The Beads that Vanquish Goliath

“As for the Rosary, we sometimes meet people who despise it, considering it a devotion fit for children and pious women. Yet, did not Jesus say that we must recapture the humility of little children if we are to enter into the kingdom of heaven?  (Mt. 18:3)”

“Here is an example to help you understand the efficacy of the Rosary. You remember the story of David who vanquished Goliath. What steps did the young Israelite take to overthrow the giant? He struck him in the middle of the forehead with a pebble from his sling. If we regard the Philistine as representing evil and all its powers: heresy, impurity, pride, we can consider the little stones from the sling capable of overthrowing the enemy as symbolizing the Aves of the Rosary. The ways of God are entirely different from our ways. To us it seems necessary to employ powerful means in order to produce great effects. This is not God’s method; quite the contrary. He likes to choose the weakest instruments that He may confound the strong. (1 Cor 1:27)”

“Now, why is the Rosary so efficacious? First of all, on account of the sublimity of the prayers which make it up. The Pater comes to us directly from the love and sanctity of the Eternal Father by the lips of His Son Jesus; the Ave was brought down from heaven with the salutation of the angel Gabriel. The Church, as the interpreter of the needs of her children, has added a petition to this salutation: she makes us repeat to Mary one hundred and fifty times the request that she may be with us now and at the hour of our death.”

“Then again, the recitation of the Rosary makes us relive the different stages of the Redemption. Each event in the life of Christ gives forth, as it were, a divine power, and this power operates on us when we meditate on the scenes of the Gospel. Through the Rosary, we render to the Savior, but the mediation of Mary, the worship of our thought and of our love, in His childhood, in His suffering, and in His glory, and in virtue of this contact of faith many divine aids are accorded to us. Besides, in the actions of the Virgin, all so simple and at the same time so generous, we find many examples of virtues to imitate, many inspirations of hope, of charity, of joy. ”

-from Blessed Columba Marmion, Christ the Ideal of the Priest.