Here are the opening lines of Pope St John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter on the Rosary: ‘The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” (duc in altum!) in order once more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life”, “the goal of human history and the point on which the desires of history and civilization turn”’.

In our own lives, each of us is called to ‘set out into the deep’ of God’s call to us, at different times over the years. May our Lady help us to respond in faith and trust, and may God bless you this day.