The Secret of the Rosary: the Purpose for This Directory
by Saint Louis de Montfort
MONTFORT PUBLICATIONS, New York
Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, 1954
On October 16, 2002, then reigning Pope John Paul II
declared a year of the Rosary, and in conjunction with which, he added
5
Mysteries [the Luminous Mysteries], which were to be optional, because
no Pope can mandate a break
with Tradition, binding the
faithful
under pain of sin.
Pope Paul VI thought of doing the same but changed his mind because
even he realized that such a course would be unwise and an abuse of his
plenary
powers. Unfortunately, he did not retain this wisdom regarding the Holy
Mass, although he never abrogated the Immemorial Roman Mass, since he
had no such authority. The Mass is not man-made it is Christ-given, and
safeguarded through the ages from Apostolic times, and
the Rosary in the form we know today was given to Saint Dominic by Our
Lady. Like the "new Mysteries" the Novus
Ordo was designed to be an
Indult or a permissive option, but because modernists were in charge,
the Immemorial Roman Mass became the "Indult" and the New Mass
mandatory de facto if not de jure or the norm. And so it has
gone with
the Luminous "Mysteries". In most Rosary sodalities and circles they
have
become mandatory and if a Catholic, such as myself, and perhaps you,
maintain Tradition and refuse to say the man-made Luminous "Mysteries",
one is told that she is being disobedient. The state of the laity is
such today that those who used to know better no longer do,
refusing to take the pontiff at his
own
word, that is, he said, optional! As John Vennari, editor of Catholic Family News, observed,
Pope John II, the "Pope of Unity" as he was sometimes called, "served
to again
further divide Catholics". Speak of irony, not to say an insult to
Heaven. You see, Our Lady called the Rosary, which she gave to St.
Dominic her "Psalter", in reference to the 150 Psalms and the
custom of monks and the Saints of writing corresponding Marian Psalms
to honor Our
Lady and to chant or pray over the course of the liturgical year. The
ancient
Irish monks divided the Biblical Psalms into three groups of 50, as did
St.
Thomas Aquinas, for the three stages of a pious man's life:
penance,
justice, glory. Each Hail Mary of the 15 decades corresponds to both
the
long ago Marian Psalter as well as to the
Psalms of David. Later the Marian Psalms were replaced by the common
people with the Hail
Mary, which had always been a devotion in of itself. When she appeared
to St. Dominic the Blessed Virgin Mary said,
preach "my
Psalter" meaning the recitation of the 150 Hail Marys of three groups
of 50, which the pious faithful who loved her so had recited but the
practice had so dwindled in St. Dominic's time that souls were in great
peril.
When Pope John Paul II issued the new "Mysteries", he said
that
the depth of Christology in the traditional Rosary was not complete!
Imagine this, Our Lady was so lacking in Christology [knowledge of
Christ] she was unable to
impart the full Rosary to Dominic! Imagine the Mother of God, deficient
in understanding her own Son, she who is Mediatrix of all
graces, she to whom Jesus Christ has given full plenary powers over
sinners as the Mother of Refuge!
The pope is not in the Chair of Peter "for the purpose of being an
innovator", or "change agent", but to safeguard Tradition, as John
Vennari further wrote. For 800 years the newly
consecrated pope took an oath wherein he promised to hold to received
Tradition and vowed to avoid adding anything new that would constitute
a break with Tradition. If he would do so he stated that God would not
be merciful to him. This means that it is humanly speaking a
possibility that a pope could so depart from the patrimony of the
Church, or such an oath would not have been necessary. The modern popes
did not take this oath and we know the sorry results.
The purpose of this directory, The Secret of Mary, is
three-fold:
To render honor to the Mother of God, and our Mother, by
holding to Tradition and defending the Rosary as given by Our Lady to
Saint Dominic;
To make reparation for a blasphemous web site that appears to
have borrowed
one of our Marian images and then used it for their page on which they
call the Ever Virgin Mother of God such an ugly name I refuse to repeat
it here;
The Secret of the Rosary is already on line in text format or
partially on line in graphic format, but no where is the full book on
line as a Gallery of Mary, that is, until now. I have worked hard for
weeks to render this little offering as beautiful as possible,
recognizing that no efforts can possibly be worthy of the majesty of
Our Lady's Psalter, let alone the resplendent glory that is Mary's
alone, above all other creatures, in Heaven, and on earth.
The above image appears in the Christmas directory, but we are
reusing it here, slightly altered in the background, for the following
reasons:
It depicts the newly born Infant King in His Mother's arms,
Our Lady in tender adoration:
the Joyful Mysteries; the coming Passion of Christ and Mary's Sorrows
are prefigured by
the red in Our Lady's robes and in the background: the Sorrowful
Mysteries; and the gold in the nimbus, halo, and trim: the Glorious
Mysteries----this too, by way of reparation for that hideous web site.
Gazing at the sweetness of the above image, can anyone with an
ounce of faith, that is the true religion, ever think of calling the
Immaculate Mother of God such a calumny, which begins with the letter
that comes before X in the English alphabet? The person who designed
the card from which our image is taken may not be a Catholic, we have
no idea, but this is a distinct possibility, and if this is the case,
then even a non-Catholic can recognize our Lady's dignity.
You would be amazed at the e-mail received decrying devotion
to Mary, mainly from Protestants who are ignorant and on occasion from
Catholics who are even more so or of actual bad will! The latter always
demoralizes me. I rarely answer this kind of e-mail because the tone of
the writers indicates, from long experience, that their minds are
already made up and they are merely "venting spleen." Almost as if they
are more afraid of the truth convicting their hearts and are trying to
convince themselves, not me. Since they tell me they have read various
articles, etc., I decided to post pages like this directory, instead.
Devout Catholics tell me how much they appreciate them.
O Mary Immaculate, I, a woeful sinner, presume to love thee
and to defend
thy honor, I, who am most in need of thy patronage, acknowledge my
bounden service to thee, I proclaim thy sublime perfections, and I
offer this directory for the salvation of sinners destined for
Hell otherwise . . . May the most beautiful creature in all of God's
creation, and her great gift to her spiritual children, after her Fiat
in becoming the Mother of God, the 15 decade Rosary or
"Psalter", be once more cherished and prized as the key to Heaven by
Catholics [and non-Catholics] everywhere for all time. I
can never weary of saying HAIL MARY, and may these be the last two
words of my dying breath . . .
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