetry and techniques. We are not anti-family, they proclaim. But they have pointedly blamed population as the cause of poverty and want to limit childbirth. Where’s the idea that children are God’s gift? These purportedly avant garde lawmakers must have forgotten this. (or have they forgotten God too?). One thing is certain: They do not come from Rosary-praying families. And most likely, their own families don’t pray the Rosary.

No time for prayer. Yet whose family is praying the Rosary these days? In the present set up of things, family members rarely have time for this. Every one is busy in his own world of work or in his circle of friends at entertainment places. Sadly, even Sunday is no longer a day of the Lord, so strong is the impulse to make the most of it away from the church.

Now we are reaping the rewards of our waywardness. Families are no longer together because they don’t pray together. And Filipinos are no longer one people because prayer no longer unites them.

Praying the Rosary? Only the few old and weather-beaten folks in barangays do this.

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