A Catholic thing – the rosary of course. These were the mysteries introduced by JP 2 in 2002, as a way of filling in the time between the Joyful Mysteries (birth of Christ) and the Sorrowful Mysteries (death of Christ).
I always presumed John Paul put them together but evidently he took them from this guy – St. George Preca of Malta, who wrote them in 1957.
His feast was a couple of days ago.
Saint George Preca (1880 – 1962)He was born in Valletta, Malta, the seventh of nine children. He was ordained a priest in 1906. Horrified at the level of religious ignorance among the people, he set up the Society for Christian Doctrine in 1907. This was a society of laymen who would teach the catechism to the people while receiving instruction themselves. This was unheard-of at the time, and it took twenty-five years and much tension with the Church authorities (including at one point the closure of the Society s houses) before the Society s existence was officially approved. Today the Society has over a thousand members and is responsible for the teaching of some 20,000 young people in the Maltese islands, the UK, Australia, Peru, Albania, Kenya and the Sudan.
He lived a life of perfect unworldliness and evangelical poverty. He composed the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary in 1957. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 3 June 2007, being described as Malta s second father in faith after St Paul.
Leave a Reply