See the life of Jesus through the eyes of Mary!

Tomás Morales Pérez was a Jesuit priest whose cause for possible canonization was launched Nov. 8th by the Congregation for the Cause of Saints when Pope Francis approved a decree recognizing his heroic virtues.

Father Morales was born in Venezuela in 1908 and died in Spain in 1994. He promoted the role of the laity in the Church and was founder of a secular institute, Cruzados e Cruzadas de Santa María (the Crusaders of the Blessed Virgin).

 “What is and what isn’t the Rosary?” asks Father Morales. “It is not a routine, a custom, something to be rushed. The Rosary is the whole of the Church reunited with Mary, contemplating Jesus.” Father Morales’ perspective is particularly important. It reflects the corrective lens of Vatican II, which at the same time reaffirms the deepest and best of the Catholic Marian tradition: The Blessed Mother leads us to her Son.

“The Rosary is not a devotion to the Virgin, but to Christ, who perfectly centers the life of the baptized.” The Rosary focuses us on Jesus: “Without contemplation of the mysteries of the life of Jesus, the Rosary is a body without a soul, which ends up dry, routine and hurried.”

But that’s not to minimize the role of the Blessed Virgin. If the Rosary is the Church gathered with Mary, it is also the Church that sees the life of Jesus through the eyes of Mary, “the most attractive and effective way, as lived by the Blessed Mother.” …

“Every time he said a Rosary for a sinner,” Father Morales speaks of Pope Pius VII, “he obtained a conversion.” He cites the advice of Philip II to his son when the latter became king of Spain: “If you want the prosperity of your country, if you want prosperity in your life, do not leave aside recitation of the Rosary.” He recalls how St Dominic converted the Albigensians with the Rosary and how Christians prevailed at the Battle of Lepanto over Islam. On his way to execution, the Scottish Jesuit martyr John Ogilvie threw his rosary, which landed on the chest of a young German aristocrat, Baron John ab Eckersdorff. The young man later became Catholic. “The Rosary does not leave us deaf to the call of Christ, but ready and diligent to fulfill his will,” Father Morales says. “Whoever has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15).

John M. Grondelski (Falls Church, Virginia)

NCRegister.com