Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

I am not a born Catholic. Late in S2, I attended catechumen class conducted by the Principal of my Alma Mater, the late Mr. Joseph Liu. Choi Hung Estate Catholic Secondary School is closely integrated into the Holy Family Parish. Therefore, my adolescence was spent in the parish. I do not play musical instruments and singing is my only "talent", in fact, everybody's "talent". Therefore, I spent most of my time in the church choir and with the physically handicapped in Choi Hung.
After graduating from the university, I landed my first teaching job in La Salle College and spent 20 years there. I was very blessed and honoured not just because La Salle is an elite school and many of my students are now professionals contributing to the smooth running of Hong Kong, but because I was assigned to take care of a praesidium of a Legion of Mary. For 19 years, I grew and developed with these young noble souls under the motherly care of Our Lady. Saying the Rosary was a weekly routine. (Well, I was not devoted enough to recite the Rosary everyday!) Like the air we breathe, I was not aware of the sanctifying power of the Rosary until I left the Legion of Mary.
Teaching in Shung Tak is a different story. Shung Tak is not a religious school. There are no priests, nor nuns looking after the spiritual welfare of the students. There is no Legion of Mary. She is also a co-ed school. You have to handle the girls more cautiously. You cannot play rough with them. Though she is supposed to be a Band One school in Yuen Long, yet Yuen Long is not urban. Here, the students are less motivated and gifted in academic pursuits. Here, I experience more frustrations than before. I begin to appreciate again the power of the Rosary. In times of frustrations and depressions, the Rosary soothes my wounds.
The Holy Rosary is a Catholic treasure. It is not a devotion exclusively to Our Lady. Rather, it is a Christocentric meditative prayer. Throughout the church history, many saints bore witness to the sanctifying power of this form of prayer. Through this particular form of praying, we are able to remember Christ with Mary, to learn from him, to be conformed with him, to pray to him and to proclaim him to the world. All along, Our Lady is accompanying us.
Traditionally, the Rosary was divided into three groups of 5 mysteries each, contemplating the incarnation (the 5 Joyful Mysteries), the passion (the 5 Sorrowful Mysteries) and the glory (the 5 Glorious Mysteries) of our Lord Jesus Christ. To deepen our faith in Jesus, the late Pope John Paul II introduced 5 significant events in the public ministry of Jesus before his Passion, called the 5 Mysteries of Light in 2002. He proclaimed the year from October 2002 to October 2003, the Year of the Rosary.
Nobody can come closer to Jesus than his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary who takes care of us like her children. She helps us to become more like Christ, her son. So, let us become more prayerful and contemplate the mysteries of Christ through saying the Rosary. Amen.