The Secret of the Rosary - Forty-sixth Rose

Forty-sixth Rose - Group Recitation

THERE ARE SEVERAL ways of saying the Holy Rosary, but
that which gives Almighty God the greatest glory, does the
most for our souls and which the devil fears more than any
other, is that of saying or chanting the Rosary publicly in
two groups.
Almighty God is very pleased to have people gathered
together in prayer; the angels and the blessed unite to praise
Him unceasingly. The just on earth in several communities
join in communal prayer night and day. Our Blessed Lord
expressly recommended common prayer to His Apostles
and disciples and promised that whenever two or three were
gathered together in His name He would be there in the
midst of them. (Cf. Matt. 18:20)
What a wonderful thing to have Jesus Christ in our midst!
And the only thing we have to do to get Him to come is to
say the Rosary in a group.[1] This is why the early Christians
often gathered together to pray in spite of all the Roman
Emperor's persecutions and the fact that assemblies were
forbidden. They preferred to risk the danger of death rather
than to miss their gatherings, at which Our Lord was
present.
This way of praying is of the greatest benefit to our souls
because:
1. Normally our minds are far more alert during public
prayer than they are when we pray alone.
2. When we pray in common, the prayer of each one belongs
to us all and these make but one great prayer together, so
that if one person is not praying well, someone else in the
same gathering who prays better may make up for his
deficiency. In this way those who are strong uphold the
weak, those who are fervent inspire the lukewarm, the rich
enrich the poor, the bad are counted as good. How can a
measure of cockle be sold? This can be done very easily by
mixing it up with four or five barrels of good wheat.
3. Somebody who says his Rosary alone only gains the merit
of one Rosary, but if he says it together with thirty other
people he gains the merit of thirty Rosaries. This is the law
of public prayer. How profitable, how advantageous this is!
4. Urban VIII, who was very pleased to see how devotion to
the Holy Rosary had spread in Rome and how it was being
said in two groups or choirs, particularly at the convent of
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, attached one hundred days'
extra indulgence, toties quoties, whenever the Rosary was
said in two choirs. This was set out in his brief "Ad
perpetuam rei memoriam," written in the year 1626. So every
time you say the Rosary in two groups you gain one
hundred days' extra indulgence.
5. Public prayer is far more powerful than private prayer to
appease the anger of God and call down His Mercy and
Holy Mother Church, guided by the Holy Ghost, has always
advocated public prayer in times of public tragedy and
suffering.
In his bull on the Rosary, Pope Gregory XIII says very
clearly that we must believe (on pious faith) that the public
prayers and processions of members of the Confraternity of
the Holy Rosary were largely responsible for the great
victory over the Turkish navy at Lepanto which Almighty
God granted to Christians on the first Sunday of October,
1571.
When King Louis the Just, of blessed memory, was besieging
La Rochelle, where the revolutionary heretics had their
stronghold, he wrote to his mother to beg her to have public
prayers offered for a victorious outcome. The Queen-Mother
decided to have the Rosary recited publicly in Paris in the
Dominican Church of Faubourg Saint Honore and this was
done by the Archbishop of Paris. It was begun on May 20th,
1628.
Both the Queen-Mother and the reigning Queen attended
the recitation of the Rosary together with the Duke of
Orleans, Cardinal de La Rochefoucault and Cardinal de
Berulle, as well as other prelates. The court turned out in full
force as well as a large proportion of the general populace.
The Archbishop used to read the meditations on the
mysteries aloud and then begin the Our Fathers and Hail
Marys of each decade while the congregation made up of
religious and lay folk answered him. At the end of the
Rosary a statue of the Blessed Mother was solemnly carried
in procession while the Litany of Our Lady was sung.
This devotion was kept up with admirable fervor every
Saturday and resulted in a manifest blessing from Heaven:
for on All Saints' Day of the same year the king defeated the
English at the island of Re and made his triumphant entry
into La Rochelle. This goes to show the great power of public
prayer.
Finally, when people say the Rosary together it is far more
formidable to the devil than one said privately, because in
this public prayer it is an army that is attacking him. He can
often overcome the prayer of an individual, but if this prayer
is joined to that of other Christians, the devil has much more
trouble in getting the best of it. It is very easy to break a
single stick, but if you join it to others to make a bundle it
cannot be broken. "In union there is strength." Soldiers join
together in an army to overcome their enemies; wicked
people often get together for parties of debauchery and
dancing, and evil spirits join forces in order to make us lose
our souls. So why, then, should not Christians join forces to
have Jesus Christ present with them when they pray, to
appease Almighty God's anger, to draw down His grace and
mercy upon us, and to frustrate and overcome the devil and
his Angels more forcefully?
Dear Rosary Confraternity members, whether you live in
town or in the country, near your parish Church or near a
chapel, go there at least every evening (with the parish
priest's approval, of course), together with all those who
want to recite the Rosary in two choirs. If a Church or a
chapel is not available say the Rosary together in your own
or a neighbor's house. This is a holy practice which
Almighty God, in His mercy, has set up in places where I
have preached missions----to safeguard and increase the
good brought about by these missions and to prevent further
sin.
Before the Holy Rosary took root in these small towns and
villages, dances and parties of debauchery went on all the
time; dissoluteness, wantonness, blasphemy, quarrels and
feuds flourished. One heard nothing but evil songs and
double-meaning talk. But now nothing is heard but hymns
and the chant of the Our Father and Hail Mary. The only
gatherings to be seen are those of twenty, thirty or a
hundred or more people who, at a fixed hour, sing Almighty
God's praises just as religious do. There are even places
where the Rosary is recited in common----five mysteries at a
time----at three special times every day. What a blessing
from Heaven this is!
Just as there are wicked people everywhere, do not expect to
find that the place you live in is free of them; there will be
some who will be certain to avoid coming to Church for the
Rosary and they may even make fun of it and will probably
do everything in their power to stop you from going,
exerting their influence by bad example and bad language.
But do not give up. As these wretched souls will have to be
separated from God and Heaven for all eternity because
their place will be in Hell, already here on earth they have to
be separated from the company of Christ Our Lord and His
servants and hand-maids.
Notes:
1. St. Louis' message fits in beautifully with that of the great
"Family Rosary Crusade" of today. M.B.

The Canada54 National Novena includes a daily reading from the Secret of the Rosary.

There are exactly 54 readings. 

• A white rose for priests;
• A red rose for sinners;
• A mystical rose tree for devout souls;
• A rosebud for little children;
• Plus 50 roses representing each Hail Mary recited during 5 decades of the Rosary

JesusMarie.com  - Le Secret du Rosaire - ICI

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A priest discovers a pig chewing on a Rosary. What he does next transforms his dying parish into a National Shrine!

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