Our Lady of the Rosary
Knights of Columbus Board Pilgrimage
Pontifical North America College, Rome
October 7, 2025
We are blessed to offer Holy Mass here at the Pontifical North American College where a new generation of good and holy priests is being formed for service in parishes throughout the United States. Thank you, Msgr. Powers, for your warm welcome and your hospitality. Above all, we are grateful for your leadership and that of your faculty, in providing such excellent priestly formation for our future priests.
Our parish priest, Fr. McGivney, had a warm devotion to the Blessed Mother. It seems certain that he prayed the Rosary every day. He found in this beautiful Marian prayer a path to intimacy with Christ. As pilgrims of hope, let us follow in his footsteps by opening our minds and hearts to the Word of God just proclaimed.
Indeed, today’s readings are the “bookends” of the mysteries of the Rosary, from the Annunciation to the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. It was Mary’s “yes” to the will of God that set in motion the mysteries of the life of Christ – his Incarnation and hidden life in Nazareth; his teaching and miracles; culminating in his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. As the events that brought us new life in Christ unfolded, it was Mary who stored them in her Immaculate Heart and reflected on them. After the Church was quickened at Pentecost, it was only fitting that Mary, who shared completely in her Son’s life, Death, and Resurrection, should also share fully in his victory. Assumed body and soul into heaven, she is crowned with glory.
Pope St. John Paul II taught us that the Rosary is “a compendium of the Gospel”, a contemplative prayer centered on the saving deeds of Jesus Christ as seen through the eyes and heart of his Blessed Mother. When we pray the Rosary, the principal events of Christ’s life “pass before the eyes of our souls.” Filled with grace, we, like Mary, store these mysteries in our hearts, reflecting on their inexhaustible truth and limitless love. Invoking the Blessed Mary with the words of the angel Gabriel, while meditating on the mysteries of Christ, we learn the art of prayer. We absorb into our spiritual marrow his redeeming love, ‘that peace that lies beyond all understanding’, that Truth, Love, and Beauty for which ‘our hearts are restless.’
From the Cross, Jesus entrusted Mary to John: “Behold your Mother.” When we pray the Rosary, we experience anew Mary’s maternal love, for she leads us to Christ and confides to us that she understands our “joy and hope, our grief and anxiety.” “To pray the Rosary,” Pope St. John Paul II wrote, is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother.” In this way, the disorder and chaos of life is harmonized with the rhythm of God’s own life. The Rosary is like a “reset button” for our spiritual lives.
Over the years, I have acquired quite a few rosaries, but two are very important to me – a Knights of Columbus rosary my father received years ago and the rosary my mom was holding when she passed into eternity. They remind me that it was my mom and dad who taught me to love the Rosary and to pray it daily. When I walk my dog through the streets of Baltimore, I pray the Rosary (and not just for safety!). When drifting off to sleep at night, I pray the Rosary, often leaving it for the angels to finish. I can tell you this – the Rosary is a wonderfully consoling prayer. Even when worries and distractions make it hard to focus on the mysteries, I know I am enveloped in Mary’s maternal love – and that makes all the difference . . . I hope your experience is similar.
We are in Rome as pilgrims celebrating the Jubilee of Hope. Let us see in the Rosary a Marian prayer that captures and expresses “Christ in [us], our hope of glory” (Col 1:27). As we meditate on the mysteries of Christ, let us find in them, through Mary, a ‘hope that does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5). At the hour of our death, may it be said of us what Elizabeth said of Mary: “Blessed is she who trusted that God’s Word to her would be fulfilled.” Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!