I carry.

Every day, in addition to my ‘smartphone,’ my wallet and my keys, I carry my rosary. It is a powerful weapon in the spiritual warfare that we constantly face as Catholics wanting to be faithful.

The Rosary is our Catholic prayer – drawn from Sacred Scripture and from the Dogma of ‘Theotokos,’ the God-bearer, the Mother of God. It is both a discursive mediation on the life of Jesus and Mary, as well as a contemplative path for us.

Pope St. John Paul II, proclaiming 2003 the Year of the Rosary, added the Mysteries of Light, the Luminous Mysteries, and issued his Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae,  On the Rosary of the Virgin Mary.

The fifty days of Easter are the occasion for our joy and peace. Jesus Christ is truly risen as He said. He passed from death to life and opened heaven for us. Alleluia is the song of the Church: “Praise to Thee O Lord.”

There is a way to add another dimension to this adoring love of the God who has saved us.  We can make an Alleluia of Faith; an Alleluia of Hope; an Alleluia of Charity.

He didn’t have to do it. God did not have to leave His eternal glory in heaven to enter into time; to leave the perfect Communion of the Most Holy Trinity to be part of a human family - even a Holy Family.

He did not have to be born into human frailty - poor, weak and dependent, subject to hunger and thirst, cold and heat.

The traditional three pillars of the Catholic Lenten observance are Prayer, Penance or Fasting, and Almsgiving.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to these three as “acts of religion” flowing from the New Law of Christ, the Gospel. (CCC no. 1969). Found in the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers of the Church, they express conversion in relation to oneself (fasting), to God (prayer), and to others (almsgiving.) (CCC no. 1434)

In a sermon by the 5th century bishop, St. Peter Chrysologus, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (which he calls mercy) are presented as closely interconnected elements of the Christian life, so interdependent that he says, “If you have only one of them, or not all together, you have nothing.” (Office of Readings, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent).

The Virtue of Justice, one of the “cardinal,” or hinge virtues in the Christian life, is the constant and firm inclination of the will to give their due to God and neighbor (Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 1807).

The first person to whom we owe justice is God, and justice toward God is expressed in the virtue of Religion. From the Latin verb re- “ligare”,” to tie or bind, religion is that act by which we bind back - we give ourselves to God. We came from God. We belong to Him. We owe Him back the gift of ourselves.