I constantly remember one of the most famous dicta I learnt in my Latin days that remained imprinted in my heart and mind all these years:
‘Repetita iuvant!’ Repetition helps! The month of October is the month characterized by that repetitive prayer which many find annoying and senseless, but, in reality, is the most powerful Marian prayer which the Church has ever produced, namely the Rosary. Ironically, what makes this prayer so special and dynamic is precisely its repetition.
Why this is so?
Blessed John Paul II answers this question in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, which proclaimed October 2002 – October 2003 as the Year of the Rosary. For the Holy Father, repetition allows the praying person to meditate on Christ’s mysteries. The Pope warns “if this repetition is considered superficially, there could be a temptation to see the Rosary as a dry and boring exercise”.
It is quite another thing, however, when the Rosary is thought of as an outpouring of that love that tirelessly returns to the person loved with expressions similar in their content but ever fresh in terms of the feeling pervading them” (§ 26).
In fact, the Rosary is repetitive because it a continuous positive answer to the question Jesus asked Peter after his Resurrection:
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” (Jn 21, 15-17). In reply to this triple question there is the triple reply of love from Peter’s behalf:
“Lord; you know that I love you” (Jn 21, 15-17). Thus, the Rosary is, as it were, “the beauty of this triple repetition, in which the insistent request and the corresponding reply are expressed in terms familiar from the universal experience of human love. To understand the Rosary, one has to enter into the psychological dynamic proper to love” (§ 26).
What kind of love? The self-giving love of Jesus himself through which the whole creation has been saved. Through the contemplative recitation of the Rosary we can see our own lives taking shape by recapturing that vital meaning of the Christian faith without which we simply exist but not live. Thanks to the meditation of Jesus’ joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, under the sure and gently direction of his Mother Mary, we start recognising not only God’s saving acts in our personal lives but also in those of countless numbers of individuals, families, nations, the Church as well as the entire human race. How true was Pope Woytyla when he stated, “The simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human life” (§ 26). With the Rosary our fragile humanity is reoriented to Christ under the maternal gaze of Mary!
Seen from this perspective it makes perfect sense to affirm what the French Dominicans, Blessed Alan de la Roche and Saint Louis de Montford had to say about the Rosary: “If you persevere in reciting the Rosary, this will be a most probable sign of your eternal salvation.” “If you say the Rosary faithfully unto death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, ‘you will receive a never-fading crown of glory’ (1 St. Peter 5:4).” This must be so since the Rosary is a Christological prayer, and that, by itself, renders this repetitive prayer as, in De La Roche’s words it is “a storehouse of countless blessing”.
In conclusion, I want to make my own the heartfelt appeal Blessed John Paul II made to the families of Rome on 7 February 1998, and address it to every Maltese family:
“Dear families of [Malta], as we contemplate the model of the Holy Family of Nazareth, let us pray the Rosary together. Let us entrust to the intercession of Mary and her husband, Joseph, all the families in our [country] and especially those who are living in difficult situations. Let us entrust to them the young people preparing for marriage through that moment of grace which is their engagement. Let us also entrust to them those responsible for promoting more just and constructive family policies. May the Lord bless all families and make them privileged places for meeting him, through the authentic proclamation of his love.”
Repetition helps!
Mario Attard OFM Cap