We come to the month of October which can be one of the more beautiful months in the calendar year. The weather is usually not too cold, but it is cool, sunny and a bit breezy. We have frequent nights when frost appears on our grass, plants and the trees and shrubs become colorful and then drop their leaves. These annual signs in nature signal us that winter is coming when many things die or become dormant.
All this, I think, is a good reminder to us that our own earthly lives have a beginning in our mother’s wombs and then as we are born into this world and grow, live, develop, age and eventually die, we owe all to the mysterious goodness and mercy of God. He has given us life and all the graces we will need to become holy and virtuous people by coming to know, love and serve Him to be happy with Him for all eternity in heaven.
Moreover, God is so good to each of us that He gives us, through His Church, the means and those graces to be holy. We know them to be the seven sacraments, the vast treasury of prayers and devotions we can and should pray, and the authoritative teachings of the Church in all matters of faith and morals. In a word, we do not have to try to do this alone or to guess what we are supposed to do to get to heaven.
October is the month dedicated to the holy rosary. This beautiful prayer given to Saint Dominic by Our Blessed Mother is a magnificent personal and public prayer which not only draws us into the life, Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus but it does so through His Mother who followed Him with such humility and fidelity. It is a prayer you and I can say in the privacy of our homes or in the community of our parishes. Whether we pray all 20 decades of the rosary using the joyful, sorrowful, luminous and glorious mysteries, or we pray some or just one in a day, the benefits are great.
We come to know and understand better the earthly life of Jesus and Our Blessed Mother’s example of true and faithful discipleship. The actual graces received increase our desire to receive the sacraments frequently and worthily. The spiritual and temporal benefits of praying the rosary are many and to devote ourselves to praying the rosary each day in October creates that good habit of prayer which we can continue for the rest of our lives.
Praying the rosary teaches us how to imitate Jesus and foster our lives of virtue and it teaches us that we have no better person to guide us in virtue than Our Blessed Mother. So, during this month of October, make the commitment through praying the rosary to that life of holiness and virtue for which we were created. In the words of Saint Louis de Montfort, “The rosary is a blessed blending of mental and vocal prayer by which we honor and learn to imitate the mysteries and virtues of the life, death, Passion and glory of Jesus and Mary.”