A story for every day...
Confidence in the Rosary
How I love my rosary! It accompanies me everywhere; I never leave it, and for good reason: it is my light in my doubts, my hope in worries, my strength in discouragements, my consolation in sorrows, my balm in suffering, my weapon in dangers, my refuge in distresses, my universal resource in everything, everywhere and always. After having been, during life, my faithful companion, it will descend into the grave with me; it will even be my advocate before the sovereign Judge, who will change it for me into a crown of eternal glory. Long live, then, my rosary!
He had understood this exclamation, this good old man who died in Namur in 1874. His devotion to the Rosary was so sincere and so constant that he almost always had his rosary in his hand. As a picture framer, he held his rosary while working, unless his work prevented him from doing so. When asked how long it would take him to complete a work, he would reply, “It will take three rosaries,” that is, about three-quarters of an hour. When asked about the distance from one place to another, he replied, “The time to say ten or twenty rosaries.” On his deathbed, he would not relinquish his rosary for a single minute. “I want to die with my arms in my hands,” he repeated.
He died, in fact, while reciting his Rosary. Oh! the happy life, the happy death, protected, softened, sanctified by the rosary!
“We have no one,” said saint Robert Bellarmine, “who can better support our interests before Jesus Christ than His loving Mother. That is why, in the Rosary, as soon as we have said the Our Father, taught by the Savior, we recite the Hail Mary to beg the Divine Mother to obtain for us what we have asked for; just as when one has presented a supplication to the prince, one recommends the matter to the most powerful person at court.”
