“The purpose of these short meditations,” Balthasar writes of the present volume, “has been to free the prayer of the Rosary from a certain narrowness, alien to Mary’s own spirit and easily leading to monotony, and to nourish it, in a manner corresponding to her spirit, with the fullness of God’s saving thoughts and saving deeds for the world. Mary’s essence and efficacy in this prayer are founded on her mediation: between God and the world, between Christ and the Church, between spirit and flesh, between the two states of life in the Church, between the world of the saints and that of sinners. Mary stands at all crossroads pointing the way. But prayer to the Mediatrix has meaning only if what she is to mediate remains within the field of vision of the person praying: and this is the world’s salvation through Christ, the Son of God, our Lord, whom the Father gives to us and who, together with the Father, pours down the Holy Spirit into our hearts”.

From the “Concluding Note”