VATICAN CITY (CNS): As a US bombing campaign on Afghanistan continued last week, Pope John Paul II renewed his appeal to people around the world to pray the Rosary for peace ‘in this hour of grave worries’.
During a noon blessing on October 14, he asked the Church to raise ‘an insistent invocation of peace through the praying of the rosary – both in individual and community form – keeping the gaze fixed on Christ, our peace’.
Noting that October is traditionally dedicated to the Rosary, the Pope said ‘this beautiful prayer’ continues to speak to modern spiritual needs.
‘Contemporary spirituality feels the lively need to go, so to speak, to the essential.
For this reason a promising rediscovery of the Rosary is under way. It is a prayer that helps (one) stand in the company of Christ, to know him better, assimilate his teachings, live his mystery,’ he said.
Earlier in the month the Pope asked people to pray the Rosary daily to help protect humanity from the ‘evil scourge’ of terrorism.
On October 11, commemorating a month after terror attacks in the United States, the Pope led the Synod of Bishops in the recitation of the Rosary.
