Introduction

In the recent Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the Holy Father John Paul II once more urged Christian families to pray in their home by reciting the Rosary: "We need to return to the practice of family prayer and prayer for families, continuing to use the Rosary" (n. 41). Already at the end of the Great Jubilee he had said:  "it is especially necessary that listening to the word of God should become a life-giving encounter, in the ancient and ever valid tradition of lectio divina, which draws from the biblical text the living word which questions, directs and shapes our lives ... we must rekindle in ourselves the impetus of the beginnings and allow ourselves to be filled with the ardour of the apostolic preaching which followed Pentecost" (Novo Millennio ineunte, nn. 39 and 40).