INTRODUCTION:

THE ROSARY

The Rosary is one of those helps to prayer that has been around for a long, long time. Moslems take out their worry beads or their prayer mat when they want to pray. When Catholics reach for our rosary, we’re telling ourselves we want to pray.

Rosary beads are something to hold onto when we want to pray in the middle of the sorrowful moments of life – as well as in the joyful, glorious and light producing mysteries of life.

Life? It’s a mystery. We can’t see around corners. Sometimes the phone rings in the middle of the night and sometimes it rings in the middle of a meal. Sometimes it’s good news and sometimes it’s hard times ahead.

A question: is our song, “Ah sweet mystery of life….” or is, “Hard Times A’ Coming”?

Life….

“I have come that you might life and have it to the full.” (Cf. John 11:11b.)

“The secret of the kingdom of God is given to you …” (Cf. Mark 4:11.)

One of the secrets of life is the ability to balance our ability to look forwards and backwards. Life is both. When we are young, we do a lot of looking ahead; when we are old, we do a lot of looking back.

Remember Lot’s wife. It’s a great folktale – that contains a great truth. As the picturesque language of the Bible puts it, she turned into a pillar of salt – because she looked back. (Cf. Genesis 19:26.) Someone seeing natural salt sculptures in the landscape saw images of people. The creator of this story in Genesis 19 saw these salt formations as metaphors of people stuck in the past – stuck like salt in a salt shaker on a humid day.

It’s important to look back on our life – but we better not get stuck there. The ability to remember, reflect and reconsider is a skill to develop. In fact, it’s a key moment in life when we begin to do that – but we won’t know we are doing that till much later. We remember. We regret. We resent. We also celebrate and feel joy for our history – our stories, our accomplishments – our laughs.

When we are young it seems that all we notice is the windshield – the road ahead – “Are we there yet?” However, at some point we discover there are also a back window and a rear view mirror.

Life is both! And life is more. We crash or get hit – when we miss what’s ahead of us – what’s behind us – as well as what’s around us and what is catching up with us.
When we discover and rejoice about our mysterious powers of being able to see the past, imagine the future and do all this in the present moment, we are been at a key moment in our life.

Consciousness moments are key moments in life. Consciousness moments can be wonderful prayer moments.

Each life is different. I know someone who collects rosary beads. He has hundreds of different rosary beads. And he prays them.

Some questions: What is my life like? Is it like a strong chained rosary bead that never breaks? Or is it always breaking? And do I pray the mysteries of my life?

Many people might describe their life as a primitive rosary – a string with many knots. We don’t know how long the string of our life will be. We gladly tie a knot at some moments of life – especially those moments we want to hold onto. We want to always savor joyful, glorious, and enlightening moments in our life – those turning points that turned our life around. Then there are some moments, some knots, that we wish never happened. Those are those knots and mysterious moments and experiences when and where we got all tangled up – our life was really knotted up – moments when we made dumb decisions – moments we often try to untangle in order to understand the stuff and story of our life.

Each life is like a rosary – with many mysteries, many moments. It is worthwhile making those moments like beads we finger and rub and twist in prayer and reflection.

Praying the rosary can be a person’s attempt to connect their life with the life of Jesus and to see the similarities as well as the differences. Mary’s story is kept in mind to help us make the connections.

For centuries there were the traditional 15 mysteries of the Rosary: the 5 Joyful, the 5 Sorrowful, and the 5 Glorious Mysteries. In October of 2002, John Paul II added 5 more mysteries under the title of “The Illuminative or Light Giving Mysteries.”

SET PRAYERS AND MENTAL PRAYER

This book will provide some thoughts and meditations on these 20 mysteries of the Rosary – these 20 mysteries of life – ideas to reflect upon while going through the mysteries and while saying the Hail Mary’s of the rosary.

The genius of the Rosary is that it combines set prayers with mental prayer. As kids most Catholics learn how to say the Hail Mary by heart. The hope is when we become adults we’ll take these beautiful scriptural and traditional words of the Hail Mary to heart. Then as we grow even older we’ll move deeper and deeper into the heart of the mystery of Christ.

We’ve all heard someone use the word “mantra”. It’s a Sanskrit word for a holy or mystical chant or incantation or invocation. A mantra is a set prayer that helps set the mood for contemplation of the deeper mysteries of life.

The Hail Mary is a mantra. By picking up the rosary, we are reminding ourselves we are about to enter into prayer. It’s like taking some time out to enter a church or temple or mosque. It’s like a Jewish male putting on a yarmulka, or kippah, or skullcap. It’s like a Moslem taking out a prayer rug. A person by these behaviors is saying, “It’s now time for prayer.”

The Rosary then is a popular reminder and a practical help for praying.

In our efforts to understand the Moslem world and Moslem religion, the rosary can be seen as an opening connector. Moslems are often seen with “worry beads” in their hands. Well, many Christians when they are nervous, they pick up their rosary and start praying with their “worry beads”. It has been used this way by millions and millions of people down through the ages. It’s no wonder then that a rosary is usually put in a Catholic’s hands as they lay in their casket or coffin.

When we simply want to be an everyday person of prayer, we can keep them in our pocket. We can pray with them visibly or invisibly when going for a walk or just sitting in our home or backyard. Many people keep them hanging on their car mirror to remind them to take them down for praying while driving. Others keep them under their pillow in order to pray before going to sleep.

When we want to pray as a family or with others, the rosary can be divided up in several ways, allowing people to pray as a group – with different people taking turns saying the prayers.

The rosary has always been a reminder for us to be like Mary – a woman of prayer – a woman in deep contact with God.

WARNING # 1: DON’T BABBLE

Don’t babble. Jesus warned us in the Sermon on the Mount about babbling when praying. He said, “In your prayers, don’t babble as the pagans do. They think by using many words, they will make themselves heard. Don’t be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. So you should pray like this ….” (Matthew 6:7-9). Jesus then taught the crowd the Our Father.

To avoid babbling or being mechanical while praying, some people concentrate on the words of the Hail Mary; some concentrate on the mysteries; and some concentrate on a scriptural text.

Obviously it is better to say one Hail Mary slowly and prayerfully than to say 53 Hail Mary’s without any sense of prayer.

Be creative. As I said in my book, Thank God It’s Friday, “Rosary beads aren’t just for Hail Mary’s any more.” One can use the beads to say short mantras or darts of prayer like:

· “Lord, have mercy.”
· “Lord, Jesus, teach me how to pray.”
· “Lord, Jesus, teach me how to love.”
· “Lord, Jesus, teach me how to give.”
· “Lord, Jesus, teach me how to forgive.”
· “Jesus!”
· “Jesus is Lord.”
· “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”
· “Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”
· “Come Holy Spirit.”
· “Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus.”
· “Help!”
· “Thanks!”

The Rosary then has never been frozen. The beads are not made of cement. In general, most people use the rosary to weave a crown of prayer “roses” to put around Mary’s head. Hence the name rosary.

Down through the years there have been all kinds of rosaries. At one time there was a rosary of 150 Our Fathers. It was called, “The Poor Person’s Breviary.” At another time people said a Rosary of 50 mysteries. How could one remember all of them? Thank God in time the mysteries were cut down to 15. Now they are up to 20. Do I hear 25?

Today most people say the “short Rosary” – just 5 decades – using the Joyful, Sorrowful, Light Giving or Glorious Mysteries – depending on what day of the week it is or the season or the mood one is in.

WARNING # 2: ADDING ON THE TRIMMINGS

It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to pray the rosary.

However, the rosary can take longer if people start to add prayers.

Warning: too many words can kill prayer. This is especially true when it comes to the Rosary.

The Irish love to joke about the Trimmings of the Rosary – meaning extra prayers that are added on. There is an Irish poem with the title, “Trimmings of the Rosary.” It’s by anonymous. The poem is a tribute to all those “Little Irish Mothers” who gathered their kids reluctantly for the rosary. Just when one would think the rosary was finished, if mom was in charge, out came the trimmings. These would be prayers for cousins and aunts and uncles, prayers for sore toes, prayers for friends and prayers for foes.

This Irish poem is very sweet, but frustrations can arise when someone adds and adds and adds on too many extra prayers. The leader of the rosary can trap a captive audience.

Many times when this happens in a group, the spirit of prayer – the chain of prayer is broken. People start looking at their watches in anger and frustration. Their minds are far from being like Mary’s who turned God’s words over and over in her mind in prayer.

The history of public prayer often goes like this: People come along and add prayers and then people come along and cut out prayers and then people come along and add on prayers and then people cut out prayers and on and on and on. It’s human nature.

WARNING # 3: THIS BOOK

This book will simply present 20 meditations on the 20 Mysteries of the Rosary.

However, I put a warning on the label. Please do not use these meditations to overburden people while saying the Rosary. Do not kill the spirit of prayer in a Family Rosary or in Altar-Rosary Society or even in the private saying of the Rosary by reading a set of these mysteries while saying the rosary. They are for private reflection apart from saying the rosary, so that when one says the rosary, one might be more reflective on the mysteries.

Or a person or a group can take the time out every once and a while to meditate on one or two mysteries – and use these reflections for a reading – saying just one or two decades of the rosary and leaving the others for another day. The mysteries of the Rosary touch all the great mysteries of a person’s life – so we have a whole lifetime to meditate on them in prayer like Mary.

Why rush? Why crush the Spirit with “too much”?

Why not heed St. Teresa of Avila’s prayer: “From silly devotions and sour faced saints, Lord, deliver us.”

The Rosary is simply a WAY to pray, a MEANS of prayer. It is not an END in itself. The way we say the Rosary can always be changed. The END is what is important: ending up in GOD’S presence – in GOD’S embrace – in GOD’S love.

Taking time out to prayer is taking time out to enter into the timeless mystery of God. In time, in some mysterious way, God entered into Mary and she brought Jesus into the world and Jesus leads us to the world of the Father.