By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
May is the month dedicated to our Lady, and so it is a fitting time to look afresh at one of the most important Marian devotional practices, that is, the saying of the holy rosary. Probably most Catholics who take their faith seriously pray the rosary, but as we all know, it is very easy to slip into a routine way of saying it, and so it is good to resolve to begin pray it more slowly and prayerfully in the future.
But there is also a further way of making our rosaries more powerful in a spiritual sense, and that is through membership of the Rosary Confraternity.
This is a pious association under the care of the Dominican Order, with the aim of encouraging its members to pray the complete traditional rosary — that is, the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries, once a week. In doing this, as part of the Confraternity, they are united with all the other Confraternity members around the world, in praying both for their own intentions and those of all other members, both living and dead.
But before looking at the Rosary Confraternity in more detail, it’s worth reminding ourselves just why the Church places so much emphasis on the rosary.
May is the month during which our Lady appeared for the first time to the children of Fatima, with her powerful message of prayer, penance, and hope, and it is instructive to see just how much of an emphasis she placed on the praying of the rosary. At each of her six apparitions she stressed the importance of doing this every day, as a way of bringing about peace — and during the October apparition she even went so far as to describe herself as the “Lady of the Rosary.”
All this, of course, is to say nothing of the long and very fruitful tradition of praying the rosary within the Church, which has grown up over the centuries since the time of St. Dominic, and which has found such strong support from so many Popes and saints.
And in addition, the power of the rosary has been demonstrated dramatically in events such as the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, when the prayers of the faithful in Europe, which Pope St. Pius V had called for, were instrumental in the defeat of a large Ottoman Empire invasion fleet in the eastern Mediterranean.
This was confirmed by Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1582), in his bull on the rosary, wherein he said that the faithful should believe that it was the public prayers and processions of the Rosary Confraternity members which were largely responsible for the this victory.
And such events are not ancient history, as the withdrawal of the occupying Russian forces from Austria after World War II demonstrates. In this case, a Rosary Crusade was launched in 1947 by the Franciscan priest Fr. Pavlicek, and eventually ten percent of the Austrian people, that is 700,000 persons, joined in pledging to say the rosary every day for freedom for the country.
The result was that in 1955 the Russians peacefully left Austria — and this was in contrast to the way the revolutions in Hungary, in 1955, and Czechoslovakia, in 1968, were brutally put down by the Communists.
So the rosary remains as powerful as ever, both on large scale, as above, and on a personal level, and joining the Rosary Confraternity is an important way of making our Rosaries and our lives more spiritually fruitful.
As indicated above, the only requirement for Confraternity membership is to at least say the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries once a week. However, this is not something which binds under sin — that is, if for some reason a person does not fulfill the obligation, they have not committed even a venial sin — although it does mean they miss out on any graces or blessings that would have come to them through saying the rosary.
There is no restriction as to when, where, or how the rosary is said by members of the Confraternity, providing this is done in a devout way, and with faith and love. In return for this devotion, the individual receives numerous spiritual benefits from the Confraternity membership throughout the world — and those benefits also extend to Purgatory.
The following are some of the benefits which have been attributed to membership of the Confraternity: the special protection of our Lady; a share in the rosaries of all the Confraternity members around the world, even after death; a share in all the good works, Holy Masses, and prayers of the Dominican Order, as well as a variety of plenary and partial indulgences.
As a society within the Church, the Rosary Confraternity has been in existence for centuries. It was established in the early days of the rosary devotion, and was spread in the fifteenth century by Blessed Alain de la Roche who asserted that he received its statutes from the Blessed Virgin herself. Many Popes have been members of the Confraternity, as have numerous cardinals, bishops, and priests.
This is what some of the saints have thought or said about it: St. Charles Borromeo esteemed the Confraternity of the Rosary so highly, that he ordered it to be erected in all the parishes of his large Archdiocese of Milan, while St. Alphonsus de Liguori praised the Confraternity as follows:
“In the many missions I have preached, I have come to the conclusion that there are more sins in one single man who does not belong to the Confraternity of Mary than in twenty who do!” He also said, “After Holy Mass the best means of relieving the souls in Purgatory is to join the Confraternity of the Rosary.”
St. John Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, said: “If anyone has the happiness of being in the Confraternity of the Rosary, he has, in all corners of the globe, brothers who pray for him.” And he added, “For a member of the Confraternity of the Rosary to succeed in losing his soul, he would have to do himself as much violence as the other faithful do to save their souls, so abundant are the graces of this Confraternity.”
Easy To Join
The Rosary Confraternity U.S. Headquarters are at the Rosary Center in Portland, Ore., and becoming a member of the Confraternity is quite easy. All that is required is that the individual has their name inscribed in the register of the Confraternity, and this can be done online at: https://www.rosarycenter.org/homepage-2/the-rosary-confraternity/enroll-in-the-confraternity/. There is also an option to enroll by mail by printing off an application form on the website.
The best book about the Rosary Confraternity, and indeed about the rosary itself, is St. Louis de Montfort’s The Secret of the Rosary.
Becoming a member of the Rosary Confraternity is, then, a wonderful way to increase the spiritual efficacy of the rosaries we say, and nothing could be easier than signing up to become a member. By doing this our prayers to our Lady will be that much more powerful and all embracing.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also written two time-travel/adventure books for young people, and the third in the series is due to be published next year — details can be seen at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk.)
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