Why the Rosary?
Like I said, my name is Mario and I'm super happy that you are here to learn all about the Rosary! I want to tell you some really important things that I learned over at Catholic Kids 101 from Blaise's CK101 page that helped me better understand why praying the "Mysteries of Jesus" is so important!
Praying the Rosary is like going on a journey!
On our Rosary journey we will be visiting some of the "Mysteries of Jesus." The Mysteries are the events that tell us the story of Jesus. We make our Rosary journey by way of Mother Mary's heart! Saint Luke tells us about this in the Bible. In the Gospel according to Saint Luke he says that: "Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." "All these things" are the Mysteries of Jesus! Saint Luke also tells us that he wrote his Gospel based on information of eyewitnesses, people who actually saw things. You couldn't get a better eyewitness of the life of Jesus than Mother Mary!
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2:19
Mary's heart is our roadmap!
Before I explain more about the "Mysteries of Jesus" and Mother Mary, I have a question for you. Have you ever gone on a big road trip vacation? I have with my family and it was great! Sometimes we would stop at a really neat store along the way. Often I'd see something amazing that I wanted to buy but it would usually be too expensive. That's when I wished I had a big bag full of money so I could buy everything I wanted. I'd keep some of the amazing things I bought for myself and the other amazing things I'd give to my family and friends.
That's kind of how it's going to be when we pray our Rosary. You see, Jesus has purchased an infinite (never ending!) amount of treasures for us when He suffered and died on the Cross to save us from our sins. Every single thing that Jesus ever did has infinite worth and value! And Jesus, in His great love for us, decided that He was going to put Mother Mary in charge of distributing all these treasures or graces to us. We call Mary’s title of doing this: “Mediatrix of All Graces.”
Mary is "Mediatrix of All Graces"
Now imagine Blessed Mother saying to you: “Here, my child, I will open the storehouse of infinite treasures my Son has obtained for us. You can come and ask me for these treasures. You don’t need any money. Jesus has already paid for everything! Isn’t He wonderful? These treasures will help you reach the goal in your journey through life: to be a Saint! You can ask for yourself, for your family, for your friends and for the entire world! These treasures are available for anyone who asks.”
Like I mentioned before, the Mysteries are the events that tell us the story of Jesus! Some of the twenty Mysteries are: when the mighty Archangel Gabriel announced to Mother Mary that she was chosen to be the Mother of God and Jesus became a baby in her womb; when Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Christmas!); when Jesus gave us Himself in the Holy Eucharist on Holy Thursday; when Jesus suffered and died on the Cross to save us from our sins on Good Friday and when Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday!
Here is the main thing I want you to understand. When we think about these Mysteries and then offer them to God our Father when we pray our Rosary decades, it's just like we went into a store and Mary put the most magnificent, perfect, priceless treasures into our hands!
Our Heavenly Father sees these treasures that we are offering to Him and His Heart is completely moved with love! How can He not be moved when we are offering Him Jesus in Mother Mary's womb? Or Jesus in the manger? Or Jesus in the Jordan River being baptized by John the Baptist? Or Jesus giving Himself at the Last Supper in the Most Holy Eucharist? Or Jesus dying on the Cross to save us from our sins? That's why the Mysteries are so powerful! We are offering our Heavenly Father His beloved Son Jesus! And the more we do this, our hearts are moved and we grow in love!
We are offering our Heavenly Father His beloved Son Jesus!
We begin to better understand how much God loves us!
All the mysteries are important! All of them contain infinite treasures! However, the Sorrowful Mysteries are important for us to think about, especially in our world right now.
When we think about the sorrowful times in the lives of Jesus and Mary often, something amazing begins to happen. It’s like a ray of light coming into the darkness. We start to see things in our own lives differently. We begin to understand that our hard times can have meaning and by accepting our hard times we can become more like Jesus.
And we don't ever have to be afraid during our hard times because when we pray and ask Jesus to help us, He always will. We receive many graces when we pray our Rosary decades!
We receive many graces when we pray our Rosary decades!
Now I'm going to tell you a story about my favorite Saint!
His name is Dominic. He is going to help us understand the power of the Rosary and why we should pray our Rosary decades every single day. I'm also going to be telling you how to pray your Rosary decades and some other great things!