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Show IRISH RACE AND ROSARY The Rosary in Ireland, the Chief Source of the Irish People's Undying Love and Loyalty to the Catholic Church. "To speak of the rosary in Ireland, or in the Greater Ireland beyond the seas in America, Australia, Aus-tralia, Xew Zealand, or wherever the exiles of Erin are found (and where are they not found?)" says Father J. Procter, O. P., in his "Rosary Guide," "is to reveal one of the secrets of Ireland's undying faith in Jesus Christ, and of her unfaltering love for, and loyalty to, the church which he founded. As soon as the Sons of St. Dominic 'The Friars of Mary.' as the people loved to call them in the sweet Irish tongue set foot upon the soil consecrated conse-crated by the life-service of St. Patrick, they began be-gan by preaching that devotion to the rosary which has ever since formed part of the Catholic life of the great Irish people, whether at home or in other lands. In prosperity and in adversity, in the evening even-ing of sadness and in "the morning of gladness, in their joys and in their sorrows, the beads were ever their talisman, the rosary their anchor of hope, which kept them united to Jesus, the Incarnate Son, and to Miry, the Spotless Mother. In the ages of persecution, the rosary was their 'shibboleth,' 'shibbo-leth,' the password by which they were known to be 'of Christ and of God.' During the dark days the rosary kept the lamp of faith ever burning in the Irish heart, and in the Irish home. When the mass was proscribed and the sacred rites were put under a ban and a price was set upon the head of the priest the 'soggarth aroon' so dear to. Erin's children the rosary, under the sweet providence of God and the influence of 'the Virgin Mother and Queen, preserved that faith in the Incarnation and iiithe mysteries of redemption which is the very life of the Irish race. Through the silent teaching of the rosary, the faith became as deeply rooted in the mind and the heart of Ireland as are the rocks embedded in her western shores. When their lands were confiscated, b;au3C tJiey would not forfeit-their forfeit-their creed, the sons and daughters of St. Patrick clung to their beads with a tenacity which could never he shaken on, by bribe or by threat, by hope, or by fear. The enemies of God, like ravenous wolves, might suck their life-blood till, as Catholics, Cath-olics, they became 'quite pale,' still they held fast to the rosary, to the doctrines which it taught, and to the virtues which it preached. And when they were driven by famine, by foe and by persecution, into other lands across the seas, they went as apostles apos-tles of the rosary and preached the devotion by word and example on other shores. And hence today, to-day, as the beads are told from end to end of Ireland, Ire-land, so is the rosary said in every town and village vil-lage and hamlet in the Greater Ireland, where more of Ireland's children dwell than in their 'own,' their 'native land.'" |
