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When I was a child, my parents taught me how to pray. Among the prayers I remember were the Sign of the Cross, the ‘Our Father’, the ‘Glory Be’ and the ‘Hail Mary’.
I used to say these prayers regularly, especially the Hail Mary. When I reached secondary school, at one point my classmates began to utter heresies about the Virgin Mary; this surprised me. I didn’t know how to respond to them. Yet this did nothing to diminish my devotion to praying the Rosary. Although I didn’t know enough about other forms of prayer. It was later, whilst studying at university, that I realised the significance of all the criticisms people had against praying to Mary. They would say: ‘Why repeat the same formula over and over again, like the Pharisees who droned on with their prayers? We must pray to God alone. Why go through a human being to reach God? Catholics worship Mary and are therefore idolaters.’ You may well have heard such criticisms yourself. Unfortunately, many Catholics who have not received a proper catechesis allow themselves to be persuaded or discouraged by such remarks, and many give up praying the Rosary. This is deeply regrettable, for in doing so they are neglecting a great help granted to them by Jesus.
God created humankind in his own image, and people live in community. A baby cannot be born and grow up alone. It needs to be cared for. God intended for people to support one another. How could you have come to know Christ if someone had not introduced him to you or proclaimed him to you? How could you have been baptised without your family, your friends or the Christian community? Even today, we need others to share God’s Word, their testimonies or their experiences with us. When the priest celebrates Mass and gives the homily, he helps us to be in communion with God. When we pray the ‘Our Father’, we say: ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. ‘Give me’, but ‘give to others too’. The epistles of the New Testament remind us time and again to pray for one another. We see the apostles praying for people who are healed or delivered (James 5:13–18; Acts 28:8). Have we not sometimes heard people ask for prayers on their behalf? How, then, can we say that a person cannot pray for their fellow human beings? At the wedding at Cana, the Virgin Mary asked her Son Jesus to help this family in need. And Jesus did so. Whatever good we do on this earth, we will do even better in heaven, for St Paul says that love never fails (1 Cor 13:8). Those who have died in Jesus are not dead. ‘Whoever believes in me will never die’ (Jn 11:26).
Jesus is the witness of the Father. He is the embodiment of all virtues. Whatever the Father asks us to do, Jesus has done perfectly. Now, God asks us to honour our parents. Jesus is the very model of honour towards his parents. Could this honour fail to include the fact that they are where he himself is (cf. Jn 14:1–3)? Mary and Joseph are now with their son Jesus. Wherever the Virgin Mary is, she continues to intercede for us. One of the greatest sufferings for a mother is when her child ignores her and no longer recognises her as their mother. We can apply this image to say that it is terrible today that so many people, even Catholics, ignore the Virgin Mary and refuse to honour her, even though it is said that all generations will call her blessed (Lk 1:48). How can Christians refuse to do something that Jesus himself did? How can they refuse to honour Mary when Christ himself honours her? How can a Catholic refuse to pray to the Virgin Mary? In the Creed we say that we believe in the ‘communion of saints’. This also means that we believe the saints exist, and that they pray for us. Pope Benedict XVI often reminded us that the Christian life is not a supermarket where you have a shopping basket that you fill with your favourite items. In other words, I only put in what interests me. I cannot choose to believe in certain aspects of my faith, accept others and reject the rest. If I am a Catholic, I must believe in the communion of saints just as I do in the other aspects of doctrine.
The Hail Mary is based primarily on biblical verses: ‘Hail, full of grace (Hail Mary), the Lord is with thee’ (Luke 1:28). ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’ (Luke 1:42). The final part is a supplication: ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us’. She is the Mother of God (Theotokos) because she is the mother of Jesus, who is God. Statues of Mary are not idols because we do not worship them. They remind us of her and help us to fix our gaze on Jesus. Did God not ask Moses to make statues of cherubim and place them in his dwelling (Ex 25:18–20)? Did He not ask him to make a statue of a bronze serpent, so that whoever looked at it would be saved (Num 21:8–9)? The Virgin Mary does not turn us away from Jesus; on the contrary, she helps us to come to him: ‘Do whatever he tells you’ (Jn 2:5). Whoever loves the Virgin Mary will grow in their love for Jesus. Whoever does not pray to Mary is like someone who has voluntarily handicapped themselves. Jesus on the Cross said: ‘Son, behold your mother’. Jesus gives us everything, even entrusting his mother to us. What a blessing it is to possess such a treasure! Mary works so many blessings in people’s lives. Father Hubert Shiffer, a Jesuit, was with his community at the very centre of the atomic bomb’s mushroom cloud in Nagasaki. Neither he nor his brothers were harmed, nor was the house in which they lived. He underwent tests for thirty years, yet no lasting effects were ever found. He attributed this protection to the community’s regular recitation of the Rosary and, therefore, to the Virgin Mary. Many saints and spiritual men were true devotees of the Rosary. One day, someone asked Saint Padre Pio how he managed to pray dozens of Rosaries a day, and he replied: ‘How do you manage not to?’
I myself have already experienced Mary’s intercession very deeply in my life, and I feel unsatisfied when I go a day without saying the Rosary. When I have pressing requests, I entrust them to the Virgin Mary. I also often like to say the Rosary whilst walking or travelling. At times when it’s difficult to meditate, I simply recite Hail Marys without worrying about the number or the mysteries. In any case, I remain in the arms of Mother Mary. Sometimes I finish the remaining decades in bed just as I’m falling asleep. It doesn’t bother me if I fall asleep before I’ve finished meditating on all the mysteries, because I’ll have fallen asleep in Mary’s arms. What protection! In *Gaudete et Exsultate*, Pope Francis said: ‘A mother does not need many words; she does not need us to go to great lengths to explain to her what is happening to us. It is enough to whisper, again and again: “Hail Mary”.’ Praying to Mary helps in times of temptation. She helps us to fight against evil spirits. She draws us closer to God. I have seen for myself that so many young people today are rediscovering the Rosary. Get into the habit of saying the Rosary, even if it is only a few decades. Jesus himself repeated prayers (Mt 26:44) and there is nothing wrong with reciting a prayer with devotion. Mary is the mother of us all. She is the icon of the Incarnation Movement. During this month, let us pray the Rosary – at least a few Hail Marys every day – in church, on the way to school, at work, in the fields, in our shops or whilst doing household chores.
Henri Bayemi
