The Rosary: Remedy for Anger

The "remedy" rhetoric has about gone off the rails at this point, but let me propose four ways in which devotion to the Rosary produces effects that in some measure counter the vice of anger.

(And, as you remember, anger is a desire for vengeance that is sinful either because the revenge itself is unjust or because the desire is unreasonably great.)

First, the simple act of praying the Rosary is physically calming, and when you are calm you have farther to go to become unreasonably angry.

Second, praying the Rosary daily extends this physically calming experience through time. If you are calm and still every day for fifteen or twenty minutes, it will be easier to be calm and still at other times of the day.

Third, praying the Rosary affords an opportunity to bring your anger to Jesus and Mary. St. Paul's advice is, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." You could anticipate sundown and say, "Don't let the fifth mystery finish on your anger." The time spent praying the Rosary can cool your anger down to a more reasonable zeal.

Fourth -- and more spiritually -- the Rosary has long been proposed as a prayer for peace. As the blessed Pope John Paul II wrote:

... to rediscover the Rosary means to immerse oneself in contemplation of the mystery of Christ who "is our peace", since he made "the two of us one, and broke down the dividing wall of hostility" (Eph 2:14). Consequently, one cannot recite the Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear commitment to advancing peace....

That "cannot" may be more of an exhortation than an observation, but the experience of the Church is that the Rosary fosters peace. As recently as this past Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI said:

We also desire to welcome the Virgin's maternal request [made at Fatima], committing ourselves to saying the Rosary with faith for peace in our families, in countries, and in the whole world.

If we come to the Rosary with an intention for peace, and for overcoming anger, our prayers will surely be heard.

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The Rosary: Remedy for Pride

I'm sure you've heard of the humble peasant grandmother, praying her Rosary in the dim light of her little parish church, who is holier than the highbrow theologian airily holding forth from his university pulpit.

You may not have heard quite so much about the humble peasant grandmother's sister-in-law, who also prays her Rosary in the dim light of her little parish church, but who's an absolute fishwife and meaner than a wildcat in a rain barrel.

Whichever story you want to tell, though, there's no getting around the fact that the Rosary is a humble prayer. A vulgar prayer, even. Sure, people have dressed it up in all sorts of fancy ways -- see for example the "Musical Rosary" described in several posts at Orbis Catholicus -- but when you get down to it, it's a prayer designed for and sustained by the masses.

Which means it's not a prayer designed for or sustained by showing off. If you reach into your pocket or purse for something, and a set of rosary beads falls out, chances are no one who sees it will be impressed. Non-Christians will think you're one of those weird Catholic nuts; they may also be creeped out by the thought of you carrying a crucifix around with you. Protestants may shake their heads, and Evangelicals may wag their tongues, at all that vain repetition you do. Catholics who themselves carry rosary beads will think you're a bit clumsy. Catholics who don't themselves carry rosary beads (for such do exist) will think you're one of those weird Catholic nuts.

And you certainly won't come off in front of any professional Catholic as au courant, with it, or highbrow. (I'd guess even a Womyn's Mysteries Rosary is too dated these days.)

True, there is a thin slice of humanity who would think more of someone for their devotion to the Rosary. But most of those, being of the people, aren't the sort whose praise puffeths one up.

And the Rosary combats pride even if you find a retro-cool P.O.D. Catholic community in which the Rosary is where it's at. That's because, notwithstanding my constant refrain that you shouldn't worry about praying it perfectly, it can be a real challenge to pray the Rosary even half-decently.

It is a very forgiving devotion, but then, there's a lot to forgive. How many other devotions are there with uncounted numbers of pamphlets and books on how not to completely mess it up? You can't -- I insist that it's simply impossible to -- make a mental note to get a stamp for the gas bill an instant before you arrive at the "Glory Be" for the Third Sorrowful Mystery, and in that moment think you're pretty hot stuff.

In this way, the Rosary is a lot like golf, except you swear less and don't count as high.

(Speaking of counting too high, there's nothing quite like leading the group of little old ladies after daily Mass in an eleven-Ave decade.)

(Also, when I pray the Rosary in a group, I spend a lot of the time thinking, "Gosh, everyone else sounds so recollected!")

(Then there was the time someone (a little old lady, in fact, who'd prayed the Rosary daily for decades) was asked to lead the post-Mass Rosary, and after a few brave tries admitted, "I can't remember the Apostles' Creed!")

(See, the Rosary operates on a very simple and natural level, in addition to a more rarefied spiritual one.)

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The Rosary: Remedy for Sloth, v

There are two loose ends I want to tie up here.

First: In these posts, I've treated the Rosary in a very utilitarian fashion. Meditate on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I've been saying, and you could wind up less lazy. Substitute "the Rosary" with "fifteen minutes of sitting in a chair with a Bible on your head," and the arguments are basically unchanged.

So let me add that, though doing a lousy job praying the Rosary may still be a remedy for sloth, no one should settle for doing a lousy job praying the Rosary. Then, too, I don't believe it's even possible to pray the Rosary every day without improving in all sorts of non-sloth-related ways.

Second: If someone is slothful, why would he resolve to pray the Rosary daily in the first place? All five posts are concerned with what could happen to people who may not even exist. To this, I'd say I have in mind the sort of person who knows he's slothful, who sort of wishes he weren't, and who's looking for some [easy, of course] way to do something about it.

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The Rosary: Remedy for Sloth, iv

Those who find the Rosary itself burdensome often get the short, barbed end of the stick in devotional literature. The Rosary is such a wonderful prayer, we might infer, all true Catholics ought to love love love praying it.

Yet finding the Rosary burdensome is not a moral failing. Good thing, too, since it seems to be relatively common.

What, then, can someone who dislikes praying the Rosary learn from praying the Rosary? In a word, discipline. Someone who pursues a spiritual good even though he finds the pursuit wearying will not be put off other spiritual goods out of sloth.

In general, simply knuckling down and doing good will erode the habit of doing nothing instead. And someone who is showing his love for God by doing something he doesn't enjoy will hardly be predisposed against showing his love for God by doing something he does enjoy.

Which is not to say that the Rosary is such a wonderful prayer, all true Catholics ought to pray it even if they hate it. I have always taken the "whatever works" approach to prayer, and if the Rosary doesn't work for you, then try something else.

But if the work you want done is to overcome a habit of sloth, then devotion to the Rosary could work, even if you never do obtain any other consolations from it.

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The Rosary: Remedy for Sloth, iii

Those who are slothful during the week meet their Sunday obligation, but lack any real daily prayer life. Who has the time?

Again, a commitment to the Rosary will demonstrate that we all have the time, that daily prayer need not be an onerous burden. (It should also demonstrate that daily prayer is a true blessing, but for now I'm just looking at getting rid of vice, not instilling virtue.)

And if daily prayer isn't burdensome, then neither is praying for specific intentions. Once a person allows himself to think of God when it isn't Sunday morning, he can think of God in his need. If he has prayed to God in the past twenty-four hours, the thought of reaching out to Him shouldn't seem too taxing. It's easier and more natural to ask for a favor (or for forgiveness) from someone you talk to every day than from someone you haven't spoken to in too long.

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The Rosary: Remedy for Sloth, ii

Those beset by sloth generally generally avoid spiritually good acts. They don't pray; they attend Mass inattentively, possibly irregularly. It all seems like a lot of bother, and for what?

If they resolve to pray five decades of the Rosary each day, however -- and if they follow through -- they will find that they have taken on a relatively light burden. Call it fifteen minutes for someone who doesn't want to linger, everything nicely regimented, never a question about what to do next.

Even if the mind wanders, even if there's a sense of frustration or that it's all been a waste of time, when the last prayer is prayed, it's done.

What such a person who sticks with the Rosary will find, if he looks for it, is that the Rosary is not at all oppressive or wearisome or a cause for sorrow. He may need to adjust his own expectations of what he'll get out of this devotion, he may not understand right away that what he puts into it determines what he gets out of it.

But he will have developed a habit of spiritual good. He will have demonstrated to himself that the thought of loving God needn't cause sorrow. He will find that he has the capacity for charity and that making use of that capacity isn't as wearisome as it once seemed.

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The Rosary: Remedy for Sloth, i

The capital sin of Sloth, according to St. Thomas, is "sorrow for spiritual good," in particular "sorrow in the Divine good about which charity rejoices." In other words, an act of sloth is a rejection of God's invitation to love Him because loving God seems like an oppressive burden.

(Of course, an "act of sloth" is primarily an interior act, since sloth as such inclines you to do nothing. In practice, what happens is sloth stops you from doing the right thing, then one of her daughters ("malice, spite, faint-heartedness, despair, sluggishness in regard to the commandments, wandering of the mind after unlawful things") prompts you to do a wrong thing. Devil's playthings, and all that.)

Given all that, it could be argued that the Rosary actually encourages sloth, since a lot of people say they find the Rosary wearisome, they despair of getting it right, they are sluggish in praying it, and when they do their minds wander (albeit not necessarily after unlawful things).

Let me suggest, though, that the Rosary can be a remedy for sloth (emphasis on "can"; it's not a magic spell), in different ways depending on how sloth is present in one's life.

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The Rosary: Good for what ails you

The Rosary is medicine for the soul.



It might really be more of an exercise regimen for the soul, but I can't find an Exercise Regiment Generator.

So, what ails the soul? Vice. Lined up, for the most part, under the capital vices. And if, like most of us, you're beset by one or more of these vices (or perhaps their annoying daughters), you might be surprised by how effective devotion to the Rosary can be in stamping them down.

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