The value of little things

Fr. Livio Tonello, director

Very soon the Rosary became the patrimony of the whole Church and of the Christian people as a school of prayer and contemplation, a wonderful sign of spiritual life, union with Jesus and his and our Mother. It has been so for generations of believers, monks, friars, nuns and all good souls.

It has been the prayer of the poor, the meek and the humble, of those who have welcomed the Gospel message ever since their spiritual childhood (Mt 18, 3; Mk 10, 15) so that they were granted the revelation of the secrets of the Father (Mt 11, 25), the knowledge of the “mysteries” of the Kingdom of God (Lk 8, 10) as we are reminded by the Gospel that we read at the Mass in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary: “The mysteries of the Kingdom of God are revealed to you...” Understanding the Rosary is a sign that, in our life, we have made a great conquest, that of the value of little things.

God, who is infinite, chooses little things, our humble words, in order to reveal himself to man. He chooses little things to come among us: the humanity of the Baby Jesus of Bethlehem, the Child of Nazareth, the Crucifixion of the Calvary, the Bread and the Wine of the Eucharist, the visible structures of the Church. God shows us the path of little things to go to him: prayer, penance, humility, silent charity and the concentration of the soul that in its simplicity looks for, and loves the Kingdom of God St. Teresa of the Infant Jesus calls this the path of spiritual childhood.

A little path made of great love and heroic gift as this is the great and immense thing that we can and should do: give unlimited love till the sacrifice of ourselves, love as Jesus, the Son of God, loved us but in simplicitate cordis, that is in the simplicity of the heart like children of the Heavenly Father aware that everything belongs to him including the love we love him with. The Rosary is the little path of spiritual childhood.

It is the prayer and the contemplation that the Virgin taught the souls and offered the Church many times in the course of centuries as well as in recent times especially at Lourdes, Fatima where the Virgin did not ask Bernadette and the young shepherds to do great things, do special strict penance, high level theological studies or bring about violent revolutions but a little thing: the prayer of the Rosary together with the performance of little humiliating acts, acts of great love faithful to Jesus as this is what matters. In the Rosary, in fact, the Gospel law that Jesus preached comes true: “unless you …become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18, 3); “There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12, 32); “…unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies... it yields a rich harvest” (Jn 12, 24).

This is what Mary understood and sang in her Magnificat of which the Rosary seems to be an historical interpretation in the Catholic pastoral and devotion. The Virgin offered Christian people the Rosary as a simple path leading towards great things, the sanctity, the beauty and the truth of God. We too, Christians of our difficult and complex time, need to seriously meditate upon the meaning of this simple guide not to give in to the temptation of the spirit and the methods of the world, to avoid the path of capital sins that contaminate the earth and be faithful to the Commandments of God and the Gospel Beatitudes: poverty, humbleness, kindness of heart, silent and strong sacrifice, conscious strong patience, justice, theological charity which is the bond of perfection. Never the path of compromise, contamination, ambiguity, confusion, absurd conciliation between Christian spirit and the madness of the world, a conciliation which falls into indifference and atheism.