A friend of mine recently told me he had the good fortune, when visiting Littlemore, to be offered a chance to pray the Rosary on Newman's own (pictured here).
With all this in mind, I searched the
Newman Reader – and I might gather together all I can find of Newman on the Rosary when I can – but for now I wanted to posted a selection from an address he made on 5 October 1879 to boys at Oscott College:
"Now the family is, even humanly considered, a sacred thing; how much more the family bound together by supernatural ties, and, above all, that in which God dwelt with His Blessed Mother. This is what I should most wish you to remember in future years. For you will all of you have to go out into the world, and going out into the world means leaving home; and, my dear boys, you don't know what the world is now. You look forward to the time when you will go out into the world, and it seems to you very bright and full of promise. It is not wrong for you to look forward to that time; but most men who know the world find it a world of great trouble, and disappointments, and even misery. If it turns out so to you, seek a home in the Holy Family that you think about in the mysteries of the Rosary. Schoolboys know the difference between school and home. You often hear grown-up people say that the happiest time of their life was that passed at school; but when they were at school you know they had a happier time, which was when they went home; that shows there is a good in home which cannot be found elsewhere. So that even if the world should actually prove to be all that you now fancy it, if it should bring you all that you could wish, yet you ought to have in the Holy Family a home with a holiness and sweetness about it that cannot be found elsewhere. This is, my dear boys, what I most earnestly ask you. I ask you when you go out into the world, as you soon must, to make the Holy Family your home, to which you may turn from all the sorrow and care of the world and find a solace, a compensation, and a refuge. [...] And when I speak of the Holy Family I do not mean Our Lord and Our Lady only, but St. Joseph too; for as we cannot separate Our Lord from His Mother, so we cannot separate St. Joseph from them both; for who but he was their protector in all the scenes of Our Lord's early life? And with Joseph must be included St. Elizabeth and St. John, whom we naturally think of as part of the Holy Family; we read of them together and see them in pictures together. May you, my dear boys, throughout your life find a home in the Holy Family; the home of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and St. John."
It's been a while since I last posted, but I thought I'd draw attention to a post on another blog (from last year). This post was actually precipitated by a question I posed to Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P. It reminds us that ALL indulgences were rescinded by virtue of Pope Paul VI's Indulgentarium Doctrina unless specifically renewed. Fortunately, a new set of indulgences were requested by, and confirmed for, the Rosary Confraternity – see http://www.rosary-center.org/nconobl.htm.
