THE
P RTAL
November 2017
Page 10
Thoughts on Newman
Memento Mori
The Rosary, Newman and memories
from The Revd Dr Stephen Morgan
E
very so often – though not nearly often enough – I give myself over to some act of conventional
piety. I wondered whether the most apocalyptic predictions about the hundredth anniversary of the
final appearance of Our Lady at Fatima might not just be right, so I thought to mark October, the month of
the Holy Rosary, with scrupulous attention to that “Gospel in miniature”, as Pope St John Paul II called it.
My devotion to the Rosary has, I admit, waxed and waned over the years, although my confessor is a great
devotee and never tires of proposing it as a cure for lack of fervour in prayer.
So, it was with these thoughts in mind
that I took up again the set of brown,
polished wooden beads that lie on
the table in my study next to my
Breviary. This Rosary was a present
to me thirty years ago when I began
(subsequently aborted) seminary
studies at Oscott. It had been given
to me by a dimunitive woman in
my home parish, into whose four
feet ten frame God had crammed
enough faith for someone twice the
size.
The Rosary had belonged to
her husband who had died some
years before, clutching them, as he
clutched them every night as he
prayer himse