October 2003 VOICE OF SHALOM

REMEMBERING CHRIST WITH MARY Mary's contemplation is above all a remembering. We need to understand this word in the biblical sense of rememberance (zakar) as a making present of the works brought about by God in the history of salvation. The Bible is an account of saving events culminating in Christ himself. These events not only belong to "yesterday"; they are also part of the "today" of salvation. This making present comes about above all in the Liturgy: what God accomplished centuries ago did not only affect the direct witnesses of those events; it continues to affect people in every age with its gift of grace. Christ won for us by the mysteries of his life, death and resurrection. While it must be reaffirmed with the Second Vatican Council that the Liturgy, as the exercise of the priestly office of Christ and an act of public worship, is "the summit to which the activity of the Church is directed and the font from which all its power flows," it is also necessary to recall that the spiritual life is not limited solely to participation in the liturgy. Christians, while they are called to prayer in common, must also go to their own rooms to pray to their Father in secret (cf Mt.6:6); indeed, according to the teaching of the Apostle, they must pray without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17). The Rosary, in its own particular way, is part of this varied panorama of "ceaseless" prayer. If the Liturgy, as the activity of Christ and the Church, is a saving action par excellence, the Rosary too, as a "meditation" with Mary on Christ, is a salutary contemplation. Pope John Paul II Rosarium Virginis Mariae

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