Mothers see things in their children that others often miss. The Blessed Virgin Mary sees Jesus from a perspective that is unique. Praying with Mary, asking her companionship as we pray, opens up knowledge of Jesus we can have only through her and with her. She knows Jesus profoundly not only as her savior but also as her Son. “She has more insight than anyone into the profound intentions of Jesus.” This intuition of Pope John Paul II is behind his invitation that we look at Jesus, contemplate the mysteries of his life, death and resurrection, while attending “Mary’s school.”

Twelve months ago, the Holy Father proclaimed the year between October, 2002, and October, 2003, to be a Year of the Rosary. Eager to increase love of Jesus among his people and recognizing the difficult moment both the Church and the entire human race is moving through, the Pope asked us to take up a devotional practice that began centuries ago and has sustained the Church through many difficulties. The Archdiocese has sponsored Rosary celebrations in several parishes in the past month, including the Cathedral. These bring to a collective conclusion the many moments Catholics have spent praying with the Rosary in the past year.

What does one learn while at Mary’s school, praying the Rosary? What does she teach us? The genius of the Rosary is that it brings us to the heart of the Gospel. In the grotto near the Basilica of the Annunciation at Nazareth, an inscription reads: “The Word was made flesh in this place.” The Son of God became incarnate in a particular spot; the uncontainable one was contained in Mary’s womb. The particularity which marks human life becomes the object of contemplation in saying the Rosary. In what Pope Paul VI called the “quiet rhythm” and “lingering pace” of the Rosary, we put ourselves into the fundamental mystery of Christianity: God was made man so that we could live in God. Mary’s womb is the place where the Word of God was made flesh; Mary’s mouth the place where that perfect “yes” that changed our relationship to God was spoken.

If we have faith and if we are willing to compose our mind and remain quiet for a little while, the Rosary becomes our entrance into the person and life of Christ and his mother. She can bring us very close to her Son by forcing us to move beyond words and ideas to the reality they are meant to convey. She can “make us pray,” despite our own readiness to be distracted and all the pressures of lives plagued by a surfeit of information and entertainment designed to take our time and dissipate our attention.

Fifty times, in praying five decades of the Rosary each day, we ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to be with us “now and at the hour of our death.” Contemplating our death puts our lives in perspective. Contemplating with Mary the joyful, the sorrowful, the glorious and now the luminous mysteries of Jesus’ life, we gradually sort out what is essential to our own. In the end, we bring into eternity only our relationships. Relationships grow with familiarity, and praying the Rosary makes us familiar with the various dimensions of Christ’s life. As Pope Paul VI wrote, “The Rosary is a compendium of the whole Gospel.”

In the Gospel, Mary is there at the beginning of Jesus’ life, as every mother is present at her child’s birth; she is there standing at the foot of the cross at the end of Jesus’ life; and she is there with the apostles on Pentecost, when Jesus sends the Holy Spirit at the birth of the Church, which is her Son’s body in space and time until he returns in glory. The sense that Mary protects our lives here, on our way to eternity, is summed up in a prayer from the second century, the earliest prayer to Mary that has come down to us: “We fly to thy protection, O Holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.”

The best way to pray is to pray. We get used to praying the Rosary by praying it often. Two recent books that might be of help to those who want to read about the Rosary as well as pray it are Robert Feeney’s, “The Rosary: the Little Summa” (Arlington, VA: Aquinas Press, fourth edition, 2003) and Domenico Marcucci, “Through the Rosary with Fra Angelico” (New York: Alba House, 1999).

At the end of this year of the Rosary, we need Mary’s protection more than ever. With her, please pray for me as, with her, I pray for you.