Dear St. Rita Families,
This week begins October, the month of the Holy Rosary. I am a big fan of this tried and true, very effective devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pope Leo is too, it turns out! This past Wednesday, September 24, he invited all Catholics around the world to pray the rosary for peace daily during the month of October, even inviting all employees of the Vatican to pray it together each evening at 7:00 PM in St. Peter’s Basilica. Bishop Burbidge has echoed the Pope’s call, reminding us that it is “a sure path to peace, conversion, and a deeper love of Christ.”
Entering into the rosary fruitfully, as a meditative prayer, can sometimes be a challenge even for life-long Catholics. I get bored. I get distracted. I feel like I am just repeating myself. It’s just hard. All of these difficulties are not reasons to avoid the rosary. They are on some level just natural pitfalls that invite me to deeper attentiveness, meditation, and contemplation. The first thing that is necessary if we are truly going to pray is that we pause. If the rosary is as fast paced as the rest of my life, then there is certainly not going to be real meditation. Meditation likewise requires attentiveness, and so if I am attentive only to finishing it as quickly as possible, again there will be no real meditation. A water skier stays on top of the water only if he is being pulled quickly; otherwise, he sinks in. While moving quicky is necessary for water skiing, when we pray the rosary, we want to sink into the Mysteries, and this requires an intentional stillness.
When you announce each Mystery, it can be good to pause for about 3-4 seconds, to allow yourself a moment to form an image of the Mystery in your mind. This is a good starting point for your meditation on the Mystery, especially because images can be so rich – 1000 words, as they say. The Hail Marys you pray are not meant to distract from the Mystery, but rather to add texture. They are like background music that make your contemplation more rich, because you are seeing through the eyes of Our Lady, noticing what She notices, so that your relationship with God might be deepened.
In the short period of 2-3 minutes for each Mystery, you won’t have to worry about plumbing the depths of all things, but you will have the chance to contemplate and gaze upon an aspect of the Mystery. You will enter into it, and it will enter into you, and thus you are enriched and edified in a multitude of ways. The various events of the lives of Jesus and Mary are the foundation of our redemption, salvation, and exaltation. Spending time with those events to see more clearly not only their place in the economy of salvation, but also how they can affect my life now is something that conforms me to their goodness, shapes me into Christ, and enables me to receive the graces won for me at that moment of Our Lord’s life.
When you start each Mystery with an image, you can likewise place yourself in that image. This practice helps you to experience that aspect of the Mystery more fully. Using the imagination in this way opens us up to receive the Truth of the events recalled in each Mystery, so that by remembering, the Mystery itself might be made present within me. Hopefully, you can see how in this way the rosary isn’t just “counting beads” or rushing through 50+ Hail Marys; it is meant to be real meditation and even contemplation that is not only edifying in the moment, but which also expresses your devotion to and confidence in Mary, our Mother. She loves to hear from Her children, and She is so close to Our Lord that He gives Her whatever She asks for.
So, whether you are praying 5 decades daily, or 15 or 20 (meditating on Jesus’ life with Mary is never not fruitful), remember to include peace as one of your intentions. Mary’s request to the 3 children at Fatima was to pray the rosary for the conversion of sinners and for peace. Even if we are bit behind the power curve – 108 years after the Fatima apparitions – the Queen of Peace, Our Blessed Lady, and Her Immaculate Heart will triumph!
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen