The devotion of the rosary consists in the recital of a fixed number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys, combined with the meditation on certain mysteries from the lives of Jesus and Mary.  The name rosary is significant.  It is a symbol of Mary, also of the devotion to her.  We will endeavor to make this clear.

The realm of nature is the symbol of the realm of grace, as the realm of grace is a symbol of the realm of glory.  It was God’s intention to let His earthly creation be a reflection of the divine perfections, of the supernatural, of divinity, so that man might perceive the supernatural through created things, and thus more readily understand it.  “For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. i, 20).

Our first parents obtained a clear conception of the supernatural through the natural things of this life.  Nature was to them an open book, in which they could read the divine perfections.  Through sin the understanding of man was dimmed and he failed in the interpretation of nature.  Instead of being led to God through it, he allowed himself to become estranged, and from a master became the slave of nature.

Then Christ came and redeemed the world from the slavery of sin and again granted to man the clear conception of the true God, as also the right understanding of nature.  This is verified in the saints and we have a beautiful example in St. Francis of Assisi.  About his interpretation and meditation of nature St. Bonaventure says:  “He considered all things created as original from God, and saw in each creature the Creator and Preserver.”

Everything in nature was to him a symbol of spiritual life.  He took delight especially in flowers, because they reminded him of the flower from the root of Jesse, which refreshens and gladdens the whole world.

See, my dear brethren, this is the correct, the Christian way of contemplating nature.  The spiritual world is reflected in the visible.

And Jesus being the King and Mary the Queen in the realm of grace and glory, nature contains symbols that refer to Jesus and Mary.  All things of this creation:  from the flowers of the valley to the brilliant stars that illumine the night, all things in nature are symbols of the glorious mother of God.  Among many such symbols used in Holy Scripture we find Mary called the mystical rose.  The Church therefore regards the rose as a symbol of Mary.  Let us see in what the likeness consists.

If on a summer’s day we enter a garden, where various flowers through their form, color and sweet odor delight and refresh us, our eye is chiefly attracted by the rose.  We are especially well pleased with it.  The rose is the queen of flowers in form, color and fragrant odor, because of its beauty.

Let us turn now our gaze to the spiritual garden, the Church of Christ.  The various flowers there are the faithful, adorned with piety and virtue, and spreading the fragrance of saintliness with which God is pleased.  In the Canticle of Canticles the Lamb of God is pictured as feeding among the lilies.  A beautiful thought!  It tells us how the Lamb of God, our divine Saviour, is fond of the flowers of God, the God-loving souls, as is the lamb of the lilies.