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The Secret of the Rosary
this piece of advice
they would never have fallen so low nor would they have caused such scandals
and upset the devotions of good people. To think that it is possible to say
prayers that are finer
and more beautiful than the Our Father and the Hail Mary is to fall prey to a
strange illusion of
the devil.
These heavenly prayers are the support, the strength and
the safeguard of our souls but I must admit that it is not always necessary to
say them as vocal
prayers. It is quite true that, in a sense, mental prayer is more perfect than
vocal prayer, but,
believe me, it is really dangerous not to say fatal to give up saying the Rosary
of your own
accord under the excuse of seeking a more perfect union with God;
Sometimes a soul that is proud in a subtle way and who may have done everything
that he can do
interiorly to rise to the
sublime heights of contemplation that the saints have reached, may be deluded by
the noon-day
devil into giving up his former
devotions because he thinks that he has found a greater good. He then looks upon
his erstwhile
practices as inferior and only fit for ordinary and mediocre souls.
But this kind of soul has deliberately turned a deaf ear to the prayers and
salutation taught us by
an archangel and even
to the Prayer which God made and taught us and which He said Himself. "Thus
therefore shall you
pray: Our Father" a Having reached this point such a soul drifts from its first
illusion into
still greater ones and falls from precipice to precipice.
Believe me, dear brothers of the Rosary Confraternity, if
you genuinely wish to reach a high level of prayer in all honesty
and without falling into the traps that the devil sets for those who pray, say
your whole Rosary
every day, or at least five
decades of it.
If, by the grace of God, you have already reached a high
level of prayer, keep up the practice of saying the Holy
Rosary if you wish to remain in that state and if you hope,
through it, to grow in humility. For never will anyone who
says his Rosary every day become a formal heretic or be led astray by the devil.
This is a
statement that I would gladly sign
with my blood.
On the other hand if Almighty God in His infinite mercy
draws you to Him as forcibly as He did some of the saints while
saying the Rosary, make yourself passive in His hands and let
yourself be drawn towards Him. Let God work and pray in you and let Him say your
Rosary in His way
and this will be
enough for the day.
1Matt. 6:9.