Like listening to music while studying, praying the rosary — with its repetitive rhythm — can provide a backdrop for reflecting on God’s plans for us, Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre said at the Living Rosary Oct. 8.
The event, in its 72nd year, drew hundreds to Bellarmine University’s Frazier Hall, where children led them through the five decades of the rosary. A day earlier, the church celebrated the feast of the Holy Rosary.
Girls dressed in Marian blue capelets and boys wearing similar banners took turns leading the prayers on a dais beside a statue of the Blessed Mother. Before the rosary began, Archbishop Fabre gave a homily and laid a blue and white floral crown on the statue.
During his homily, the archbishop noted, “We tend to shy away from pondering and thinking and praying” about what God is asking of us.
He encouraged his listeners to make time to consider, “How am I being called to be faithful to the Lord?”
The rosary can provide the opportunity and backdrop for that reflection, the archbishop said.
He noted that one of his professors was asked why there’s so much repetition in the church. The professor gave Archbishop Fabre and his classmates a simple answer: “We have yet to get it right the first time,” he said. “Because we have not fulfilled God’s plan completely the first time.”
Mary, he said, is an example of one who “responded perfectly and completely to what God was asking of her.”
And we can strive to be like her, he said. “If we reflect, we can hear, as Mary did, the voice of the Lord.”
“If we reflect, we can hear, as Mary did, the voice of the Lord.”
Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre
