My Vocation and Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
Recently, I was asked to share my vocation story as we usually do in our community. Little did I realize that the big part of the presentation was dedicated to prayer life, namely the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, it is inevitable to speak about what shaped my spirituality and vocational journey since my childhood. Indeed, each one has their own experience on how they felt God’s presence and call in their life. It may be through service to others, service in the Church, social work, during a vocation campaign, an outreach program, or even during a painful life experience. Many believe, however, that a stinge of sensing God’s call came in their life through a genuine spiritual experience like prayer, Mass, Pilgrimage, Retreat, or Recollection. In my case, this sprung forth from the regular prayer of the Rosary in the family. Usually, my family would gather in the living room before or after dinner to pray. Sometimes before the prayer, we would share our daily activities: news, school, struggles, and joys encountered along the day.
Eventually, I joined the Marian Movement for Priests, where I continued to nurture the love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and pray the Rosary. In this group, the celebration of the Holy Mass and the prayer of the Rosary are always at the center of the spiritual activities as a response to the message of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the visionaries of Fatima[1]. The members also commit to praying for “peace in the World and the conversion of sinners.” It was through this commitment that I started feeling that something more needed to be done. I thought that it was not enough to pray for peace and the conversion of the people, that it would be more compelling, fulfilling, and complete to take part in the actual search for peace and the actual conversion of “the world” through a ministry in the Church. In this perspective, I started searching and found the Congregation of the Xaverian Missionaries, which has the charism to proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom to those who do not know Christ yet[2]. The evangelization of the non-Christians is the meeting point of my dream and our Xaverian Charism that is both action and contemplation. I understand contemplation as a never-ending conversation with God about the world and action as a conversation with the world about God's love.
The Rosary, my Path to Contemplation
My habit of praying the Rosary did not end by entering the formation house. It survived and made me thrive. That is how I speak about it. We pray the Rosary in the community but I also pray it mostly in personal moments. I creatively use it to keep a prayerful attitude while performing other tasks that are not spiritual in nature. There are many spiritual activities well planned to nurture our spiritual life, and these are not or should not be at odds with the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, our constitutions recommend the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Because Mary occupies a unique place in the Salvation History, we are recommended to “look at her as the attentive Virgin who keeps the Word of God within her heart, transmitting it with humility and courage, ever attentive to the needs of the brothers”[3]. We try to learn the same attentiveness of Mary through the prayer of the Rosary, which Pope John Paul II calls a “path to contemplation.” Moreover, Praying Rosary is like sitting at the school of Mary to learn how to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and experience the depths of His love[4].
According to Lumen Gentium, the Rosary is different from the adoration reserved to the Incarnate Word, as well to the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is a “devotion directed to the Christological center of the Christian faith, in such a way that when the Mother is honored, the Son ... is rightly known, loved and glorified and that all His commands are observed”[5]. However, Pope John Paul II insists that the most important reason for strongly encouraging the practice of the Rosary is that “it represents a most effective means of fostering among the faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the Christian mystery which is a genuine ‘training in holiness’”[6]. Sometimes I feel like wandering about during extended meditation. But when it comes to meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, it is instead a beautiful contemplation of the whole Christ-event from the incarnation until His ascension into heaven. Moreover, in the prayer of the Rosary, there is much connection between Christ’s life on earth and our individual and purely human experiences. In fact, I have come to realize that there is no state of mind and no state of the soul that the Mysteries of Rosary cannot address. Whether you are experiencing suffering and life’s struggles, or enjoying the bliss of the Almighty, or simply elevating your soul in adoration, praise, and thanksgiving, the contemplation of the mysteries of the Rosary encompasses all these aspects. We should look at every mystery of Jesus’ life with the eyes of Mary, who contemplated them with perfect and unique love. May our Lady of the Rosary, whose feast we celebrate this month, intercede for us and our families, and lead us to the greater love of Christ as we engage in the Mission of her Son.
[1] When the Blessed Mary appeared to the three shepherds of Fatima (Lucia, Francesco, and Jacinta), she emphasized the magnificent beauty of the Trinity and that of the Eucharist, the need to do penance and pray the Rosary for peace in the world and the conversion of sinners.
[2] Xaverian Missionaries, Constitutions and general rule. (ed. 2008) n.2.
[3] Idem, C.49.
[4] John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002) §1.
[5] Lumen Gentium n.66.
[6] Rosarium Virginis Mariae, §5.
