The Rosary and Eucharistic Adoration

I came across an interesting article, "The Rosary and Eucharistic Adoration," by Susan Benofy from May, 1999 in the Adoremus Bulletin. Adoremus - the Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy promotes authentic reform of the liturgy.

Benofy does a very good job of addressing concerns that the Rosary is not an appropriate devotion done before the Blessed Sacrament. Benofy shows how the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) and various popes have explained what the Rosary is and how that is thoroughly compatible with Eucharistic adoration, given the proper disposition of the faithful. This was, apparently, a bit of a reversal of position by the CDW from a 1968 statement which concluded that the Rosary was a prayer addressed to Mary and therefore not appropriate for Eucharistic adoration.

However, in a 1999 document, the CDW cites Paul VI's Marialis Cultus , which affirms the Rosary as Christ-centered:

As a Gospel prayer, centered on the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, the Rosary is therefore a prayer with a clearly Christological orientation. Its most characteristic element, in fact, the litany-like succession of Hail Mary's, becomes in itself an unceasing praise of Christ, who is the ultimate object both of the angel's announcement and of the greeting of the mother of John the Baptist: "Blessed is the fruit of your womb" (Lk. 1:42). (section 46)

In his apostolic letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, John Paul II writes:

The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer.... With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. (section 1)

Brant Pitre discusses the Jewish roots of the Eucharist, and in doing so highlights the bread of the presence in the temple as a type of the Eucharist. The word for "presence" in that phrase can also be translated "face." Both John Paul II and Pitre show us that the Rosary and the Eucharist are complementary ways of encountering the face of Christ.

John Paul II goes into great depth connecting Mary and the Eucharist in his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, where he speaks of "Mary, Woman of the Eucharist" (Chapter 6). Of course, his addition of the Luminous Mysteries includes the Institution of the Eucharist, which makes the Rosary even more obviously Eucharistic. However, even in the original mysteries, he sees profoundly Eucharistic connections:

In a certain sense Mary lived her Eucharistic faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God's Word. The Eucharist, while commemorating the passion and resurrection, is also in continuity with the incarnation. At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood.

As a result, there is a profound analogy between the Fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the Amen which every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord. Mary was asked to believe that the One whom she conceived “through the Holy Spirit” was “the Son of God” (Lk 1:30-35). In continuity with the Virgin's faith, in the Eucharistic mystery we are asked to believe that the same Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, becomes present in his full humanity and divinity under the signs of bread and wine.

“Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45). Mary also anticipated, in the mystery of the incarnation, the Church's Eucharistic faith. When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle” – the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary. And is not the enraptured gaze of Mary as she contemplated the face of the newborn Christ and cradled him in her arms that unparalleled model of love which should inspire us every time we receive Eucharistic communion? (section 55)

Finally, there is a good address by Cardinal Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston on "Mary and the Eucharist." He gave this at a Eucharistic congress, and it is specifically on the the Sixth Chapter of Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Cardinal O'Malley is clearly comfortable combining the Rosary with Eucharistic adoration:

Allow me to share with you some of my personal meditations on the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary. These are the mysteries I like to use when I am praying the rosary during a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament.

It is important that we think about what we are doing and saying when praying the Rosary in Eucharistic adoration. Such clarifications are important, given the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi (literally "the law of praying, the law of believing," meaning that how we pray forms what we believe). We can be thankful for the clarifications given by these people and others, which help us to draw closer to our Savior in the Blessed Sacrament.

The Luminous Mysteries

This beautiful stained glass window is a recent addition to St. Francis of Assisi Church in Centerville, Ohio. The window shown here includes the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. I have come to love these recent additions to the Rosary, which include the Baptism of Jesus, the Miracle at the Wedding Feast of Cana, the Proclamation of the Kingdom, the Transfiguration, and the Institution of the Eucharist.

One can view all of the Luminous Mysteries as having Eucharistic implications.

The baptism of Jesus shows the cleansing from Original and personal sin through the waters of Baptism. The Eucharist cleanses us from venial sin. In addition, water is mixed with the wine prior to the Consecration, representing the pouring of water and blood from Jesus' heart after being pierced by the lance. See Tiber Jumper's post at his blog, Crossed the Tiber, where he quotes St. John Chrysostom on the connection between baptism and Eucharist.

The miracle of the wedding feast at Cana shows the transubstantiation of water into wine, prefiguring the transubstantiation of wine into blood and bread into flesh of the Eucharist.

The proclamation of the Kingdom indicates both the word of God in the Scriptures and the Word of God in the Second Person of the Trinity. As Fr. John Corapi often says, the Good News is not some thing; the Good News is some One.

The Transfiguration is about Jesus appearing in His glory, revealing His divinity which was veiled in His humanity. In a similar way, Jesus' body and blood is veiled in the appearance of bread and wine in the Eucharist.

The institution of the Eucharist is Jesus' great gift to us so that He could be with us "until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

Pope John Paul II set out the new Luminous Mysteries in his apostolic letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002). See especially sections 19 and 21.

The Rosary is such a wonderful prayer, and it can deepen our love for Jesus in the Eucharist. It is a fitting prayer during Eucharistic adoration, since it is a contemplation of Jesus' life. In the future I will also look at a set of prayers for the Rosary with a Eucharistic focus which I have come across.

More on listening

I was thinking more about listening, and remembered Samuel's response to the Lord: "Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:10).

I tried to be a listening servant while saying the Rosary today. During the Fifth Glorious Mystery, the Crowning of Mary, Queen of Heaven, I was thinking about Mary and how she leads us to Jesus. It reminded me of the icons of her and the Infant Jesus, where she is pointing towards him. These images of her are known as the hodogetria, meaning "One who shows the way." Mary shows us the way to Jesus.







The image of rivers running to the sea came to mind to describe how Mary and the Communion of Saints help bring us to Jesus. They are a multitude of rivers, rushing to the Jesus, who is the sea. Mary is perhaps like the Amazon, or the Mississippi: a great river into which many other rivers, the saints, meet to join together in their journey to the sea. Those of us on earth are like boats, which sail upon their guiding waters so we can put out to sea in our heavenly home with Jesus.

We do not worship Mary and the saints; instead, their earthly lives serve as examples to us of how to live, and through their prayers they intercede with us to help us live the lives God has called us to live. Mary and the saints show us the way to Jesus.