The Days Like Beads....

October is the month of the Holy Rosary, and so this month is dedicated to Our Lady under her title of Our Lady of the Rosary.  The Rosary can be a difficult prayer to say - many find it almost impossible to pray it without their minds wandering, or end up mumbling the Hail Marys.  St Thérèse, for example, found it hard to say the prayer, and for a time felt very bad about it since she loved Our Lady so much.  However, she was led to understand that her efforts were joyfully received by Mary and she was blessed for her fidelity. That's good for all of us to remember: even if we struggle through the prayer, even if we can only say a decade, Our Lady sees the effort we have made and she accepts it with great joy.  The merit of that desperate prayer, in her eyes, will be more precious that millions of Rosaries recited at high speed.

How do you pray the Rosary?  The prayer unites three faculties: the mind meditating, the lips speaking and the heart loving and pondering.  The knack in saying the prayer is to get all three working together.  Practice makes perfect. Start with the lips: say the vocal prayers, but in a manner which will allow the mind to think.  Interestingly distractions can actually help us here.  Look at the way your mind gets distracted, thinking about other things when you should be praying - well that is the method of meditating on the Mysteries.  Allow your mind to go into distracted mode, but instead of the usual carnival of images, replace them with the Mystery.  See the events of the Mystery happening in your mind, and then ask questions, explore what is happening, think about its significance.  That is how we meditate on the Rosary Mysteries - use the distractions to help you! 

Then, when the lips and the mind are praying in unison (meditation is the prayer of the mind), let your heart in on the act.  As you look and reflect on the Mystery, allow yourself to respond - speak with your heart.  Remember you are at the feet of Our Lady who is guiding you through the Mysteries of her Son's life: let your heart speak to her, speak to her Son, as you see them revealed in your meditation.  Then, as you continue to pray, these three faculties begin to work together; they weave themselves into the one prayer, just as the many beads make the one rosary.   The prayer is woven into a crown: a crown of symbolic roses (hence the name Rosary) which is offered to our Holy Mother.  

This is the perfect month to begin to pray the Rosary if we have not done so yet.  It is a time to get back to it if we have abandoned it.  Start slowly - perhaps one decade at the sitting, and if you can only manage a decade a day, then that,s a start.  Remember one decade prayed well is better than a whole Rosary tossed out a break-neck speed: it is a prayer, not a race and not an endurance test: it is a prayer to our Mother - a means of encounter with her.  Above all we must pray it with an open heart so she may touch us and lead us to a deeper understanding of the life of her Son, and help us love him more.