Our Lady of the Rosary October 7, sermon St. Bernard

Night Office sermon by Saint Bernard, Abbot

(Sermo de Aquaeductu: Opera Omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 5 [1968], 282-283)

Our Lady of the Rosary October 7

This memory Mariana source devotional connects with the victory of Lepanto (1571), who arrested the great expansion of the Ottoman Empire. St. Pius V attributed that historic event to pray that the Christian people had addressed to the Virgin of the Rosary in the form. (Mess. Rom.) Etymology: Mary = loved by God, from the Egyptian; lady, Hebrew Martyrology: Memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary on this day with the prayer of the Rosary and Marian crown invoking the protection of the holy Mother of God to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, under the guidance of her, which was associated so everything Special incarnation, passion and resurrection of the Son of God.

iBreviaryWednesday, 7 October 2015  Wednesday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time 

Office of Readings

Morning Prayer

SECOND READING

From a sermon by Saint Bernard, Abbot
(Sermo de Aquaeductu: Opera Omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 5 [1968], 282-283)

We should meditate on the mysteries of salvation

The child to be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God, the fountain of wisdom, the Word of the Father on high. Through you, blessed Virgin, this Word will become flesh, so that even though, as he says: I am in the Father and the Father is in me, it is still true for him to say: “I came forth from God and am here”.

In the beginning was the Word. The spring was gushing forth, yet still within himself. Indeed, the Word was with God, truly dwelling in inaccessible light. And the Lord said from the beginning: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. Yet your thought was locked within you, and whatever you thought, we did not know; for who knew the mind of the Lord, or who was his counsellor?

And so the idea of peace came down to do the work of peace: The Word was made flesh and even now dwells among us. It is by faith that he dwells in our hearts, in our memory, our intellect and penetrates even into our imagination. What concept could man have of God if he did not first fashion an image of him in his heart? By nature incomprehensible and inaccessible, he was invisible and unthinkable, but now he wished to be understood, to be seen and thought of.

But how, you ask, was this done? He lay in a manger and rested on a virgin’s breast, preached on a mountain, and spent the night in prayer. He hung on a cross, grew pale in death, and roamed free among the dead and ruled over those in hell. He rose again on the third day, and showed the apostles the wounds of the nails, the signs of victory; and finally in their presence he ascended to the sanctuary of heaven.

How can we not contemplate this story in truth, piety and holiness? Whatever of all this I consider, it is God I am considering; in all this he is my God. I have said it is wise to meditate on these truths, and I have thought it right to recall the abundant sweetness, given by the fruits of this priestly root; and Mary, drawing abundantly from heaven, has caused this sweetness to overflow for us.

RESPONSORY

O Virgin Mary, no other daughter of Jerusalem is your equal,
for you are the mother of the King of kings,
you are the Queen of heaven and of angels.

– Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with you.
– Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

Lord,
fill our hearts with your love,
and as you revealed to us by an angel
the coming of your Son as man,
so lead us through his suffering and death
to the glory of his resurrection,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.