The Disarming Power of the Rosary
Simone Riva - "Dear brothers and sisters, the month of October, now approaching, is particularly dedicated to the Holy Rosary in the Church. Therefore, I invite everyone, every day of the coming month, to pray the Rosary for peace—personally, in families, and in communities."
This was Leo XIV's invitation during the General Audience on September 24. For months, we have been witnessing discussions, debates, alignments, polarizations, and power struggles in an attempt to demonstrate a capacity—which we may not have—to face wars. And then comes the Pope's invitation, seemingly naive, to recite the Rosary every day.
It is not a new invitation. On May 13, 1917, in Fatima, the Beautiful Lady said exactly the same thing: "Recite the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war." The following month, she continued: "I want you to continue reciting the Rosary every day." And so it went until October 13, in those six apparitions that the Virgin gave to the little shepherds.
But in a world where everyone is rightly engaged in their own endeavors—demonstrations, strikes, blockades, naval maneuvers, controversies—what new element can the prayer of the Rosary introduce? An invitation that has no muscles to show, no refined arguments to propose, and no effective strategies to activate could almost make one smile.
The practice of the Rosary is radically simple: it needs my voice, my faith, my decision, my begging. It needs someone to bend their knees, to recite it, to give voice to those unique words that were able to change history two thousand years ago: "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you."
These were words addressed to a girl like one of us, living her life and grappling with the challenges of daily life. "The Lord is with you," she hears, within the four walls of her home, from that mysterious presence that has come to meet her. "He is with you," it says, not "with humanity," nor even "with those most in need." The condition, in fact, for being "with everyone" is to be in a relationship with a you. God seeks this relationship with a you who is willing to say yes to him.
Within that invitation to recite the Rosary every day for peace, there is another invitation, therefore: to say yes, to take the crucial step forward—the one initiative that matters—which is allowing ourselves to be found. This requires no proxies, controversies, sides, or battles against artificially constructed enemies. It is not an easy undertaking, but it is the only one capable of truly changing something, first and foremost ourselves.
