The Angels

Extract

October is the month which the Church has dedicated to the angels, and it is also the month in which the daily public recitation of the rosary before the Blessed Sacrament is obligatory in all churches. A coincidence? Perhaps; but a coincidence, whatever the word may mean, which is worth looking into.

Supposing our own recitation of the rosary has suffered some check, or has through our own fault become stale and wearisome like the prophet's valley of dry bones, then a consideration of the mysteries via the angels will perhaps breathe new life there too, as in the Mass, and prove a starting point for the quickened appreciation of our beads. For after the Mass, the rosary is the most important Catholic devotion, and if it is being neglected, then all is not well with us. The rosary has been called ‘the people's liturgy’—and that is the real answer to those unfortunate people who are irritated and distressed, and whose prayer seems to be altogether disturbed by the sight of the Mass-goer who is fingering his beads instead of turning the pages of the missal.