Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary

October is the month during which we pray the rosary more and with more fervor. Today marks the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. As Owen Cummings wrote in his wonderful little book, Thinking About Prayer: "For countless generations of Catholics, living and dead, daily praying has taken the familiar shape of the rosary..." The second of two epigraphs that stand at the beginning of his chapter on the rosary is by Warren Dicharry, an insight that links October (the month of the rosary) to November (the month during which we remember our beloved dead), just as the Hail Mary does:

"When our brief candle is wasted and this body is laid to final rest, someone may very carefully wrap a rosary around our hands. It is our proper rest. Only thus can we slip decently into the next life. Only thus are we ready to meet our Maker. Whether or not we ever prayed the Rosary during our life, whether the Rosary ever nestled gently in our hands, often our relatives and friends would not consider it fitting to bury us in any other way."

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam