“My son, why dost thou leave me behind? Take me with thee and leave me not to mine enemies.”

As usual, I’m a bit late, but today’s saint, St. Hyacinth, has prompted me to write about the Enemy’s latest attack on the Holy Rosary.

The execrable publication The Atlantic published an absolutely sacrilegious screed against the Rosary. Frank Walker at Canon 212 first tipped me off to it by linking to a great piece at the One Mad Mom blog. My first thought was that the devil sure does hate the Rosary. The truth will out; the Truth is victorious over the Father of Lies. By this early salvo (not the first, of course) in the globalist freemasonic final push to antichrist, the enemy is compelled to tell us a very important truth: the Rosary is a weapon indeed. It is our weapon to defeat him. He doesn’t want us to use it. As Our Lady herself told us through her many apparitions, the Rosary is a most powerful weapon in the fight against satan and our protection against the loss of our own salvation. Can it be more obvious why satan hates the Rosary than to consider these words of Our Lady to Sr. Agnes at Akita?:

As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.

October 13, 1973

Mary earned and earns God’s favor through her many virtues, but perhaps most of all by her perfect humility. She is the great enemy of satan, who is destroyed through pride. We must pray the Rosary every day.

But, but… Why? Why this means? I don’t “get” anything out of it. It’s dry. I get more out of this or that devotion. Well, how about this? SHE wants it. HER SON wants it. How about we imitate her humility and in gratitude for this clear sign of our salvation, pray the prayer of the Rosary? Every day, as she asked. This powerful prayer (without prejudice to God’s omnipotence) is a sign of election. How many saints have told us so?

The interplay between the need to pray, particularly the Rosary, for our salvation and predestination is a mystery about which Mundabor wrote a thought-provoking post recently. I highly recommend it.

All this leads to our saint of the day, St. Hyacinth. The title of this post are the words she said to this great Dominican saint when the Mongols attacked Kiev. Consider this:

Saint Hyacinth is known to have performed numerous miracles. The one miracle that has been most associated with him was the result of the Tartars siege of the city of Kiev. Hyacinth gained a child-like and tender devotion to the Mother of God from Saint Dominic. To her he attributed his success, and to her aid he looked for his salvation. When Hyacinth was at Kiev, the fierce Tartars sacked the town. Hyacinth was celebrating the Mass and did not know of the onslaught and danger until the Mass ended. Without waiting to unvest, he took the ciborium in his hands and was fleeing the church. It is recorded that as he passed by an statue of Mary he heard a voice say, “Hyacinth, my son, why dost thou leave me behind? Take me with thee and leave me not to mine enemies.” Although the statue was made of heavy alabaster, Hyacinth took it in his arms and carried it away along with the ciborium with the Holy Eucharist. It is for this miraculous moment that Saint Hyacinth is most often depicted. The story continues that Hyacinth and the community that accompanied him came to the river Dnieper. There he urged them to follow him across the river. He led the way, and they all walked dry shod across the waters of the deep river, which then protected them from the fury of the Tartars. Polish historians are in agreement on this marvelous fact, although some of the writers confuse it with a similar crossing of the Vistula which happened earlier. A circumstance, which is recorded in connection with this miracle, renders it all the more remarkable. It is said that the footprints of the saint remained on the water, even after he had crossed the river; and that, when the stream was calm, they could be seen for centuries afterwards.

source

St. Hyacinth, member of the order of St. Dominic, to whom she gave the Rosary, a Saint invoked in hopeless cases, gives us the advice he himself heard in similarly dangerous times. He urges us to hear the words of Our Lady: “My son, why dost thou leave me behind? Take me with thee and leave me not to mine enemies.”

My own road to the particular judgement fills me with dread, but almost certainly not enough dread. I came late to doing anything to try to pray the Rosary daily. I say it poorly, and I am so easily distracted. But Mary has taken pity on me and patiently cares for me, protects me, and hits me over the head as often as I need it, without tiring. I know for a fact that if it were not for her I would have no chance to make it to Heaven. And yet, here she is, inviting, imploring me to continue to pray the Rosary every day. To go back to confession. To assist at Mass and receive the Sacraments while we have them. Because in the end, the only arms which will remain for us are the Rosary and the sign left by her Son.

The Rosary is a weapon? You better believe it is.

Use it.