On Blessed Alan de la Roche and the Rosary

"Blessed" Alan de la Roche, O.P. (1428-1475) was a 15th Century friar who is considered to be the restorer of the Dominican Rosary. Although Alan has no official Church feast day, he is unofficially honored on September 8th, which is also the feast for the Nativity of Mary.

According to Dominican tradition, St. Dominic (1170-1221) founded the Rosary in 1208 as a meditative prayer which sought to spiritually combat the Albigensian heresy (which believed that only spiritual realities were good and vehemently opposed God taking flesh in Jesus Christ).  But this meditative Marian prayer featuring just the Angelic Salutation and the Evangelical Salutation  fell into disuse during the 14th Century during the era of the Black Death in Europe.

In the mid 15th Century in a Dominican monastery  in Brittany, Alan de la Roche experienced visions from the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Lord which eventually convicted him to revive and renew the Dominican Rosary.  De la Roche was not the perfect emissary for this divine mission.  At one point, Jesus appeared to De la Roche and said: "You have all of the learning and understand that you need to preach my mother's rosary, and you are not doing so. The world is full of devouring wolves, and you, unfaithful dog, know not how to bark."  The latter phrase was a pointed wake up call to a Dominican like Blessed Alan, as the Order of Preachers held the moniker "Dog of God" (Latin domini canus which sounds similar to Dominicanus)

Blessed Alan stressed the 15 mysteries of the Dominican Rosary, rather than the alternative of 50 clauses of the Carthusian Rosary.  Moreover, the 150 Hail Marys imitated the 150 psalms of the Old Testament, which harkened back to the proto-origins of the lay Marian psalter. Blessed Alan was successful at renewing popular devotion to the Rosary and reinvigorating the Confraternity of the Rosary. The Confraternity featured "after death" benefits for Rosarians. Thus Blessed Alan de la Roche may be considered one the greatest champions of the Rosary to ever live. 

Although Blessed Alan wrote an instructional pamphlet Book and Ordinance regarding the renewal of the Dominican Rosary, about 1/3 of  the Vatican documents were lost after Napoleon sacked the Vatican archives from 1810-1813.  So much of quotable material about Blessed Alan comes from St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716) whose 18th Century works True Devotions to the Blessed Virgin and The Secret of the Rosary were buried in a field in France for over 125 years, thereby escaping the irreligious impulses of the French Revolution. 

H/T: Donald Calloway, Champions of the Rosary (2016)

Fatima Seer Sister Lucia on the Rosary

Post Scriptus: One reader of this post repeatedly inveighed "You must be out of your mind" concerning credence to Our Lady of Fatima. Of course, it was a shrill anti-Catholic screed. Regrettably the writer of the ad hominem comment lacked the testicular fortitude to attach a name or any means to colloquy. Some profession of faith--not! The poster must have been out of his mind if he was seeking to convince anyone of his conviction. God bless his little heart.

Fulton Sheen on the Rosary

In 1951, Archbishop Fulton Sheen as the National Director of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith  proposed the Mission Rosary to promote unity and world peace. Sheen believed that we needed to pray not just for ourselves but for the whole world, especially the poor and vulnerable at home and throughout the world.

 Each decade of the Rosary is in a different color, denoting five regions of the earth (as Oceania or "the Pacific Islands" are not quite a continent and the Americas are two continents).  The idea is that the faithful could reflect and pray for these regions as they reflect on the Holy Mysteries of the Rosary.

Archbishop Sheen invited the People of God to spiritually take a tour of the world as they prayed the Rosary making a spiritual work of mercy by helping the Holy Father in evangelizing the world.  

Pope St. John Paul II on the Rosary

St. Josemaria Escriva on the Rosary

Pope St. Pius X on the Rosary

Shouting It Aloud: The 2016 National Day of Prayer

The theme for the 65th annual National Day of Prayer is Isaiah 58 - a call to prayer and fasting for our peoples' transgressions.

In a nation that not only continues to countenance Planned Parenthood kill unborning children but profiting from the sale of baby body parts, such a call is apt. To add injury to insult, some governments are prosecuting the whistle blowers in lieu of the abortionists who are engaged in prima facia illegal practices. 

The Supreme Court broke with 5,000 years of human civilization and legalized same sex so called marriage, but forced it upon all states with a dubious application of the 14th Amendment and a fuzzy "Right to Dignity".

And over the last year, progressive LGBTQQ? activists have been fighting to break down privacy barriers to allow people claiming gender dysphoria to use bathrooms opposite to their biological designation, which opens the door for perverts (non-transvestites citing gender fluidity) easy access to public facilities.  But if one points out that there are only two sexes (as shown through chromosomes), social justice warriors will unmercifully attack and isolate the individual not speaking the politically correct shibboleth.

Thus is seems apt to focus on asking the Lord for forgiveness and seeking to fast.

Alas, even fasting is a facet for this culture to mock.  Recently, Glenn Beck called for his audience to fast for America as it was on the precipice of choosing the major party candidates for press.  Yet even some right wing media outlets like Breitbart and the Drudge Report (both of which have been heavily skewed for supporting Donald Trump), found this clarion call a moment for mockery.

Some may cynically question if a call to prayer will matter. Bible believers should recall the walls came tumbling down in Jericho by those humbling themselves and following divine will.  Many attribute the stop of Islamic incursions into Europe during the 16th century in the Battle of Lepanto because of the call by Pope Pius V to pray the Rosary via the intervention of Our Lady of Victory (now called Our Lady of the Rosary).  The American Revolution was bolstered by the first Great Revival and the prayful action of the Black Robe Regiment.

The 2016 National Day of Prayer will have 47,000 separate events. This is the time to shout it out loud.