Mary is the first living Tabernacle

The prayer of the Rosary or five decades of it, after the Sacred Liturgy of the Most Holy Eucharist, is what most unites us to God by the richness of the prayers with which it is composed, all of them coming from Heaven, dictated by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Glory Be that we pray in all the mysteries was dictated by the Father to the Angels when He sent them to sing it beside His Word who was just born, and it is a hymn to the Holy Trinity. The Our Father was dictated to us by the Son, and it is a prayer addressed to the Father. The whole of the Hail Mary is imbued with meaning both with regard to the Trinity and to the Eucharist: the first words were dictated by the Father to the Angel when He sent him to announce the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.” Thou art full of grace, because in Thee resides the source of this same Grace. And it is by Thy union with the Most Holy Trinity that Thou art full of grace.

Moved by the Holy Spirit, Saint Elizabeth said: “Blessed art Thou amongst all women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus.” If Thou art blessed, it is because Jesus, the fruit of Thy womb, is blessed. The Church, also moved by the Holy Spirit, added the words: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” This is also a prayer addressed to God through Mary: Because Thou art the Mother of God, pray for us. It is indeed a trinitarian prayer because Mary was the first living Temple of the Most Holy Trinity: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon Thee. The power of the Most High shall overshadow Thee. And the Son which shall be born of Thee shall be called the Son of the Most High.”

Mary is the first living Tabernacle, where the Father enclosed His Word. Her Immaculate Heart is the first Monstrance that sheltered Him. Her bosom and Her arms were the first altar and the first throne upon which the Son of God made man was adored. There, the Angels, the shepherds and the wise men of the earth adored Him. Mary is the first priest who took the Son of God in her pure and Immaculate hands and brought Him to the Temple to offer Him to the Father as a victim for the salvation of the world.

So the prayer of the Rosary, after the Sacred Liturgy of the Most Holy Eucharist, is what most introduces us to the intimate mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and the Eucharist; what most brings us to the spirit of the mysteries of Faith, Hope and Charity. It is the spiritual bread of souls. Whoever does not pray, wastes away and dies. It is by prayer that we find ourselves with God, and it is in this meeting with Him that He communicates to us Faith, Hope and Charity, virtues without which we cannot be saved.

The Rosary is the prayer of the rich and the poor, of the educated and the simple: take this devotion away from souls, and you take away their spiritual daily bread. It is what sustains the little flame of Faith that has not quite been extinguished in many consciences. Even for those souls who pray without meditating, the very act of taking up the Rosary to pray is already a remembrance of God, of the Supernatural. A simple recollection of the mysteries of each decade is one more ray of light to sustain the still-smoldering wick in our souls.

This is why the devil has made such war against it. … I have great hope that the day will not be long in coming when the prayer of the Holy Rosary will be declared a liturgical prayer. Yes, because all of it forms part of the Sacred Eucharistic Liturgy. We pray, work, sacrifice ourselves and trust that “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph!”

Sister Lucia’s letter of September 16, 1970, on the Rosary

Fatima 100