Today's Rosary | Holy Rosary University

Friends of the Rosary, Today, February 10, is the Memorial of St. Scholastica (480-547), the twin sister of St. Benedict, the patriarch of Western monasticism. Inspired by Benedict's teaching, this 6th-century Italian virgin and nun founded the female branch of the Benedictine order. She established a convent near Monte Cassino, where she followed the Benedictine rule of prayer and work. Schol...

Friends of the Rosary, In today’s Gospel, Mark the Evangelist (Mark 6:53-56) reports Jesus healing many people at Gennesaret. We hear that people brought the sick on mats from all over the region, and all of them were cured. "Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as ma...

Friends of the Rosary, In today’s Gospel of Matthew (Matt 5:13-16), Christ himself calls his disciples to be the  “salt of the earth”  and the  “light of the world.” Christ Jesus was and is the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Now, after the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mountain, he is putting his true followers on almost a level with himself. The Son of God gave us the knowledge o...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, the Catholic Church honors Blessed Pius IX, who reigned as pope from 1846 to 1878. He defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary on December 8, 1854, and celebrated the First Vatican Council in 1869. He was a saint who knew how to admirably unite the active and the contemplative life. He was ready for pastoral needs, but always interiorl...

Friends of the Rosary, Today’s Gospel (Mark 6:14–29) accounts for Herod’s murder of John the Baptist. John is a proto-martyr, anticipating the martyrdom of many Christians. Today, February 6, we are celebrating another martyr who refused to compromise their beliefs. Saint Paul Miki and Companions. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the first to give witness, thousands of Christians in Japan suffered...

Friends of the Rosary, The Catholic Church celebrates today, February 5th, the Memorial of St. Agatha (d. 250), a virgin and martyr who died in defense of her purity, in Catania, Sicily, after the governor of that region tried in vain to force her to consent to sin. Her name appears in the Roman Canon of the Mass, along with six more women martyrs: Saints Felicity, Perpetual, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes,...

Friends of the Rosary, The month of February is dedicated to the Holy Family. This devotion proposes the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as the model of Christian family life, emphasizing love, obedience, unity, and faith. In the words of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII, "Nothing truly can be more salutary or efficacious for Christian families to meditate upon than the example of this Holy...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, February 3rd, the Universal Church offers two saints, Blaise and Ansgar, for separate celebration as an Optional Memorial. To St. Blaise (or Blaise) (d. 320), many cures are attributed. From the eighth century, he has been invoked on behalf of the sick, especially those afflicted with illnesses of the throat. St. Blaise was a physician and Bishop of Sebaste, Armenia,...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, February 2, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. This celebration, which takes place forty days after the birth of Jesus, is also known as Candlemas Day, since the blessing and procession of candles are included in the Mass. Christ is the light of the nations, hence the blessing and procession of candles on this day. Jesus’ present...

Friends of the Rosary, From the Gospel of St. Matthew 5:1-12a, in this Fourth Sunday in ordinary time, we receive the Beatitudes from the Lord. And He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The significance of the "poor in spirit" is revealed in the Beatitudes. This expression points to those whose hearts and consciences are intimately dire...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, January 31, the Catholic Church celebrates the Memorial of St. John Bosco (1815-1888), Apostle of Youth and   the founder of the Salesian Society (the Salesians), named in honor of St. Francis de Sales, and of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Auxiliatrix, Help of Christians. Born near Castelnuovo in the archdiocese of Turin, Italy, in 1815. His father died when...

Friends of the Rosary, In today’s Gospel (Mark 4:26–34), the parable of the mustard seed is revealed. Christ Jesus said, "To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth...

Friends of the Rosary, Only in Christ and through Christ is order and peace restored. St. Thomas — whose feast day we celebrated yesterday — said, "It is from the union of the different appetites in man tending towards the same object that peace results." In the Garden of Eden, with man’s virgin nature, there was a harmony that was the divine radiation of original justice. The order was...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, January 28, the Catholic Church celebrates the Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), a genius thinker, philosopher, and theologian, who earned the title of the Angelic Doctor, a designation that, as Pope Benedict XVI said, expresses “the sublimity of his thought and the purity of his life.” Considered the Dominican Order's greatest glory, his Summa Theologia...

Friends of the Rosary, Saint Angela of Merici († 1540), the saint we honor today, was the foundress of the Company of Saint Ursula, the Congregation of the Ursulines, the first teaching order of women religious. Orphaned at age ten, Angela became a Franciscan tertiary and was awakened with the desire to form a company of virgins to serve God. She wrote, "Although at times they will have troub...

Friends of the Rosary, Timothy and Titus — the saints that we honor today — shared with Paul the Apostle his ministry to the Gentiles. He described Timothy as "my true child in our common faith" (Ti 1:4), while Titus was the child of a devout Catholic woman and her pagan husband. Paul told the Corinthians, “I urge you, be imitators of me. For this reason, I am sending you Timothy, who is...

Friends of the Rosary, Today’s Gospel ( St. Matthew 4:12-23) presents Christ Jesus as the Light, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy by dispelling the darkness of sin and freeing man from the obscurity in which he is enclosed. The light expresses God’s involvement in human history as He manifests Himself as ‘The Light’ that disperses the darkness. In God’s light, everything assumes a new significance, br...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, January 24, is the feast day of Francis of Sales, a sixteenth-century French saint. As a young man, he became profoundly disturbed when contemplating the possibility of his soul spending eternity in hell. After weeks of barely eating and sleeping, he finally prayed before a miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, entrusting his life entirely to God’s merciful lov...

Friends of the Rosary, All human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. He is the model on which all human beings are created. He looked upon himself and wished that other beings would share in His own happiness. That's why the greatest gift is life. It is better to be alive than never to have been in existence. Through Divine Revelation and natural intelligence, we become aware of t...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, January 22, in all the dioceses of the U.S., the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children is celebrated. We pray for the complete legal restoration of the right to life. Abortion is a sinful violation of the dignity of the human person. During the liturgical celebration of Mass, we give thanks to God for the gift of human life. Through the mystery of...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, January 21, the faithful celebrate the feast of St. Agnes, one of the most notorious martyrs of ancient Rome, along with St. Cecilia. She was a young virgin martyred under the Roman emperor Diocletian around the year 304. Devotion to her is of ancient standing, and two churches in Rome commemorate her witness. Agnes is invoked in the canon of the Mass, in the Eucharis...

Friends of the Rosary, We pray today's Rosary — the Sorrowful Mysteries — on the road. In today's main reading of the Gospel (Mark 2:23–28), Christ Jesus says: "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath." Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus acknowledges that he is “lord even of the sabbath.” Bishop Barron explains...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, as on every third Monday of January each year, is the federal holiday of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, officially, the Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. King was an American civil rights activist, a Baptist minister, and a Black church leader who led the movement against racial discrimination in federal and state law and civil society. from 1955 until his assassination...

Friends of the Rosary, In today's Sunday main reading (John 1:29-34), our Gospel, John the Baptist sees Jesus approaching and says, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." John the Baptist immediately recognizes that Christ is the one the world has been waiting for. This leads John to testify that he is the Son of God. The same grace is given to us. And theref...

Friends of the Rosary, Today, we celebrate the Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (251-356), the Father of the Monks, who retired to the desert at about the age of eighteen in order to live in perfect solitude and prayer. This 3rd-century saint exercised a profound influence upon succeeding generations. Born in Middle Egypt (about 250) to wealthy parents, he sold his possessions and gave his inheritan...