Our Lady did not merely ask that the Rosary be prayed. She taught Christina how to prayer it “from the heart” and She requested that she teach others to pray it at the House of Prayer as She had taught her. Our Blessed Lady also described the beauty and power of the Rosary to Christina in the most attractive terms.

When Christina shares her experience of Our Blessed Lady teaching her, she relates the deep impact made upon her when Our Lady Herself prayed the ‘Our Father’ during an apparition. Christina has never – before or since - heard the Our Father prayed as Our Lady offered it. In an attempt to describe the experience, Christina said Our Blessed Mother was loving God with Her entire being through each phrase of the ‘Our Father’. It was a total surrender of love. As She prayed Christina could see a heart slowly take shape in front of her – first in outline, then with a guaze-like texture forming and finally pulsating. This Christina knew was the Heart of Jesus alive and pleading before The Father as Our Lady’s powerful rendering of Jesus’ own prayer activated Her Son’s intercession.

The precise teaching imparted by Our Blessed Mother began very simply when, one day, she intervened and stopped Christina as she prayed. Christina, it should be remembered, was inclined like so many of us were, to hurry through the Rosary, rhyming off the prayers. She had never known any other way of saying it. As she herself put it, once ‘I thought you were meant to get through it as quickly as possible.’ But on 22 May 1988, three months after the first of her apparitions, Our Lady said to Christina:

“I would like you to pray the Rosary to me from your heart. Offer each Hail Mary as a beautiful white rose or precious jewel, and the Lord’s Prayer as a very fine red rose or special jewel, to clothe me in. But you must know that you cannot have precious jewels that will not sparkle, or beautiful roses that are only ready to be thrown away. My child, if you do not pray the Rosary from your heart, with love and joy, the roses or jewels you offer to clothe me in will be lost forever. Pray the Rosary with love and joy and it will last for all eternity. Please, my child, do not disappoint me. Let it be a garment that will sparkle… pray my beautiful Rosary.”

It is when prayed from the heart that the Rosary vanquishes the devil. How he must hate it! Our Lady remarked to Christina, “It can defeat him when prayed from the heart.”

In fact Christina’s own appreciation of the depth and power of the Rosary, is often captured in her personal advice to people:

In the Joyful Mysteries we see the reality of Our Blessed Mother’s surrender to God, Her ‘yes’ to God and Her ‘yes’ for our redemption. It is Her surrender. “In the Sorrowful Mysteries, we see the ugliness of sin and what we did to Christ through sin, yet God in his Love and Mercy redeemed us in our disobedience. The Glorious Mysteries bring us to a great awareness that if we say ‘yes’ to God, we can also be raised up to share in the Glory of the Risen Christ – to the home prepared by Our Father. Most assuredly, the value of meditation on the mysteries is the key to the power contained in the Rosary.

So powerful is the Rosary in the spiritual battle with evil that Our Blessed Mother requested it as the means whereby she could save Ireland. To achieve this Our Lady specifically asked that the full Rosary (Her ‘three most beautiful mysteries’ as She put it, meaning the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries), be recited each day in the homes of the people and once a week in the churches. No matter how vicious the attack, it cannot withstand this shield.

“My child, the calamity has started. The influence of the Prince of Darkness is all around you. Arm yourselves with my Rosary. My children who want to be saved must repent. Repent, I say, to all My children. Arm yourselves with My Rosary. Let it never be out of your hearts. My chosen children you are like lambs among wolves. Stand firm, have no fear, for the Hand of the Mighty One is with you.”



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