The Holy Spirit teaches the children of God how to pray. The tradition of Christian prayer is one of the ways in which the tradition of faith takes shape and grows, especially through the contemplation and study of believers who treasure in their hearts the events and words of the economy of salvation, and through their profound grasp of the spiritual realities they experience.
We remember with joy and gratitude our mothers and fathers, grandparents and scores of our older friends fingering their beads before and after Mass, in the car or sitting in their favorite chair. Clearly it was their way to deep prayer. The mysteries of the Holy Rosary - joyful, sorrowful, glorious and luminous - are the mysteries of our own lives. As we pray the Rosary we beg Our Lady to draw us closer to Him who is our Light and our only Hope.
Because of Mary's singular cooperation with the
action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the
Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her,
and to entrust supplications and praises to her.
Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Bernard, Filippino Lippi, 1485-1487, oil on panel, 83 x 77 in., Badia, Florence. Quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.