WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TWO MEN WHO SHARED CHRIST’S CROSS?
Simon of Cyrene and the Good Thief shared in Christ’s suffering on Calvary. What can their encounters with the Cross teach us about our own?
On September 14, we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. We know that the Cross changed the world. But have you ever thought about what happened to the men who actually shared in Christ’s suffering that day?
Simon of Cyrene hadn’t planned to carry Jesus’ Cross.
He was passing by when the soldiers seized him and “laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus” (Luke 23:26). Suddenly, Simon found himself walking behind a condemned man, carrying the very wood upon which Christ would die.
Scripture doesn’t tell us what Simon thought or whether that encounter led to his conversion. It does leave us wondering what happened after that walk to Calvary. Simon did not seek out the cross. It was thrust upon him, much as the crosses in our own lives often are. Yet in carrying Christ’s Cross, Simon was brought into an intimacy with His suffering that he would likely not have chosen for himself.
Life of Christ Icon Cross – 7.3″
The Life of Christ Icon Cross, made in Italy, features a unique quatrefoil design with brilliantly colored scenes from Jesus’ life, including Christ Pantocrator at the center.
Then there was another man who shared Christ’s suffering even more literally.
The Good Thief was crucified beside Jesus. Unlike Simon, he deserved his sentence, and he admitted it. Yet as he suffered beside Christ, his heart was converted, and he said:
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).
And from the Cross came the answer: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The Good Thief could do nothing to change his past. He couldn’t climb down from his cross and begin again. He could only turn toward Christ from the cross he was already carrying.
This is a powerful image as we contemplate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
We don’t often choose our crosses. Simon didn’t. But sometimes we create them through our own choices, as the Good Thief had.
But whatever crosses we bear, and we will bear them, we can make them an opportunity to unite with the suffering Christ, and this changes everything.
Today’s Takeaway
“STAY CLOSE TO THE CROSS”
Simon and the Good Thief remind us that a cross we never wanted can become the very place where we encounter Christ most closely.
WHAT IS THE “SWORD OF ST. MICHAEL”?
Besides being the fatal instrument that the archangel uses against the devil…
…the “Sword of St. Michael” is an invisible line that links seven of the world’s most significant sites dedicated to him.
The line begins in Ireland and stretches all the way to Israel. It’s an incredibly straight, tidy line and measures somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 miles.
St. Michael Bronze Finish Statue
This elegant St. Michael statue captures the strength and power of St. Michael the Archangel, making it a perfect addition to any home or office.
Let’s take a quick tour of its holy sites.
1. County Kerry, Ireland – Skellig Michael. Yes, this is the Irish island you see in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The real Jedi (i.e. contemplative Irish monks) established their habitation here in the 6th century.
2. Cornwall, UK – St. Michael’s Mount. The holy Anglo-Saxon King St. Edward the Confessor gave this place on the tail-tip of Cornwall to the monks of Mont Saint-Michel Abbey in Normandy, who sent a band to establish the new community. Like the French original, it is regularly cut off from the mainland by tides.
3. Normandy, France – Mont-Saint-Michel. Speaking of the French original, that’s our next stop! According to legend, St. Michael instructed a local bishop to build a monastery on this rocky mount in the 8th century. Today, 3 million people visit this instantly-recognizable site every year.
Mont-Saint-Michel, France
4. Turin, Italy – Sacra di San Michele. A stop for pilgrims on their way to stop #5, this shrine was founded about the year 1000 A.D. by the Benedictines in the breathtaking Italian Alps. (Their website has some incredible videos and images! https://sacradisanmichele.com/)
5. Monte Sant’Angelo, Italy – Sanctuary of St. Michael. This famous shrine is located underground, in a cave where the Archangel appeared in the 5th century—his earliest appearance in the western world. Revered by saints, popes, and countless pilgrims through the ages, it is located close to San Giovanni Rotondo, whose great saint—Padre Pio—was among its devotees.
6. Panormitis, Greece – Monastery of Taxiarchis Mihail Panormitis (“Michael the Commander of the Bodiless Armies”). Located on the island of Symi, this sanctuary was founded in the 5th century and contains a giant (two meters high!) icon of the saint. They say this icon was moved several times but always miraculously came back to its original location.
7. Mount Carmel, Israel – Stella Maris Monastery. The Carmelite Order began on Mount Carmel in the 13th century, but prayer warriors resided there long before that. It has been a holy place since biblical times (Elijah performed his famous contest with the pagan priests here back in the 9th century B.C. See 1 Kings 18:20-40). It does not have a sanctuary specifically dedicated to St. Michael, but its profound sanctity, holy history, and connection to Elijah (another great warrior of God, who is represented by a flaming sword in the Carmelite coat of arms) make it a fitting finale to this transcontinental pilgrimage.
Can you imagine visiting ALL SEVEN in a row? Now that would be one epic journey! They really should have an award for that. Do you think you could do it?
Today’s Takeaway
“REMEMBER WHO FIGHTS WITH US”
The “Sword of St. Michael” stretches across thousands of miles, a striking reminder of a devotion that has crossed centuries and cultures, and of the powerful archangel Christians have long called upon for protection in spiritual battle.
Amazing new evidence for Christ’s Tomb found exactly where Christians said it was!
Archaeological discoveries beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre reveal cultivated land and rock-cut tombs remarkably consistent with St. John’s account of Christ’s burial place.
For centuries, Christians have traveled to Jerusalem to kneel before the tomb of Jesus Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Now archaeologists have spent several years digging beneath the ancient church. And what they have found is remarkably similar to what St. John described nearly 2,000 years ago.
The Gospel tells us:
“Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid.” (John 19:41, RSV-CE)
According to archaeologists from Sapienza University of Rome, the area beneath the Holy Sepulchre was originally a stone quarry. As portions of the quarry fell out of use, some areas were filled with soil and cultivated, while tombs were cut into the rock nearby.
In a Newsweek article from August 28, 2026:
“Archaeologists found evidence of an ancient burial ground and cultivated landscape beneath Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the excavation’s leader said, potentially strengthening the site’s connection to biblical accounts of Jesus Christ’s burial.”
In other words, before the magnificent church stood there, there were cultivated fields and rock-cut tombs, a landscape remarkably similar to the garden and tomb St. John describes.
Prof. Francesca Romana Stasolla, the archaeologist leading the excavations, made the connection herself in a 2025 interview with The Times of Israel:
“The Gospel mentions a green area between the Calvary and the tomb, and we identified these cultivated fields.”
Stasolla has been careful to distinguish between what archaeology can establish and what belongs to faith. But it is no doubt remarkable where all of this evidence is being found.
Christians didn’t wait for modern archaeologists to tell them where to look.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has stood on this site since the fourth century, when Emperor Constantine built a great Christian complex around the locations already identified with Christ’s Crucifixion and burial. Constantine’s builders isolated the particular rock-cut tomb that was being venerated as Christ’s tomb from other burials around it.
And now, some 1,700 years later, archaeologists have been able to investigate what lies beneath the floors of that ancient church.
The archaeologists have found a former quarry. Cultivated ground. Rock-cut tombs. And a landscape that fits with St. John’s description of the place where Christ was crucified and buried.
Perhaps just as fascinating is what the excavation tells us about the generations of Christians who came before us.
“The real treasure we are revealing is the history of the people who made this site what it is by expressing their faith here,” Stasolla told The Times of Israel in April 2025.
She also made the following observation:
“Whether someone believes or not in the historicity of the Holy Sepulchre, the fact that generations of people did is objective.”
This isn’t the first time archaeology has supported a tradition that Christians have held for centuries.
In the twentieth century, archaeologists dug beneath St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, another place where Christian tradition had preserved the memory of a burial for centuries. Beneath the church, they discovered an ancient Roman necropolis and evidence surrounding the traditional burial place of St. Peter.
Then there is St. Paul.
At the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, archaeologists uncovered a large marble sarcophagus beneath the papal altar, in the place ancient Christian tradition had long identified as the Apostle’s tomb. When tiny fragments of bone from inside the sarcophagus were carbon-dated, they were found to belong to someone who lived in the first or second century A.D.
Pope Benedict XVI announced the results in 2009, saying that they “would seem to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition” that these were the mortal remains of St. Paul.
And now we have another remarkable archaeological chapter beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
For centuries, Christians have called this place holy because they believed that here Christ was crucified, laid in the tomb, and rose again. As researchers uncover the ancient landscape beneath the church, what they are finding continues to fit the place the Gospels describe.
In the end, the name says it best. This truly is holy ground. Not because of what archaeologists have found beneath it, but because of what Christians have believed happened here nearly 2,000 years ago:
Christ was laid in a tomb. And on the third day, He left it empty.
The Fisherman’s Tomb: The True Story of the Vatican’s Secret Search tells the extraordinary story of the secret excavations beneath St. Peter’s Basilica and the search for the Apostle’s remains. Discover more about this amazing story in your own copy from The Catholic Company today!
7 surprising ways your guardian angel can help you
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this list is how it helps us to recognize how often we probably underutilize the help God has given us.
Most of us probably learned the Guardian Angel Prayer as children. We may still pray it today. But how often do we actually ask our guardian angel for help with the ordinary circumstances of our lives?
The Church teaches that from infancy to death, human life is surrounded by the angels’ watchful care and intercession. Our guardian angels are not simply there to protect us from physical danger. Their concern is ultimately for something much greater: helping us get to heaven.
In our Good Catholic series Angels and the Supernatural, we looked at seven ways Catholic spiritual writers have traditionally described the help of our guardian angels. Some may surprise you.
1. They protect us from dangers to body and soul.
We often think of guardian angels protecting us from accidents, but their care extends to our souls as well. They can help us recognize and avoid situations that might lead us into sin.
2. They help us fight temptation.
St. John Bosco gave wonderfully practical advice: “When tempted, invoke your angel.” Rather than trying to fight temptation entirely on our own, we can immediately ask our guardian angel for assistance.
3. They encourage us toward what is good.
Guardian angels can inspire holy thoughts and encourage us toward prayer, charity, and virtue. St. John Vianney said, “The Angels take great pleasure in helping us with our enterprises, when they are in accordance with God’s will.”
4. They can help us recognize spiritual danger.
That uncomfortable interior nudge telling us to leave a situation, reconsider a choice, or turn away from something harmful shouldn’t always be ignored. Our guardian angels desire our holiness and can help alert us to dangers to our souls.
They can even help us prepare for Confession. Fr. John Horgan, author of His Angels at Our Side, suggests asking our guardian angels to assist us in our examination of conscience.
5. They pray with us and for us.
Our guardian angel can be a wonderful prayer companion. St. Augustine taught that the angels pray for us, interceding that we might receive God’s mercy and grace. When prayer is difficult or we’re carrying a particularly heavy cross, we can ask our angel to pray alongside us.
6. They assist us at the hour of death.
Our guardian angel’s mission doesn’t end when life becomes difficult or frightening. Catholic tradition speaks particularly of the angel’s assistance at the hour of death, when we most need spiritual protection and help.
7. Their care can continue even after death.
Catholic spiritual tradition also speaks beautifully of guardian angels consoling souls in Purgatory and accompanying them until they enter heaven.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this list is how it helps us to recognize how often we probably underutilize the help God has given us.
Our guardian angels already watch over us according to the mission God has entrusted to them. But because they respect our freedom, we can also intentionally invite their assistance. We can ask for help resisting a temptation, making a difficult decision, examining our conscience, praying well, or simply getting through an ordinary day faithfully.
And we can thank our guardian angels, too! Have you thanked yours lately?
You can learn more about the help of your guardian angels and about all of these heavenly creatures created by God in our Good Catholic series, Angels and the Supernatural.
The Personalized Guardian Angel Plaque is a particularly fitting reminder of that reality for a child’s room. Personalized with a child’s name, it makes visible something we can easily forget: God has entrusted each of us to the care of a heavenly guardian. Purchase one today at The Catholic Company!
Why is the Green Scapular a special means of Our Lady to rescue souls?
It’s a sacramental for those in need of conversion or healing.
Our Lady knows how hard we pray for our loved ones who have left the Faith. She knows how much we suffer alongside our friends and family who are dealing with physical or emotional afflictions.
She also knows that people in need of conversion are often closed to our attempts to lead them to the truth.
In 1840, she brought us a simple and powerful devotion to her Immaculate Heart, a devotion designed for such difficult (and delicate) situations.
On the Feast of her Nativity, September 8th, 1840, she appeared to Sister Justine Bisqueyburu in Paris. Sister Justine was a Daughter of Charity, the same order as St. Catherine Labouré who had received the Miraculous Medal just ten years earlier.
Our Lady appeared with her Immaculate Heart in her right hand and a scapular in her left. The scapular was really a cloth medallion rather than a true scapular, since it only had one piece of cloth. It depicted Our Lady on one side—her flaming Heart in her hands—and on the other, her Heart, pierced and flaming, rays coming forth from it, and a cross surmounting it. Around her Heart are the words:
“Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us, now and at the hour of our death.”
An interior voice told Sister Justine that God wished to establish in the world a greater and more tender devotion to the Immaculate Heart. Graces of conversion would abound for those who were devoted to her under this title and using the image Sister Justine saw.
Since it is not a form of a religious habit like other scapulars, there is no enrollment process—it needs only to be blessed by a priest. The person needing healing or conversion should wear it and say the above-quoted prayer to the Immaculate Heart every day.
Our Lady also explained that if the person in need is unable or unwilling to wear it, you can slip it—unbeknownst to them—into their belongings or home or work environment! (A wise Mother indeed!)
If (as in the case of someone unwilling to wear it) the intended wearer cannot or will not say the prayer, you can pray it for them.
Since the apparition, the Green Scapular has become famous for the conversions and healings Our Lady has effected through it. Some of the most common types of miracles associated with it include: healings of people on the brink of death or suicide, sudden wisdom and understanding in the midst of dangerous relationships or behaviors, and, most importantly, quiet or drastic changes of heart which lead people to (or back to) the Catholic Church.
If you have a friend or family member in need of spiritual conversion, enlightenment, or any kind of healing, place them in the safe haven of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Green Scapular is Our Lady’s special means of rescuing these souls—even when they don’t want to be rescued. This pack of 20 is available today at The Catholic Company!
What is St. Teresa’s Bookmark?
Discover the beautiful story behind St. Teresa’s Bookmark and its timeless reminder that, amid life’s uncertainties, God alone suffices.
It sounds like the name of a holy card or something you might tuck into your Bible.
But “St. Teresa’s Bookmark” is actually one of the most beloved little prayers in the Catholic tradition, and the story behind its name is wonderfully simple.
After St. Teresa of Ávila died in 1582, there is a story that a short poem written in her own hand was found tucked inside her breviary, the prayer book she used each day. That is how the words eventually became known as “St. Teresa’s Bookmark.”
You may recognize them:
“Let nothing disturb you;
nothing frighten you.
All things are passing.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God.
God alone suffices.”
It is remarkably short for a prayer that says so much.
St. Teresa lived during a tumultuous period in the Church. She also knew suffering personally. She endured serious illness, difficulties surrounding her reform of the Carmelite Order, criticism, opposition, and the ordinary struggles of the spiritual life.
Yet the words she apparently kept close at hand were very simple: everything else passes. But God doesn’t.
Her prayer has remained a beloved one. When something frightens us or life feels particularly unsettled, we tend to focus on the thing that is changing. St. Teresa turns our attention instead toward the One who never changes.
“God alone suffices.”
And apparently St. Teresa needed to remind herself of that, too.
These words were kept in her prayer book, and five centuries later, we put holy cards in our missals, Scripture verses on our desks, medals around our necks, and little reminders of the faith in the ordinary places where we will encounter them throughout the day.
Our Little Flower Lip Balm is inspired by another Carmelite, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who centuries after Teresa, would teach her own wonderfully simple way of trusting God. Available in rose or peppermint, it’s a small everyday item that can offer its own little reminder of the Carmelite spirituality both saints lived so beautifully: trust God in the ordinary moments of life. Find yours today at The Catholic Company!
What did St. John Bosco see in Hell?
St. John Bosco’s dream can remind us not to ignore those quiet invitations God places before us every day…
God wants us to know that hell is real, even if we are frightened by the idea of it. For many souls, fear of God is the first step to loving Him with all their heart. This is why, in addition to His warnings in Scripture, God has permitted many holy men and women to experience hell and to record these experiences for future generations.
St. Teresa of Avila, St. Faustina Kowalska, Sr. Lucia of Fatima, and others have left us remarkable accounts of what they experienced. But one particularly vivid description comes from St. John Bosco, who was shown hell in a dream.
Don Bosco spent his life ministering to vulnerable and troubled boys, many of whom were in danger of falling into crime and serious sin. It seems his frightening dream was not given to satisfy curiosity about hell. It gave him something he could use to warn the young souls God had entrusted to his care.
Many concerned the young men God had entrusted to his care. But one of the most disturbing took him somewhere none of us would ever want to go.
Hell.
Don Bosco spent his life ministering to vulnerable and troubled boys, many of whom were in danger of falling into crime and serious sin. In one famous dream, God permitted him to see the terrible consequences of souls continually rejecting His grace.
Bosco described crossing the threshold of an enormous cavern:
“As soon as I crossed [hell’s] threshold, I felt an indescribable terror and dared not take another step.”
He saw an immense cave filled with a terrible fire. Then he watched as boys began hurtling into it.
Horrified, Bosco asked his guide:
“When these boys come dashing into this cave, don’t they know where they are going?”
The answer may be the most important part of the entire dream:
“They surely do. They have been warned a thousand times, but they still choose to rush into the fire because they do not detest sin and are loath to forsake it. Furthermore, they despise and reject God’s incessant, merciful invitations to do penance.”
Notice those last words: God’s incessant, merciful invitations.
It’s easy to read St. John Bosco’s dream and come away frightened by the fire. But perhaps we should be more struck by the invitations.
God had not abandoned these souls. He had called them again and again.
So why doesn’t God just show all of us hell?
If seeing hell would scare us into changing our lives, why doesn’t God simply show everyone what St. John Bosco saw?
Our Lord gave St. Bridget of Sweden a remarkable answer:
“I could also open up hell so that everyone may see its torments, but this would not be justice, since all men would then serve me out of fear, when they should serve me out of love.”
—The Revelations of Saint Bridget of Sweden
God warns us about hell because he gave us free will. Jesus Himself spoke about hell. The Church certainly doesn’t pretend it isn’t real. But God doesn’t want a relationship with us based solely upon terror.
He wants our love.
St. John puts it beautifully:
“Perfect love casts out fear.”
—1 John 4:18
That is the part of Don Bosco’s frightening dream that we should remember. Hell wasn’t chasing those boys. God was chasing them.
He was warning them, calling them to repentance, offering grace, sending people such as Don Bosco into their lives, and giving them opportunities to turn around.
They remained free to say no. And so do we. But we are also free to say yes.
St. John Bosco’s dream can remind us not to ignore those quiet invitations God places before us every day: go to Confession, forgive someone, turn away from a particular sin, pray when we’d rather scroll, make the sacrifice, begin again. (Discover other mystics’ visions of Hell in the Good Catholic series, The Four Last Things.)
St. John Bosco’s vision reminds us that the spiritual battle is real. But it shouldn’t leave us frightened or preoccupied with the devil. It should make us more determined to stay close to Christ.
And we should make use of the spiritual weapons the Church has given us. The Gunmetal St. Benedict Paracord Rosary brings together two powerful Catholic sacramentals: the Rosary and the St. Benedict Medal. It is also a sturdy rosary made to be carried, used, and, most importantly, prayed. Discover yours today at The Catholic Company!
Why does the same suffering make one person bitter and another holy?
Venerable Fulton Sheen concludes with a powerful observation: “every sickbed, every hardship, and every cross we carry is, in a sense, on one side of Calvary or the other”.
The two thieves crucified beside Jesus had something in common. Both were guilty. Both were suffering. And both looked upon the face of Christ.
Yet only one turned their suffering into a path towards Christ.
As the Church prepares to celebrate the beatification of Venerable Fulton Sheen this September, it’s worth revisiting one of his most profound insights. He saw in the two thieves not merely two historical figures, but two possible responses to every cross we carry.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen reflected that the difference between the two men was not the amount of pain they endured. It was what they allowed their suffering to do to their hearts.
The thief on the left became bitter. He demanded that Jesus rescue him from the cross, but never recognized who hung beside him. His suffering became an occasion for anger.
The thief on the right saw something different.
As Fulton Sheen writes, “If pain had no reason, Jesus would not have embraced it. If the Cross had no purpose, Jesus would not have climbed it.” (The Cries of Jesus from the Cross).
The Good Thief understood that suffering united to Christ could become redemptive. Instead of asking to be taken down from the cross, he entrusted himself to the One hanging beside him.
Jesus’ response is one of the most consoling promises in all of Scripture:
“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Sheen concludes with a powerful observation: “every sickbed, every hardship, and every cross we carry is, in a sense, on one side of Calvary or the other”. We can allow suffering to make us bitter, or we can unite it to Christ and allow Him to transform it.
None of us seeks suffering. But when it inevitably comes, the Good Thief reminds us that we are never carrying our cross alone.
A crucifix is a powerful reminder of this truth. Our Italian Hand-Painted Crucifix beautifully depicts the sacrifice through which Christ transformed suffering into the path to eternal life. Displayed in your home, it gently reminds us that every cross finds its meaning in His. Find yours today at The Catholic Company!
What did St. Therese consider a mortification?
St. Thérèse reminds us that holiness grows through small sacrifices and quiet acts of love.
The word mortification can sound intimidating.
It can bring to mind saints fasting for days, sleeping on hard floors, or practicing severe penances. But St. Thérèse of Lisieux had a much simpler approach.
She once explained:
“When I speak of mortification, I don’t mean the kind of penance practiced by saints…There are great souls who practice every sort of mortification from childhood, but I am not like any of them. All I did was to break my self-will, check a hasty reply, and do little kindnesses without making a fuss about them—and lots of similar things.”
That’s a very different kind of mortification, and sometimes a more challenging one.
Holding back the irritated response. Doing something for someone when we’d rather not. Giving up our preference without announcing that we’ve done it. Performing a kindness and resisting the desire to be noticed for it.
These aren’t extraordinary acts. In fact, most people around us will never know we’ve done them. And that was precisely the point of St. Thérèse’s “Little Way.” She understood that holiness doesn’t necessarily require doing great things. It requires surrendering ourselves to God in the little things He places before us.
She explained it beautifully:
“Holiness is not a matter of any one particular method of spirituality: it is a disposition of the heart that makes us small and humble within the arms of God, aware of our weaknesses, but almost rashly confident in His Fatherly goodness.”
St. Thérèse quotations excerpted from Mornings with Saint Thérèse.
Thérèse knew her weaknesses. She wasn’t pretending they weren’t there. But instead of allowing them to discourage her, they made her depend even more completely on God.
That’s what makes her Little Way so encouraging. We don’t have to wait until we’re stronger, more disciplined, or somehow more “holy” to begin. The opportunities are already in front of us—in our marriages, our families, our workplaces, and probably within the first hour after we wake up!
St. Thérèse reminds us that we don’t have to wait for an extraordinary opportunity to become holy. We can begin with the next small thing.
Our Small Things Gingham Love Water Bottle carries that same reminder into everyday life. Inspired by St. Thérèse’s spirituality of doing small things with great love, it’s a simple reminder that even the most ordinary moments can be offered to God. Find yours today at The Catholic Company!
St. Thérèse quotations excerpted from Mornings with Saint Thérèse.
Why did Catholics start counting Hail Marys?
Long before the Rosary took its present form, monks prayed the 150 Psalms. Christians who could not read the Psalter began using repeated prayers instead, sometimes counting them with stones, knotted cords, or beads.
It might feel as though the Rosary has always been part of Catholic life. But it actually developed over centuries, and the story of how we came to pray those familiar beads helps explain what the Rosary is really meant to do.
At its heart, the Rosary is not simply a series of prayers to Mary. It is a way of contemplating the life of Jesus with His Mother.
And its beginnings take us back hundreds of years.
1. The Rosary grew out of an ancient practice of praying the Psalms
Long before the Rosary took its present form, monks prayed the 150 Psalms. Christians who could not read the Psalter began using repeated prayers instead, sometimes counting them with stones, knotted cords, or beads.
There’s even a little piece of history hidden in the word itself: our English word “bead” comes from the Old English bede, meaning “prayer.”
Eventually, 150 Hail Marys came to be known as Mary’s Psalter, echoing the 150 Psalms.
2. Tradition particularly connects the Rosary with St. Dominic
In the thirteenth century, St. Dominic was preaching against the Cathar or Albigensian heresy in southern France.
Catharism attacked some of the most fundamental truths of Christianity. Because its adherents considered material creation evil, they rejected the Incarnation and Christ’s true humanity, along with the significance of Mary’s motherhood.
According to the tradition recounted by St. Louis de Montfort in The Secret of the Rosary, Our Lady appeared to St. Dominic and instructed him to preach her Psalter of Hail Marys and Our Fathers.
De Montfort writes of what followed:
“In a very short time a great improvement was seen in the town; people began leading Christian lives and gave up their former bad habits.”
There is something particularly fitting about the Rosary becoming a weapon against a heresy that denied the goodness of the Incarnation.
Again and again, the Hail Mary returned Christians to the extraordinary truth:
God really became man.
3. Much of the Hail Mary comes straight from Scripture
This sometimes surprises people.
When we say:
“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”
we are repeating the words of the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation (Luke 1:28).
And when we continue:
“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…”
we repeat St. Elizabeth’s words at the Visitation (Luke 1:42).
The familiar second half, beginning “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,” developed later.
Venerable Fulton Sheen offered a particularly interesting insight into the words “now and at the hour of our death.” He connected their development with the devastation of the Black Death, when, as he put it, “the present moment and death were almost one.”
Imagine praying those words while disease swept through medieval Europe.
They probably sounded very different.
4. The Our Father puts Christ’s own prayer into every decade
Every decade begins with the prayer Jesus Himself taught His disciples.
Pope Benedict XVI explained that in teaching us the Our Father, Jesus does more than give us words to recite:
“He leads us into the interior dialogue of triune love.”
—Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth
So within each decade, we have Christ’s own prayer followed by the Scriptural words surrounding His Incarnation.
The Rosary is profoundly Christ-centered.
5. The Rosary we pray today took centuries to develop
The Rosary didn’t appear all at once in precisely the form we know today.
The Glory Be, an ancient Trinitarian doxology used by monks after praying the Psalms, eventually became part of each decade. The second half of the Hail Mary developed over time. Later still came devotional additions such as the Fatima Prayer.
And in 2002, Pope St. John Paul II proposed the five Luminous Mysteries, giving us additional mysteries from Christ’s public ministry to contemplate.
Yet the purpose has remained remarkably consistent.
As our fingers move across the beads and our lips repeat familiar prayers, our minds are meant to be contemplating Christ: His Incarnation, His ministry, His Passion, His Resurrection and glory.
Perhaps that’s why the Rosary has remained such a powerful Catholic prayer. Its repetition isn’t meant to be empty. It gives the mind and heart room to linger over the mysteries of Christ’s life.
St. Padre Pio famously called the Rosary:
“My weapon.”
And Pope Benedict XVI described it as a “spiritual weapon in the battle against evil.”
The Rose-Scented Red Wood Rosary offers a beautiful sensory reminder of the prayer traditionally associated with a “crown of roses” offered to Our Lady. With the gentle fragrance of roses accompanying the familiar movement from bead to bead, it can help draw us back to the real purpose of the Rosary: contemplating Jesus with Mary and allowing the mysteries of His life to take deeper root in our own. Purchase yours today at The Catholic Company!
Did Catholics add seven books to the Bible?
Long before there was a Catholic-Protestant debate about the Bible, Greek-speaking Jews were using a Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint.
If you’ve ever compared a Catholic Bible with a Protestant Bible, you’ve probably noticed something.
The Catholic Bible has 73 books. Most Protestant Bibles have 66.
So who changed it?
Catholics are sometimes accused of adding seven Old Testament books to Scripture. But a look at Christian history tells a different story.
Long before there was a Catholic-Protestant debate about the Bible, Greek-speaking Jews were using a Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. It included the books Catholics know today as Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
The writers of the New Testament overwhelmingly used the Septuagint.
In fact, the New Testament contains hundreds of quotations from or references corresponding to the Septuagint wording. There are even apparent allusions to the books later rejected by Protestants. Hebrews 11:35, for example, describes faithful people who were tortured and refused release in hope of “a better resurrection,” closely resembling the martyrdom account in 2 Maccabees 7.
So these books weren’t suddenly discovered by Catholics in the Middle Ages. They were already part of the Scriptures being read by early Christians.
By the fourth century, Church councils were formally listing the books Christians recognized as Scripture. The Council of Rome in 382 listed the books of the Catholic canon, followed by the Councils of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397.
That means Christians were recognizing these books as Scripture more than a thousand years before the Protestant Reformation.
So where did the 66-book Bible come from?
During the Reformation, Martin Luther questioned the seven Old Testament books and placed them in a separate section of his German Bible. Among his objections were passages supporting doctrines he rejected. One particularly important example is 2 Maccabees 12:44-46, which speaks approvingly of prayers offered for the dead.
Eventually, most Protestant Bibles omitted these books altogether.
The Catholic Church responded at the Council of Trent in 1546 by solemnly reaffirming the canon it had received and used for centuries.
So when someone asks, “Did Catholics add books to the Bible?”, the historical question worth asking is actually the reverse:
If these books were being read by Christians from the earliest centuries, when did Christians stop including them?
The answer comes much later than many people realize.
The Bible didn’t simply drop from heaven as a completed book with a table of contents. Christ entrusted His revelation to the Church, and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the early Church discerned which writings belonged in Sacred Scripture.
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