/bookpi54.jpg) The
Devil and How to Resist Him
by Fr. Gerald Vann To grasp the force and subtlety of Satan's assaults, Fr. Vann spent years studying the Gospel accounts of the temptations of Christ. The fruit of his holy labor is this acclaimed classic, a work that's sure to strengthen you in your own struggles against the devil. CLICK HERE |
SCRIPTURAL ROSARY: A POWERHOUSE OF GRACE AND A SOURCE OF THE MIRACULOUS
By Michael H. Brown
We're finally able to make available what I believe is the most powerful prayer outside the actual Eucharist. It's called the Scriptural Rosary, and through the last 15 years I've seen it cause tremendous results. I've prayed it around the world, and have worn out several of them. They're so valuable I keep them as relics. I have personally found it to be more powerful than saying the Rosary with standard beads and perhaps this is because it's a more extensive Rosary. It has a meditation not just for every mystery but for every single prayer -- and the results are potent.
Whenever there's a problem, and especially if it's a severe problem, an immediate recitation of this powerful prayer brings clarity. It takes about 45 minutes and is worth every second. I like to start the day with it, and on the rare occasions when I can't, things don't go as smoothly. The Rosary dispels anxiety and brings you immediately to what's important. It puts things in perspective. It has always amazed me how things that concern me suddenly vanish during recitation or how answers dawn on me. It grants us an exit when we're boxed into a corner.
I have prayed it in deepest Africa; I've prayed it in zones of war. I've prayed it over people who were dying or extremely ill. I've prayed it in New Zealand and Tokyo and Israel. I have prayed it at the site of the Annunciation, at the site of Crucifixion. I've prayed it at dozens of sites of apparition.
And it has enhanced every one of those experiences. It's packed with power because it has 150 little passages from the Bible and involves 15 recitations of the Lord's Prayer, along with 150 Hail Marys. This is a potent combination because both Scripture reading and the Rosary are each special tools against evil.
It's a book of solutions. It's a book of miraculous intervention. Nothing brings me closer to Mary. Nothing puts me closer to Jesus and heaven (except, like I said, the liturgy). I've prayed it at Knock and Fatima and Lourdes and Guadalupe and Betania and Medjugorje and Zaragoza and Montserrat and at the graves of saints like Francis of Assisi and Therese the Little Flower and Padre Pio and Catherine Laboure. I've prayed it at the Vatican in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament -- and what power that unleashed!
Once when I was in Rome walking near the Coloseum a couple of teenage girls rushed up to me speaking hurried Italian and showing me something in a newspaper as if to divert my attention. Immediately I suspected them as pickpockets and placed my hand over my wallet. Finally I was able to shoo them away, but a minute later I heard a commotion and they were running back to me -- holding my Scriptural Rosary. Apparently, while I was guarding my back pocket, they had taken it from my shirt or jacket pocket -- and now they were returning what they had stolen, as if impelled by an unseen force.
[Further note: The Scriptural Rosary is based on the original Rosary, an outgrowth of the 150 Psalms of David. Most historians trace the origin of the Rosary as we know it to the Dark Ages of ninth-century Ireland when monks recited or chanted the psalms and devised ropes with 150 or 50 knots for laymen so they could keep count when they recited an abbreviated version. Soon after clergy and lay people in other parts of Europe began to recite the Angelic Salutation as a repetitive prayer (it's the first part of the Hail Mary) and integrated it with the old technique of chanting the Psalms. Then, during the 13th century, another prayer form, which would soon give the Rosary its Mysteries, began to develop.]