Fr. James B. Lloyd: Reflections on the Rosary

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*Image: Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio, 1603 [Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna].

By Fr. James B. Lloyd, The Catholic Thing, Aug. 21, 2022

Fr. James B. Lloyd, CSP, Ph.D. is a Paulist priest living in New York. He is the author of Addressing the Unmentionable: Catholicism and Same-Sex Attraction.His collection oF essays, Reflections of a Dinosaur Priest, is now available. At the age of 101, Fr. Lloyd is the oldest living Paulist priest.

When I was a child, I knew nothing of the glorious cathedrals dedicated to Our Blessed Mother. I never heard of Notre Dame de Chartres or the more famous Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cité de in Paris. I never knew of the towering music of Mozart and Schubert and Gregorian chant which incarnated the love of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) into sensible, exalted forms. I never heard of the Alma Redemptoris Mater or the Salve Regina or the Tota Pulchra Est, Maria.

I never heard of Wordsworth’s famous line, “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast,” which he, a Protestant, applied to Mary, this Mother of the Lord. I never saw the magnificent statuary in the Metropolitan Museum of Art concretizing the Catholic love of Mary. I never heard of the Pietà of Michelangelo depicting the beauty of the Mother of God. …

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