My fifth secret of the Rosary

I don't know if anyone really bought my first secret, so this last one might fall flat as well, but the Rosary is a profoundly Marian devotion.

Yeah, I know: "No kidding."

But I mean something more than what is immediately obvious about the form of the prayer, and even more than what becomes obvious when you realize that to pray the Rosary is "to contemplate the face of Christ in union with, and at the school of, his Most Holy Mother."

I mean that, if you are devoted to the Rosary -- even merely committed to its regular recitation -- you are probably going to find yourself becoming Marian.

What does it mean to find yourself becoming Marian? In my case, I have in mind two major changes.

The first is the development of a personal, filial relationship with Mamma Mary, in place of the more impersonal, political relationship with the Queen of Heaven. Invoking and honoring Mary makes a great deal of practical sense, considering that never was it known that anyone who fled to her protection, implored her help, or sought her intercession was left unaided. But as you come to see her as your spiritual mother, given to you at Calvary, you find yourself turning to her simply because children turn to their mother when they need help. The personal relationship with Jesus the importance of which evangelical Protestantism reminds us of is reflected in -- strengthens and is strengthened by -- the personal relationship with His mother.

The second change, following on the first, is acting like a child of Mary in public. You join in others' praise of her, you feel brotherly toward those who consider themselves her children, you defend her from others' attacks. Marian dogmas become personal matters, in a way that, say, the question of St. Peter's arrival in Rome does not. When the goofball associate pastor makes a passing reference to his devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, you immediately and unreservedly forgive all his homiletic invocations of his hometown baseball team.

And the thing is, these changes are in no way intentional. They just happen. I firmly believe that, given the slightest opportunity, Mary is able (by God's grace and through His will) to make a place in your heart for herself, and therefore her Son, just as she did in Galilee and, later, at the foot of the Cross.

Her message, as always, is, "Do whatever He tells you." And He tells us, "Behold your mother."

Labels: My Secrets of the Rosary

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My fourth secret of the Rosary

I've mentioned this before, so even I can't pretend it's much of a secret, but the Rosary is an extraordinarily human prayer. By that, I mean the Rosary is extremely well-matched to the kind of being a human is.

It's a stock observation, when discussing the Rosary, that prayer beads are found in many different cultures and religions. I have my doubts about how similar the Rosary really is to the prayers Hindus count on their malas (despite "mala" meaning "rose" or "garland"), but I think the use of beads as a way of measuring prayers reflects the fact that we are creatures with both physical and spiritual existence.

The use of a rosary while praying the Rosary isn't necessary, of course, but it does get our bodies involved in our meditation and prayer. The same is true of vocal recitation; in my experience it's possible to pray the Rosary silently, but not satisfying, since getting the meditation and the silent "recitation" to happen in my mind at the same time is very difficult.

Posture and visual cues also add to the richness of the physical dimension of the Rosary, without interfering with its spiritual dimension.

A common analogy is that the vocal prayers compose the "body" of the Rosary, while the meditations compose its "soul." Certainly the prayers (along with counting them, and expressing them physically by kneeling, standing, or bowing) relate the Rosary to our bodies, while the meditations occupy our souls. But there's more to the humanness of the Rosary than the way it recognizes, and teaches, that man is body and soul.

The Rosary has been evolving ever since Our Lady's Psalter of 150 Aves (ending, as you probably know, with the words "blessed is the fruit of thy womb") was introduced a millenium ago. In its earliest form, there was no explicit "soul" to the devotion; it was a repetition, not even of prayers, strictly speaking, but of salutations. It may have been the "poor man's Psalter"; it was certainly a poor psalter.

Over time, meditations were attached to the prayers, one for each Ave. This is fine, but impractical for those with imperfect memory or without written lists of meditations. The Rosary would have died out outside of monasteries if it required prayerbooks for secular layfolk to pray it. The brilliance of the fifteen mysteries across fifteen decades is that it made it possible for nearly every Catholic alive to learn how to pray the Rosary, and then to actually pray it.

Furthermore, by giving the reciter three to five minutes to meditate on each mystery, the Rosary works in a naturally human way. A decade is neither too brief nor too long a time for such meditation. It allows a person to call the mystery fully to mind, to think on it or perhaps simply contemplate it, so that the mystery can subtly conform the person's soul to Christ -- and subtly conformity seems to be the natural human rule, with road-to-Damascus moments much rarer -- and then to move on, before the mind tires or the mystery gets too stale.

The rhythm of the mysteries -- from joy to sorrow to glory -- is also very human, as you'd expect of a meditation on the life, death, and resurrection of the One Perfect human. (I don't mean to slight the Luminous Mysteries here, I'm just thinking more in terms of the Rosary as it's been adapted through the centuries, and the new mysteries are quite new.)

And while I'm talking about how well the Rosary conforms to human nature, I should point out how well it conforms to the grace which perfects human nature. Joy and sorrow (and, for that matter, illumination) are constants of [fallen] human nature. Our Christian faith, though, teaches us that our end is not sorrow, nor illumination (as some philosophies more or less hold), nor even joy (as some uncareful Christians think), but glory. Moreover, glory isn't merely our eventual end; glory is ours today. The Kingdom of God is here, among us, even as we journey toward it. By praying the Rosary through to the end, we not only prepare ourselves for the glory that awaits us, but conform ourselves to the glory that is ours today. Our bodies have not yet been glorified, we have not yet been given our paper hats at the Bridegroom's banquet, but Christ's Resurrection and Ascension, His mother's Assumption and Coronation, are not simply pledges of future glory, but also signs of present glory.

Labels: My Secrets of the Rosary

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My third secret of the Rosary

Perhaps the most surprising and enheartening thing I've learned about it is that you can't finish praying the Rosary.

Sure, the pamphlets all imply the Rosary can be finished. After all, it comprises a finite number of vocally recited prayers, and even if you break it up into five-decade batches you can recite the whole thing over the course of a few days. An hour and a half tops, all told.

But that isn't how the Rosary really works.

I'd guess most of us know people -- and many of us are people -- who say, "I tried the Rosary, and never got anything out of it." In fact, they might feel a net loss, with frustration at wandering thoughts and a sense of failure to "pray well" outweighing any benefits received.

Their mistake is to think that, having gone through all fifteen decades (assuming they last tried the Rosary more than a year ago), they were finished. If, though, the Rosary is a meditation on the Gospel, a self-evangelization, why would they think they were finished?

No: the power of the Rosary lies not in its form but in its constancy. Its chief repetition is not in the Aves, but in meditating on each of the mysteries twice a week for the rest of your life. That is how it forms the devotee in the life of Christ from the perspective of the Blessed Virgin.

Of course praying five decades won't be very satisfying, especially if you sit in with the little old ladies speed-reciting after daily Mass. Who can conform his soul to Jesus in twenty minutes? But if you enter into the rhythym of the Rosary, day after day and week after week, the rhythym of the Rosary can enter into you, and by golly you just might get somewhere with it.

The first corollary of this secret is, "Don't worry about a distracted decade." If you get all the way through to the big bead without a coherent thought on the Visitation, so be it. I wouldn't say it's a positive good, but there's always Saturday, and next Monday, and next Saturday. The habit of the Rosary means that, two or three times a week, there will be a four-minute interval during which something wonderful may happen in your heart or your mind regarding each mystery. If nothing wonderful happens today, nothing wonderful happens today. Or are you on a fixed Return On Investment schedule?

Another corollary is, "The Rosary is a big commitment." It doesn't have to be, of course. You can dust off your beads for the occasional holy hour, relying on someone else to know which mystery comes next, and still get into heaven. You might even find the occasional five decades fruitful. But I think to really get the Rosary, to understand why there are so many books so gushing over it, you need to make it a daily habit. To be devoted to it, even if you aren't a leaving-literature-in-the-pews, "Have You Prayed the Rosary for Peace?"-bumper-sticker devotee.

That's not to say every temperament is or ought to be Rosarian. I never cared for commentary implying there is some lack or fault in a person who cannot stand to pray the Rosary. If someone has tried the Rosary and found it not to his liking, or even if he has never been interested enough to try it, that's fine by me. My only point would be that, possibly, he was asking too much too soon of himself or of the Rosary.

I am slightly more doubtful about certain claims to have outgrown the Rosary -- that is, to be spiritually advanced beyond the need for words and ideas (as opposed to being spiritually situated such that other forms of prayer are more fruitful) -- but then the spiritual life is richer and more diverse than I imagine it to be.

Labels: My Secrets of the Rosary

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My second secret of the Rosary

You may have noticed that this whole "my secrets of the Rosary" business is just a cheap gimmick to dress up some commonplace observations in profundity suited for the Month of the Holy Rosary. A more accurate description would be "some things about the Rosary I didn't learn when I was eleven."

That said, my second secret of the Rosary, which may come as a surprise to the millions of people who have prayed the Rosary longer and better than I, is that the Rosary isn't a prayer.

(Okay, so yesterday I quoted the Pope writing that the Rosary "is at heart a Christocentric prayer." Obviously, then, saying the Rosary isn't a prayer is another cheap gimmick. But bear with me.)

If the Rosary isn't a prayer, what is it? It's a meditation on the Gospel. Not the "Gospel as a literary form" but the "Gospel as the Good News of Jesus Christ." When you "pray" the Rosary -- the standard Joyful/Luminous/Sorrowful/Glorious Rosary, at least, which isn't the last word in praying the Rosary -- you are calling to mind the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, framed by the experiences of His blessed mother.

I've heard a common criticism of the Rosary is that it is "vain repetition." But what really gets repeated is not the words of the Ave so much as the thoughts of the Nativity and the Scourging and the Ascension and so forth. I doubt many of the fiercest Bible-only fundamentalists would consider repeatedly calling to mind Jesus' life, death, and resurrection a vain endeavor.

If the Rosary isn't a prayer, why do we speak of praying the Rosary? Because many or most people do pray while reciting the vocal prayers of the Rosary. You can be aware of the meaning of the words you are saying, you can even pray the words you are saying -- and indeed, with such things as the Fatima Prayer there's little point in saying them if you aren't praying them.

The Rosary is in a way a variation on the four-step lectio divina, where the reading (step 1) is usually (though not always) from memory, and the meditation (step 2) and the prayer (step 3) usually (though not always) occur in a more structured order (e.g., I might plan on praying the Our Father and the first Hail Mary, meditate while reciting the next nine Hail Marys, then pray the Gloria and the Fatima Prayer). (The fourth step, contemplation, comes when it comes with the Rosary as with lectio divina.)

And what about "praying the Rosary for peace"? How do you meditate for an intention? Well, as I mentioned people do pray while reciting the Rosary; those prayers can be offered for some intention. But I think that, in addition, the act of reciting the Rosary -- which, after all, is indulgenced -- can be a votive act. It's a sacrifice (sometimes joyful, sometimes not) of time and effort, and that can always be offered to God for a specific intention.

One of the major points of this secret, though, is to remind myself not to assume that "praying the Rosary" meets my recommended daily allowance of prayer. It's not -- for me, at least -- twenty minutes of conversation with God. My "best" Rosaries give me some new insight into a mystery that hadn't yielded any new insights for a long time, but an insight isn't love. Once Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are called to mind, it's time to speak with Him about them, not just put away the beads until tomorrow.

Labels: My Secrets of the Rosary

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My first secret of the Rosary

I have a list of five secrets of the Rosary. They aren't what you'd call profound or mystical secrets. I think of them more as corrections to errors people have about the Rosary.

The first secret is the Rosary isn't particularly Marian.

One reason for not praying the Rosary is that it has all those Hail Marys and the pamphlets on how to pray it always have pictures of doe-eyed Mary statues on the front, and a lot of people simply aren't into Mary enough to find the Rosary appealing.

But if you actually pray the Rosary, you find that Mary isn't as central as she appears from the pamphlets. Starting from the first mystery, the Annunciation, she moves steadily off-stage, so to speak -- or up-stage is probably better -- until, following the Miracle at Cana, she is all but out of sight until, at the Third Glorious Mystery, she is filled with the Holy Spirit, then completes her role as the disciple par excellence in her Annunciation and Coronation. Throughout the Rosary, she is seen as receptive to the actions of God and responsive to her Son. You could say (if you weren't being too picky) that, in the Rosary, the drama of our faith is presented as a two-person play, with Jesus as the major character and Mary as the supporting character who frames, and thereby emphasizes, the actions of Jesus.

In short, to quote Rosarium Virginis Mariae, "The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium."

Praying the Rosary, then, is not fundamentally an act of Marian piety, but of evangelizing yourself.

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