DECADES OF WISDOM IN TEN MINUTES!
Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary
My dear encountered couples:
Jonah fled from the Lord. That’s what we are told at the beginning of the story of Jonah. God had a certain job for Jonah to take care of but Jonah didn’t want to do it, he was afraid to do it. So he hopped the first boat going in the opposite direction from where God wanted him to go. But he found it was impossible to hide from God.
We know that, don’t we? But I'll bet we try to do it once in awhile. Maybe we don’t hop on the first boat or bus out of town but we have other methods. To hide from God we just occupy ourselves with busy things and try not to think of him. We avoid him by trying to ignore him. For those of us with a conscience, it doesn’t work. When God wants something he doesn’t give up easily. He keeps at us as he did with Jonah until he gets action, or until we convince him that we want nothing to do with him.
Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The rosary might not seem to have much to do with Jonah, but praying the rosary is a good, safe way to build up courage. It is the poor person’s way of making a retreat. We can go into our room, take a walk in the woods, find a quiet church, pray the rosary, and think. By saying the prayers and meditating on the mysteries we can learn a lot about courageous people who did God’s will. We can become filled with the same kind of love Mary had for God and her Son.
Praying the rosary privately and well every day can do wonders for us. Try it, or continue to do it if you already are. And you’ll soon find you won’t be running from God when he wants you to do something. You’ll be begging him for a job. Too bad Jonah didn’t have the rosary to pray. It might have saved him a whale of a lot of time and trouble.
