Weapon for a Battlefield? Rosary as a Channel of Grace and Peace

The Holy Rosary is a prayer centred on the life of Jesus, life of Mary and the life of each of us. We meditate them through the Joyful, Sorrowful, Luminous and Glorious Mysteries. The repetition of the Hail Mary is a contemplative means to involve the grace announced to humanity in the person of Mary deeply into our personal lives, and to live the Gospel events. We invite Mary, the perfect disciple who pondered all these events in her heart, to help us see her Son's life with greater clarity and love. Mary's divine agency is to be understood within the aspect of fullness of grace. The healing, help, care, and victory that we ask of her are all within this grace. The imaginations on her victory should never be pictured or imagined as though in a war model, as though she was a war goddess. If pictured like that, we take away the nature of grace and divine action. Her power or agency is not a separate, inherent force, but the perfect channel for Christ's grace. Her "victory" is therefore the triumph of humility and obedient faith, not military might.

 God's favours are not for one nation, or people or religion, God's grace is given from his abundant goodness for the good of all. He grants victory, but not by destroying anyone, but by brining good for all. the figures like god fighting for his own people misrepresent the god images in the gospel, and instead we fill our beliefs with politicised images of god with vengeance, anger and siding with our interests. The same is true with the prayer of Rosary. Rosary is not a weaponised instrument, nor the prayer of rosary is a magical prayer. Rosary is a life story we are trying to retell and relive. There we hope for the graces that was once present in the life of those who were participants in the gospel story. We win by grace, not over anyone, but by a growth in grace for the good of all. The war models we have in our religious imaginations must give way for models of peace and dialogue.

In many new trends, under politicised emotionalism we are celebrating religion and its symbols. Are we glorifying god? Many are happy that there seems to be a revival and great witness. In such trends, we are risking grace for identity games. They are war-cry and celebrations without life and grace in it. If the crowd has no life, what will gather them after this momentum?

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