Today's Rosary | Holy Rosary University

Friends of the Rosary: Sin demands reparation. It's a part of our atonement to God. Reparation can come in the form of penance and sacrifices. It is a ransom for our personal and collective sins, in imitation of the Lamb of God who gave his life on the Cross for us. Jesus Christ defeated death and sin through sacrifice and service to our fellow men. He emptied himself to restore the order of divin...

Friends of the Rosary: In baptism, when we became members of the mystical body, we were marked with the seal of the cross. In the first luminous mystery of today, we signify that we are partakers of the Crucified. During this Lent, we learn by faith the virtue of the Cross. The remembrance of the Cross of Jesus is a very efficacious reflection against temptations. Jesus destroyed the works of the...

Friends of the Rosary: Before the joy and glory of Easter, we have first to go through forty days of the Lent journey. It’s a time to recover our real self and more real life, so we will be better prepared to share Christ’s glory. Christ preached penance and prayer to enter the Church. Our world is drowning in sin and vice and it needs to confess its sins and obtain forgiveness. This is what happe...

Friends of the Rosary: It's not about the number of words in prayer. It's about the quality of prayer. Jesus encouraged us — as we read today in the Gospel (Mt 6:7-15) — to pray faithfully, and silently, because "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Prayer is a humble exercise of self-recognition of our fragility.  We ask the Lord to help us to express ourselves with silent lo...

Friends of the Rosary: Adam’s temptations in the Garden of Eden are the same that we face today. He wanted to be like God. He also wanted power and pleasure. The Devil offered him appealing ways. Later, in his forty days in the desert, Jesus Christ faced temptations in flesh and spirit, rejecting them by following the Word of God. Jesus, the new Adam, proposed to us a new life plan based on s...

Friends of the Rosary: Today, on the first Sunday of Lent, we reflect upon the temptations that Jesus Christ suffered in the desert. Matthew the Evangelist (Mt 4:1-11) described how the devil approached Our Lord: “At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and s...

Friends of the Rosary: In the Gospel of Matthew (9:14-15), people ask Jesus why his disciples do not fast. He says that as wedding guests they will not fast while he, the Bridegroom, is with them. But “the days will come,” He says, “when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” Bishop Barron explained that “we fast because we have a hunger for God, which is the deepest hun...

Friends of the Rosary: The Forty Days of Jesus Christ in the desert is an invitation to step aside from our ordinary rhythm of life in order to be more open to the Holy Spirit. The goal is to convert ourselves by walking with Christ with the sorrows and temptations of life. This ancient tradition of the Church set this "stepping aside" practice as a primary characteristic of Lent. And in this seas...

Friends of the Rosary: Today, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, at the beginning penitential season that precedes Easter, we reflect upon the Forty Days of Christ in the desert. Lent is a pilgrimage. It’s a pilgrimage of conversion through repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The baptized require liberation from sin: from the bad habits that enslave us and impede our friendship...

Friends of the Rosary: Today, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of Lent, a season for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, in remembrance of the Forty Days of Jesus Christ’s penance in the desert. The faithful solemnity observe the redemption of the human race by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a central act of history, The beginning of Lent is marked by the symbol of ashes, which is used in today’s m...

Friends of the Rosary: Yesterday, we honored Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of three children of Fatima, along with Lucia Santos. In 1917, the three shepherds saw the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria, near Fatima, a city 110 miles north of Lisbon. They were asked by the Virgin to learn to read and write and to pray the rosary “to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.” The br...

Friends of the Rosary: God the Father created the human race in His image and after His likeness. Humankind is the crown of God’s creation. But, as Genesis 11, described humans rebelled against God, and we fell into sin. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, restored through His precious blood and laying down His own life, the Divine grace towards humanity. Since then, we are temples of the Holy Spirit,...

Friends of the Rosary: In today's Sunday reading (Mt 5:38-48), Jesus Christ instructs us to pray for those who persecute us. “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect," He said. It’s not just about loving our family members and friends who love us. It’s about knowing that as children of God and members of the human family, we should strive to be icons of Jesus Christ. When faced with pe...

Friends of the Rosary: As Christians, we are surrounded by the enemies of the faith, some of them unknowingly and others knowingly. Jesus’ words to his disciples were revealing: “Behold, I am sending you like sheep among wolves.” (Mt. 10:16). St. John Chrysostom, the fourth-century father of the Church, reflected upon it: “As long as we are lambs, we will conquer, and even if we are surrounded by...

Friends of the Rosary: Today, the Catholic Church honors the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They were seven noble Florentines who in the thirteenth century (1240), in the midst of a civil war, and disregarding their wealth and birth status, founded together a community with a special purpose: Cultivate the spirit of penance and meditate on the passion of Chris...

Friends of the Rosary: We receive every day as a gift from God, trying to glorify Him. We should not be consumed by anxiety about the future. Jesus taught us to let go of our worries, as the future will take care of itself. Meanwhile, St Francis of Sales wrote: “My past doesn't worry me; it belongs to God's mercy. My future doesn't worry me yet; it belongs to divine providence. What worries me and...

Friends of the Rosary: To our brothers trapped in the sin of sexual immorality — which the evil one actively promotes in our society — we want to encourage to abandon their slavery and quit their unclean state by asking the grace of God through the Most Holy Mary. There is a cure for this disease. Any sincere penitent can see their sins washed away and achieve a new, rewarding spiritual life. The...

Friends of the Rosary: Today, the Church honors a great saint and martyr, the third-century priest and bishop St. Valentine of Rome. At that time, Rome’s Emperor Cesar Claudius had issued a decree forbidding marriage, believing that single young men made better soldiers than married men. Valentine defied this decree and urged young lovers to come to him in secret so that he could join them in the...

Friends of the Rosary: Paul and the apostles spoke about God’s wisdom, which is “mysterious, hidden. ” It was “predetermined before the ages for our glory.” We read this yesterday in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian (1 Cor 2:6-10). The thirteenth apostle said that if the rulers of that age had known the wisdom of God, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” “As it is written: What eye ha...

Friends of the Rosary: In today’s Gospel, we learn about the divine mercy of Jesus for suffering humanity. We all need Christ's compassion because of our inclination to sin and because of the many times we, unfortunately, give in to that inclination. Nothing but the mercy of God can save us from our own dysfunctions. But, mind you, that mercy is available, if only we ask for it. Like the leper in...

Friends of the Rosary: We celebrate the Memorial Day of Our Lady of Lourdes today, marking the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858. Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared eighteen times to fourteen-year-old very poor shepherdess Marie Bernade Soubirous, St. Bernadette, in a grotto in Lourdes, France. On March 25, on the feast of the Annunciation, th...

Friends of the Rosary: We continue to ask for the intercession of the Virgin Mary for the 23,000 victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, their families, friends, and all those injured. The chaos in the region is making it very difficult for aid to arrive, and people are desperate. In today’s Gospel ( Mk 7:31-37 ), the apostles witnessed Jesus healing a deaf man, allowing him to both hear an...

Friends of the Rosary: While we continue praying and asking for the intercession of the Virgin Mary for the thousands of victims of a deadly earthquake in Turkey and Syria, we reflect upon the reading of today's Psalm. It proclaims ( Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 ): Blessed are those who fear the Lord. The word "fear" does not mean being afraid of God. It's more of a deep sense of respect, reverence, an...

Friends of the Rosary: Following Pope Francis , we ask for the intercession of the Virgin Mary for the thousands of victims of a deadly earthquake in Turkey and Syria. "Let’s pray together so that these brothers and sisters can move forward from this tragedy. And we pray that Our Lady will protect them," the Pope on Feb. 8. A series of large earthquakes in parts of Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6 creat...

Friends of the Rosary: We continue to pray for the earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, with a death toll surpassing 5,400. This disaster, one of the deadliest this century, highlights the importance of coming together to support and comfort those affected. It also highlights the need for the world to convert to Jesus Christ. The passion and sacrifice of Jesus as shown in his crucifixion — and...