Robert Ignatius Bradley (1924-2013) was born in Spokane, Washington, into a family of eight children, including three brothers who became priests. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1941 and was ordained a priest in 1955. He had two doctorates, one from Columbia University in New York and the other from the Angelicum in Rome. A careful and rigorous scholar, Bradley taught history and theology at Gonzaga University, Seattle University, the University of Dallas, Christendom College, and the FSSP’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska. He was also active in pastoral work. For almost ten years Father Bradley was the chaplain of the Poor Clare Nuns in Alexandria, Virginia, whom he affectionately called his “little brown sparrows” on account of the color of their habits. And for thirty years he was chaplain of Catholics United for the Faith, which he helped to found.
Ironically, Father Bradley remained a faithful Jesuit by steering clear of his confreres, once confessing to a friend that he sought assignments apart from the community because living with his fellow Jesuits “would only likely destroy him and his nerves, if not also his faith.” [1] The one happy exception to this rule was when he moved in with two other Jesuit titans of orthodoxy, Fathers John Hardon and Vincent Miceli, while they were all teaching at St. John’s University. Each priest had a telling and amusing reaction to the new dwelling:
Father Hardon immediately wanted to know where they were going to place the Blessed Sacrament; Father Bradley wanted to be sure that there was enough room on the provided book shelves for his military history volumes; and Father Miceli was especially concerned about the space and convenient conformation of the kitchen, so that he might regularly make for them his good pasta “al dente,” which, according to his cherished traditions, required some tossing aloft of the potentially desirable pasta. [2]
I first met Father Bradley when he was the chaplain of the Latin Mass community in Austin, Texas. His homilies were outstanding: thoughtful, orthodox, and geared to shed more light than heat on his traditionalist congregation. The only problem was that this brilliant man never quite mastered modern acoustics, speaking excitedly and quickly about his subject a mere centimeter away from the microphone. And on two occasions when announcing a tragedy, Father Bradley inadvertently forced a smile. In 2004 he asked us to pray for the 230,000 souls lost in the Indian Ocean Tsunami, even though, he confessed, he did not know what a tsunami was. On another Sunday, Father announced the tragic death of a young priest from the diocese who perished while vacationing with his family “on something that is apparently called… a ‘jet ski.’”
Father Bradley was also an extraordinary confessor. There was nothing pro forma about his administration of the sacrament. When he heard your confession, it felt as if you were the only one in the line: he was entirely attentive to your soul. Moreover, he somehow simultaneously made you see how ugly sin is and how much you should love God for forgiving you. Spending time with Father Bradley made you ache to be holy, as he was holy.
Happily, Father Bradley’s writing has the same salutary effect, as is evident in Our Lady’s Psalter: Reflections on the Mysteries of the Traditional Rosary. Published posthumously and lovingly edited by his dedicated niece Dr. Betty Borsage, O.S.F., the volume is unique even among the myriads of sound literature on the rosary, for it consists of a meditation not on each mystery of the rosary, but on each of the 150 Hail Mary’s that are in the decades of the traditional rosary. For example, the chapter on the first Joyful Mystery (the Annunciation) contains ten entries: the Immaculate Conception, the Birth of Mary, the Presentation of Our Lady, the Espousal of Our Lady, Nazareth, the Annunciation, Our Lady’s Discernment, Our Lady’s Fiat, the Incarnation, and the Mystery of the Annunciation. By the time you finish all 150 one-page entries, you have been thoroughly immersed into the Gospels.
The book is a byproduct of Father Bradley’s piety. Bradley had a deep devotion to Our Lady and prayed three rosaries a day (four, after the Luminous Mysteries were added). As Betty Borsage explains in the preface, the Holy Spirit spoke to Father Bradley as he prayed and meditated and, beginning in 1995, he began to take notes. By the time he finished in 2006, he had 150 hand-written reflections on a stack of yellow legal pads (he disliked computers). “Father Bradley considered these short essays to be his personal life-long love letter to our Blessed Mother,” Borsage relates. And as for the quality of this love letter, I would place Bradley in the same high category as Blessed Columba Marmion for his combination of brevity and exquisite profundity.
Before he died, Father asked Betty to promise him that she would get these meditations published because he believed that they would, with the help of our Blessed Mother, lead many souls back to Jesus. After much effort, she finally found the right home with Angelico Press, which is why they are now seeing the light of day twelve years after Bradley’s death. And as one has come to expect from Angelico, the volume is beautiful: handsomely bound, finely illustrated, and elegantly typeset.
In addition to the rich meditations on the lives of Our Lady and Our Lord, Our Lady’s Psalter includes an introduction by Father Bradley entitled “Modern Day Popes and the Holy Rosary: A Quest for Peace in the World.” As the subtitle suggests, Bradley canvases every Pontiff’s praise of the rosary from Leo XIII to Francis, and the one common theme he finds is the teaching that praying the rosary is essential to bringing peace to the modern world. To me, this was a revelation, as I tend to think of the rosary as a weapon against the devil on a personal and familial level, not as a fulcrum to peace on earth. Father Bradley’s introduction added international urgency to my daily recitation.
Our Lady’s Psalter affects everyone who reads it. I have learned from the publisher of Angelico Press that all the editors who worked on the manuscript were moved by its beauty and that she, the publisher, added these readings to her daily rosary. Online reviews show a similar impact:
What a gift this book has been for me! Father Bradley has inspired me to begin praying the Rosary again.
[This book] is really helping my prayer life… I find my mind and soul deeply reflecting on the words Father has written. Yes, these meditations were truly inspired by the Holy Spirit
Father Robert I. Bradley died on December 20, 2013, at the Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California at the age of 89. One hour later, he appeared to one of his many nieces, having possibly spent that hour, and that hour only, in Purgatory. His niece woke up and saw Father at the foot of her bed dressed in his black clerics. “Father Bobby, what are you doing here?” she asked. “You’re supposed to be in California.” He answered, “My body is in California, but I’m in Heaven, and it’s very beautiful and peaceful here.” Then he disappeared. Five hours later, she received a call informing her that her uncle had passed. The niece, who had grown lukewarm in her faith, began going to daily Mass after that.
Later that same day Father Bradley appeared to his niece Betty, the editor of Our Lady’s Psalter, as she was driving her car. Stopped at an intersection, Betty saw two men on donkeys in the middle of the crossing: Saint Joseph on a brown donkey and Father Bradley, dressed in white, on a white donkey. Both smiled at her before disappearing into thin air. When Betty got home, the phone was ringing. Answering it, she learned that her uncle had died hours earlier. Betty speculates that the vision involved donkeys because Father Bradley’s little brother Don died at the age of three from a burst appendix in 1932 on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, but before passing away, Don told his parents that Saint Joseph had visited him and told him he was taking him to Heaven to ride on his donkey.
Quite the family, and quite the man. I am confident that Our Lady’s Psalter will have the same effect on your heart and the hearts of your loved ones as a direct visit from this holy priest.
This review originally appeared in The Latin Mass magazine 34:4 (Christmas 2025), pp. 68-69. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its publication here.
Notes
[1] Hickson, Robert. “Remembering Father Robert Bradley, S.J. and His Distinctive Manner of Prudence.” Catholicism.org, February 8, 2014. Retrieved August 17, 2025 from https://catholicism.org/remembering-fr-bradley.html, p. 3.
[2] Hickson, p. 1.
