Page 44     

Backward                                                                                                                        Index                                            `                                                                                    Forward

The Secret of the Rosary

We praise God the Father because He so loved the world that He gave us His only Son as our Savior.
We bless the Son because He deigned to leave heaven and come down upon earth-because HE WAS MADE
MAN and redeemed us. We glorify the Holy Spirit because He formed Our Lord's pure Body in Our
Lady's Womb this Body which was the Victim of our sins. In this spirit of deep thankfulness should
we, then, always say the Hail Mary, making acts of faith, hope, love and thanksgiving for the
priceless gift of salvation.
Although this new hymn is in praise of the Mother of God and is sung directly to her, nevertheless
it greatly glorifies the Most Blessed Trinity because any homage that we pay Our
Lady returns inevitably to God Who is the cause of all her virtues and perfections. When we honor
Our Lady: God the Father is glorified because we are honoring the most perfect of His creatures;
God the Son is glorified because we are praising His most pure Mother, and God the Holy Spirit is
glorified because we are lost in admiration at the graces with which He has filled His Spouse.
When we praise and bless Our Lady by saying the Angelic
Salutation sh always passes on these praises to Almighty God
in the same way as she did when she was praised by Saint
Elizabeth. The latter blessed her in her most elevated dignity as Mother of God and Our Lady
immediately returned these praises to God by her beautiful Magnificent.
Just as the Angelic Salutation gives glory to the Blessed Trinity, it is also the very highest
praise that we can give Our Lady.
One day when Saint Mechtilde was praying and was trying
to think of some way in which she could express her love of the Blessed Mother better than she had
done before, she fell into ecstasy. Our Lady appeared to her with the Angelic Salutation
inflaming letters of gold upon her bosom and said to her: "My daughter, I want you to know that no
one can please me more than by saying the salutation which the Most Adorable
Trinity sent to me and by which He raised me to the dignity of Mother of God.
.
"By the word Ave (which is the name Eve, Eva) , I learned
that in His infinite power God had preserved me from all sin
and its attendant misery which the first woman had been subject to.
''The name Mary which means 'lady of light' shows that
God has filled me with wisdom and light, like a shining star, to light up heaven and earth.

Backward                                                                                                                        Index                                            `                                                                                    Forward