Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
April 2, 2025 Column Father De Celles
October is the “Month of the Rosary.” Tradition attributes the Rosary to an apparition of the Blessed Mother to St. Dominic around the year 1200. The use of strings of beads to count prayers dates back to pre-Christian times and to the first centuries of the Church. Over the early centuries of the Church the beads were used to count various prayers, including psalms, the Kyrie and the Our Father, especially among the monks. By the end of the 8th century the custom of using the beads to count the praying of the 150 psalms. In the 10th and 11th century the string of beads commonly used by Catholics was used to count Our Fathers, and the strings of prayer beads became known by the name Paternosters. But by the 12th century they were more widely used to count the 150, or 50, Hail Marys. The practice of meditating on the mysteries of the life of Christ while praying the Aves became popular in the 15th century, and the devotion began to be called the Rosarium, meaning a “garland of roses.” By the 16th century the division of the Rosary into the 5 decades of the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries of the life of Christ became set. Pope John Paul II proposed a popular 4th set of mysteries, the “Luminous mysteries.” Meditating on these 15 or 20 mysteries makes the Rosary a truly Christo-centric prayer.
October’s particular association with the Rosary goes back at least to the year 1571, when Pope Pius V encouraged all Christians to pray the Rosary for the protection of Europe as it was being invaded by the Muslim Turks. On October 7, 1571, the Catholic fleet miraculously defeated a greatly superior Muslim fleet off the coast of Lepanto, Italy. Pope Pius subsequently declared October 7 the Feast of Our of Victory, but two years later Pope Gregory XIII changed the name to the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, as it remains today. In 1883 Pope Leo XIII dedicated the whole month of October to the Queen of the Holy Rosary.
The Rosary remains a devotion near and dear to the hearts of all Catholics—or at least it should. For centuries successive popes have commended it to all Catholics as a sure source of spiritual enrichment. Let me add my own personal admonishment to theirs to pray the rosary every day, or at least once a week. For those who ask me, “how can I deepen my prayer life,” my first response is “pray the Rosary.”
Also, remember that a plenary indulgence is gained by those who pray the Rosary (of five decades) in a church, public oratory, a family group, a religious community or a pious association (presuming the usual conditions).
“RESPECT LIFE MONTH.” October is “Respect Life Month.” During this month, the American Bishops call us to remember that over 2500 innocent Americans are killed every day by abortions, over 1,000,000 in 2023, for a total of over 65 million dead since 1973 (the year of Roe v Wade).
And we cannot forget the consequence of abortion’s devastating effect on women. Especially the women who have been lied to and told, “it’s okay.” These are the 2nd victims of abortion, but they are ignored and ridiculed for expressing their pain and feelings of guilt.
Election and the Right to Life. Many of us are unhappy with the choice we have this year in the presidential election. Both major candidates are clearly personally flawed: Some don’t like Trumps rhetoric; some don’t like Harris’ “word salads.” Trump has a past record of private degradation of women (some say worse than that); as a 29-year-old nobody Harris had in a public adulterous relationship with the 60-year-old married mayor of San Francisco, who lifted her out of obscurity and kickstarted her political career. Some are angry with Trump’s behavior after the 2020 Election and “January 6”; some are angered by Harri’s support of the violent riots of Antifa and BLM in 2020. We can go on and on about both.
But we don’t elect people because we like them or don’t like them. Granted, we should consider their character, but character is displayed in many different ways.
The most important character flaw we should consider in this election, one that is also directly related to the most important issue in the election, is how someone respects the fundamental dignity of human life. And that can be judged in the way they approach the issue of abortion. How can you say you respect human life if you defend the right to kill the most innocent and defenseless lives—the lives of unborn babies. As St. John Paul II once wrote: “[T]he common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights – for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture – is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with the maximum determination.” [Christifideles Laici, 38.]
If you don’t have the right to live, what other rights do you have? None! And if you can take an innocent person’s life simply because that innocent person is a burden to you, how can we say that less permanent and horrible means of oppressing others are wrong: isn’t killing anyone, much less a baby, lightyears worse than, for example, denying illegal immigrants the right to remain in our country?
In the last presidential debate, Kamala Harris proudly defended her support of abortion. But when Donald Trump pointed out how extreme her embrace of abortion is, that it extends to the 9th month of pregnancy, Harris called him a liar. But then she stated: “I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening.”
In saying that she both contradicts herself and lies. First of all, Roe v Wade allowed abortions through the 9th month, and she “absolutely support[s] reinstating” that. And second, the man she chose as her running mate, as Governor of Minnesota signed a 2023 law which provided that, “Every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual’s own reproductive health” which includes “terminating a pregnancy.” Moreover during his tenure as Governor In Minnesota alone, the state’s Department of Health reported eight babies who were born alive after failed abortions were left to die. Yes, Ms. Harris, it is “happening.”
Moreover, Harris’ position is so extreme that as a Senator she repeatedly voted against the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” that would have provided a standard of care for babies born alive after failed abortions, rather than leave them to die.
I could go on and on, but simply put: Harris believes we can kill unborn babies, and babies born from failed abortions, without restriction, even at full-term/nine-months and immediately after birth if they survive an abortion.
Like him or not, Trump defends the lives of babies.
How can a Catholic, or any civilized human being, vote for someone who doesn’t understand we can’t kill babies, like Kamala Harris?
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles