The Rosary: O My Jesus

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy. Amen.

The ‘Fatima Prayer’ given by Our Lady to three young visionaries at Fatima, Portugal, has been included in the recitation of the Rosary since those visions in the early 1900s. Though the entire Rosary is a meditation upon the life of Christ this is the only prayer directed expressly towards him.

Each mystery of the Rosary unfolds the glories, joys and sorrows of Christ’s life. But more than this, through meditation the Christian soul is raised up into that Divine Life. It becomes an actual witness, seeing through the eyes of faith, to those miraculous things which happened long ago or beyond this world.

However, this lofty engagement is not always achieved. Sometimes the Christian uses spirituality as escapism from the world because it is a difficult place to be. This ‘failed’ spirituality feeds the image of the spiritual person as someone slightly ethereal someone who appears rather untenable. Spirituality, in this later sense, becomes less about God and more about us.

The Fatima Prayer can head off this false spirituality of escapism by appeal to the personal encounter with Jesus, the Word-Made-Flesh. When we speak to Jesus we speak to the one who bears his own wounds. How then can we try to hide ours? In speaking to Jesus we find that it is not just necessary, but good, to acknowledge the world around us and all its trials. In Jesus we see the immense importance the Father has placed on the world, which is the road we walk back to him.