hall, wearing a thorny crown of ignominy, laden with a heavy cross, and finally sacrificing His life, in supreme anguish, on Calvary for our redemption. In the Glorious Mysteries we consider Christ’s triumphant resurrection and ascension, the coming of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and the assumption and coronation of the Virgin Mother.
Who shall measure, or even describe the salutary influence which the successive prayerful contemplation of these fifteen mysteries exercises on the soul? Do we not thereby literally steep our mind and will and heart in the most sacred truths of Christianity, and thus flood our souls with celestial light, strengthened them with supernatural unction?
While our mind is engaged in the contemplation of the mysteries of the Rosary, we devoutly recite the Hail Mary; which is at once a salutation and an invocation—a salutation that was first addressed to the Holy Virgin by an Archangel inspired by the Blessed Trinity, and an invocation imploring Mary’s constant protection during life, and her powerful assistance in our dying moments. The Hail Mary is as it were the heavenly anthem whose sweet strains accompany the contemplation of the touching mysteries of the lives of Jesus and
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