Could there be an easier way to pray and meditate on the life of Christ other than the Rosary?
Now before everyone jumps on me, you need to know that this thing is entirely from Scripture. In a time when people could not read, this prayer became the way that people learned about the life of Jesus and Mary and the Gospels. The prayers are also right out of the Bible as well.
Yet we forego praying it on a regular basis.
Why?
We tend to think that it is too long or that it is too complicated, or that it somehow is not worth it, we don't get what we are supposed to get out of it and that makes us upset because we want to be experts at everything. We want to be amazing at prayer and the rosary just seems so old, so out of touch, so... simple.
Take a prayer and use that prayer to meditate on the events of the life of Jesus. The great events of Salvation History that converge on the Gospels. It really is completely that simple. The great thing is that the events that we meditate on are bottomless in the truths that they offer. There is a richness there that the saints have contemplated for 2000 years.
We have the Our Father, the simple prayer taught by Jesus himself. Follow that with the words of honor that the angel offered to Mary, the words that we hope to hear, that we are "full of grace" because to be full of grace is to be a saint. During this time we look at four groups of events from the life of Christ.
We look at the Joyful Mysteries, the events that help us to enter into the life of Christ. The Annunciation. The Visitation. The Nativity. The Presentation. The Finding. Christ comes down to us, we enter into his life.
We enter into the Luminous Mysteries. Christ begins to reveal his plan for us, for our own salvation. He is baptized, attends the wedding, proclaims the Kingdom, is Transfigured, institutes the Eucharist. Each of these is a moment in which Christ reveals a little more about who He is.
We witness the Sorrowful Mysteries, when Christ is in agony, scourged, crowned, carries his cross, and then dies. We allow ourselves to process the price of our sin.
We rejoice in the Glorious Mysteries. The Resurrection, Acsension, the Decent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Assumption of Mary, and finally her crowning as Queen.
In these mysteries Christ presents us with what we are, what we would like to be, and what we hope for. We are able to meditate on these events in prayer. We are able to process them in our own lives, to see what they hope to teach us, what we are to learn, how we are to progress on this journey towards sainthood. This journey that lets us become not only better, but completely full. Transfigured.
We need the peace of this prayer, we need to take the time to sit, kneel, allow ourselves to fully enter in to the mystery of the life of Christ.
By entering into this mystery we allow ourselves to become one with Him, to act with His will, His love, to hope in our own Resurrection at the end of time.
If we wish to grow in intimacy with Christ, He offers that to us in His own life. We have only to spend time with Him, to meditate upon Him.
This opportunity is given to us in the Rosary.
Questions for Reflection:
- Why is prayer sometimes more difficult than it needs to be? Why is the thing that is simple sometimes not easy? Especially in prayer?
- What could happen if we simply were presented with the Mysteries of the Rosary as the main points we were supposed to meditate on in the Gospel? How would our lives change if we did?
- What is it about the idea of establishing a ritual that sometimes keeps us from doing it because we fear either failure or the time commitment?
- Take one group of mysteries of the Rosary and apply them to your own life. What does each of the mysteries present that you need in your own life spiritually?
- Which of the mysteries do you relate to the most? The least? Why?
- Pray a decade of the rosary today. Really taket he opportunity to meditate on the mystery that you have selected. Allow it to wash over you like water.
- Open yourself up to the opportunity to pray an entire rosary today. When God gives you the time, take advantage of it. If someoene asks about the rosary, use that time as a way to share a little bit about the rosary.
- Pray five decades of the rosary every day.
- Take the mystery that you relate to the least and spend some extra time meditating on that mystery.
- Lead a rosary for a group of people.
Pray one of the four groups of five decades of the rosary: Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, Glorious.
