Praying the Rosary
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
PRAYING THE ROSARY WORTHILY
It is not so much the length of a prayer as the fervor with which it is said which pleases God and touches his heart. A single Hail Mary said properly is worth more than a hundred and fifty said badly. Secret of the Rosary, 41st Rose – St. Louis de Montfort.
PRAYING THE ROSARY
One of the “privileges” of a young boy preparing the altar for worship and liturgy, was permission to leave the public recitation of the Rosary after three decades. This was to allow time to prepare the charcoal and incense for the Benediction which was to follow. This “privilege” has a high value!
Then the Rosary seemed long, repetitious and boring. Objectively, we knew it as a prayer honoring what God had done in Christ through Mary, but, subjectively, it seemed far too long.
Now, years later, I carry a Rosary in my pocket always and say the prayer each day. At times, I still find public recitation wearisome. This appears to be a common experience for many who try to pray this prayer. Some come to feel ambivalent, when not antagonistic, towards the Rosary. They recognize its value for many people, but struggle to come to terms with it themselves.
Pope Paul VI gives the best overall guidance. “The Rosary is an excellent prayer, but the faithful should feel serenely free in its regard. They should be drawn to its calm recitation by its intrinsic appeal” (Marialis Cultus 55). How then can we be drawn to this prayer? What is its intrinsic appeal?
GOSPEL BASED
The Rosary is a Gospel-based prayer. Its pattern from Annunciation to Coronation, through the joyful, sorrowful, illuminous, and glorious mysteries, not only adheres strictly to the’ chronological order of the facts, but above all reflects the plan of the original proclamation of the faith . . .“ (MC 45). It is a reflection on what God has done in Christ through the Spirit, “. . . as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord” (MC 47). Time in Our Lady’s company, in that context, self-evidently can help deepen our appreciation of the Gospel.
We can place ourselves imaginatively within a mystery for five successive decades. We can be open to absorbing something of
what it contains – “. . . that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy”. (Lk. 1:43- 4 ).
To reinforce this link and help counteract the alleged tedium of recitation, sometimes readings from the Gospel text are interwoven between the decades. So the account of the visit to Elizabeth, for example, will be read before reciting that particular decade.
Original art work from the Queen of All Hearts Magazine.
Bernadette Soubirous first met Our Lady at the grotto at Lourdes. She was afraid. She said; “I put my hand in my pocket I took out the Rosary which I always carry with me”. This undernourished, asthmatic fourteen-year old girl, was collecting firewood to help her family. She spoke only the local dialect, and was unable to read. Bernadette had not yet made her first communion. Yet in that instinctive act of putting her hand into her pocket for her Rosary, she was immediately in touch with a transcendent dimension of reality many might envy. The reassuring presence of ’the little girl” she saw, blessed her and countless others like her. The company of Mary, as we take her beads in hand, may do as much for us.
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ADDITIONS POTENTIALLY RISK CLUTTERING THE PRAYER
Some add further “trimmings” to the Rosary. They can almost smother the underlying prayer with additional reflections and intentions. I have been present where artist’s impressions of the mysteries of Our Lady’s life were projected on to the walls of the chapel, These were meant as a focus for prayer.
Some of this is helpful. None of it is wrong, but I would make a plea for the plain unvarnished recitation of the five decades; with the minimum of introduction, the risk in adding to the Rosary, even if trying to bring out its Gospel base, is that the prayer may become unfocused. It is too cluttered. There are too many targets. Following these leads may be constantly distracting. Our attention rarely settles as we are called back to the surface for yet another consideration. We tend to be always breaking concentration. The prayer can turn into a collection of fragments requiring individual attention, rarely adding up to the sum of its parts.
CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
A better way possible, and closer to the Rosary’s intrinsic appeal, is to respect its structure. “By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering Pace . . .”. (MC 47). There is the key to the Rosary. Repetition is the point. The prayer is meant to strike a constant note. If my being is at one with the rhythm of recitation as I pray the Rosary, in the familiar words and reassuring presence of Our Lady, a climate is being prepared which may allow the Holy Spirit within me to invite me to go deeper.
GOING DEEPER
This may take time. It has to be learned. It is something to grow into. Possibly, because we are rarely stable in one place, we may find it hard to concentrate or be still. It is unlikely then that mind and body will attend to God just when we want to pray. We cannot switch attention on like a light. We may have to learn that “God is always at home with us, unless we are out walking with the five senses”. I pray as I am.
Perhaps the problem in praying the Rosary is that it is chiefly a contemplative prayer, and that does not come easily to us in today’s climate. Yet if we persevere with the prayer as an expression of a present, personal relationship in faith, our insight may become progressively simpler. Rather than trying to recall evocative memories, no matter how lovely, within the repetitive pattern of the prayer, we may be drawn in awe and adoration to a present realization of the underlying reality – God giving himself in Christ through the Spirit and Mary. Something near to the core of our Christian being is engaged as we integrate Gospel and life. Adoration may be the basic response.
It is all of a piece. The insight becomes simpler as “the succession of Hail Marys constitute the warp on which is woven the contemplation of the mysteries . .” (MC 46). There is no need to unpick the stitches. Just go with the rhythm of the prayer. There lies its intrinsic appeal. The deeper we go in wonder the more likely are we to surface in adoration.
IN THE PRESENCE . . .
If then we are to relax sufficiently to be at one with the quiet rhythm and lingering pace of the Rosary – ideally to pray as we breathe – we should learn just to BE with Mary and therefore under “the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord” (MC 47). It is like putting on a coat to go for a walk with a friend. The uncomplicated company of Mary is not the least of the attractions of this prayer. As we take up the beads just to be with her, we reflect with her – in our case in faith – the glory of God in the face of Christ.
The Holy Spirit whose creative presence overshadows Mary is in us too, since we are one in Christ with her through baptism. In her company – ”that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” – the Spirit can lead us deeper within ourselves into the reality of a God graced life. She is not a distraction. Mary, whose being glorifies and rejoices in God her savior, and in what he has done for her, can onto help draw us to what she now sees.
. . . OF MARY
Rather than surrounding the Rosary with so much to ward off boredom, much better surely within the uninterrupted rhythm of the prayer, to give ourselves time to be in her company and then see where it leads. In time, the sound of her name may do as much for us as the sound of her voice in greeting did for Elizabeth “the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit”. (Lk. 1:41). The insight of faith can be enriched by her contemplative presence.
This approach perhaps, is in line “.. . with the need to point out once more the importance of a further essential element in the Rosary, in addition to the value of the elements of praise and petition, namely the element of contemplation. Without this the Rosary, is a body without a soul, and its recitation is in danger of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas . . ” (MC 47).
Bernadette Soubirous first met Our Lady at the grotto at Lourdes. She was afraid. She said; “I put my hand in my pocket I took out the Rosary which I always carry with me”. This undernourished, asthmatic fourteen-year old girl, was collecting firewood to help her family. She spoke only the local dialect, and was unable to read. Bernadette had not yet made her first communion. Yet in that instinctive act of putting her hand into her pocket for her Rosary, she was immediately in touch with a transcendent dimension of reality many might envy. The reassuring presence of ’the little girl” she saw, blessed her and countless others like her. The company of Mary, as we take her beads in hand, may do as much for us.
The Queen:
Vol. #011 – November 2021
