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Show THE MONTH OF THE EOSAEY. (Communicated.) With October's dawn, the church reminds her children" chil-dren" that the month of the Rosary is with them once again, and se exhorts all the faithful to render the j homage of their devotion to Heaven's Queen, by a fervent fer-vent and loving recitation of Our Lady's chaplet, the Rosary. ' . Thc history of this devotion carries us back to the time of Saint Dominic, but of the precise date of its origin, we. have no authentic record. It has been asserted as-serted that the devotion was in use prior to the time of Saint; Dominic, and that the faithful were in the habit of repeating a certain number of" Our Father's which they counted on knotted cords, or strings of beads, whence these beads themseives were commonly ealled Pater nosters. Thes? instruments of popular devotion were sold in great numbers in England, and their name was applied to the localities where vendors of those goods congregated. Hence the title Pater Noster Row, which, still survives in London. Referring tq, the obscurity whicli veils the beginning begin-ning of the Rosary, in Its present form, a sweet singer of the cloister savs: "Who ever saw the earliest rose " First open her sweet breast: Or Avhen the summer sun goes down, Thc first soft star of evening's crown . , Light up her gleaming crest?" Suffice it to say. that to the ags of Saint Dominic is generally attributed the honor of having instituted the devotion, as we know it today. The word Rosary is derived from the Latin word ros, or dew, the drops of which are represented by the beads; and those who have felt the sweet refreshment which a faithful recital, of the Rosary brings to the soul, weary and spnnt in life's struggles, know that it Is well named. " - . But of Its efficacy, each heart has Its own record and all who in loving devotion to Mary have fostered this "rose of a hundred and fifty petals," have enjoyed the subtle fragrance it sheds along life's arid ways Pressed to the lips and heart of one grown old in " God's service, the beads are as wine to the spirit iv- ' ing strength to keep on to the end, and ths pearl and silver chaplet in the hands of the young child the' devout child of Mary, is a tio between heaven" and earth, and must help to keep the heart pure. To all U I is a solace, in fact a need. ... I borne who do not understand thc sweet insistence of repetition, smile pityingly as they see the chappt slip through the fingers of one who thus, by a material chain, binds spiritual gems on love's strand as an offering to our Blessed Mother. But, as the Autocrat of the Br?akfast Table says, though it must be confessed, con-fessed, not as an argument in the . case in question "why should we be more shy of repeating ourselves' than- the- spring tired of blossoina, or the night of stars? Look at Nature. She never wearies of savin-over savin-over her floral pater-noster." . . . ,- " And, after all, love never tires of repeating A single refrain on the lips of one we hold dear ne'vr grows old; sorrow and love strike over and over again the same chords. Let us, then, not grow weary of repeating re-peating the Angrl's message to Our Lady, and as the salutation and tho pleading strike their double chord. with swcetjnsistence they will at last form part of the glad puisc of Mary's heart. During the fair Octoberdajs about to dawn.- when , we shall ripeat thc Angelical Salutation so frequently, I K let us linger lovingly over the words. "Hail Mary.- U realizing all that Pere Lacordaire meant when he ex- claimed" in a sermon on the repetition of the Aw Maria in the Rosary; "Ldve has but one word to uttr, and while it 13 ever saying that word, it never repea; If we have b:en faithful in reciting the Rosary during life, what consolation may we not expect feel at the hour of death? When earth is fading slowly from view, we may hope to hear the echo of the Angrl's An-grl's Amen, as Mary, Our Mother, leads her faithful children Home! Sacred Heart. Academy. Ogden. Utah. |