Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Today the Church celebrates Our Lady of the Rosary, a feast that honors the mother of Jesus even as it invites us to meditate on the mysteries of Christ and our salvation. It is a feast that honors the mother of Jesus in a special way because she was deemed worthy to share in those mysteries of her son. While the recitation of the rosary is not a prayer addressed to Mary (for all prayer is addressed to God), her closeness to her son makes the rosary an effective way of asking for her intercession. The feast was established by Pope Pius V on April 30^th in thanksgiving for the victory at Lepanto, 7^th October 1571.
The rosary is a meditation on the life of Jesus Christ. However, it is also clear that Jesus’ mother features immensely in the meditation. This is clearly seen not only in some of the mysteries of the rosary but also in the prayer most repeated in the recitation of the rosary: the Hail Mary. The Hail Mary is a prayer that pays homage to Mary, a prayer whose origin is the content of our Gospel reading today.
The Gospel Reading for today’s feast recounts the visitation of Mary by the archangel Gabriel. The archangel hails Mary as ‘blessed,’ a greeting that surprises even Mary herself because of its unusualness. In what sense was Mary blessed? In what sense was she favored by God? She was not from a noble family background, and she was but a mere teenager. There weren’t many, if any, achievements that could be credited to her yet. How could she be blessed? What was the reason for the angel calling her blessed? Her uneasiness with the greeting was an indication that she needed some explanation.  
In his response, the archangel Gabriel tells Mary that she is blessed, not because of anything she had done or anything she was yet to do, but because the Lord had deemed it worthy to favor her (the favor of the Lord rested upon her). Mary was worthy of the Lord’s favor because the Lord had singled her out for an unrepeatable task: bringing forth into the world the author of salvation. And the Lord was proven right in selecting Mary for such a noble responsibility. For while Mary might not have been any different from the other girls who were of her own age, she demonstrated her being special in her openness to the Lord’s promptings. She was at liberty to say no to what angel Gabriel was proposing especially after learning what saying yes entailed. But she chose to trust in the Word of the Lord. Mary was favored by the Lord because of her openness to cooperate with the Lord. ‘I am your handmaid, may it be done unto me according to your will,’ she had said.
In our recitation of the rosary, may we pray for the grace to be able, like Mary, to open ourselves to the Lord and allow the Lord to use us as a vehicle for God’s blessings to the world. Like Mary, may we be able to perceive in our blessings God calling us to share in the Lord’s mission of saving souls. Amen.