Through many of her Church-approved apparitions, Our Lady’s solution to her children’s problems is to encourage us to meditate on the Life of Christ through devotion to the Holy Rosary. At Fatima, Kibeho, Akita, Cuapa, and San Nicolas, to name a few, Mary explicitly instructed the visionaries to pray the Rosary daily. At others, like Lourdes, she seemed to encourage the prayer by holding a Rosary and praying along with the seers. In so many words, the Blessed Mother has told us repeatedly that the Rosary is a “strong weapon” in the spiritual life; one we would be foolish not to take up.
As Catholics we are not required to believe in any apparitions, even those the Church has approved. For those who have a hard time with such mystical elements of the Faith, we have the voices of every pope in recent history encouraging us to pray the Rosary. Pope Leo XIII, who was known as “the Rosary pope,” wrote a record twelve encyclicals and five apostolic letters on the subject! Thanks to him, we have the annual grace of the entire month of October dedicated to the Rosary to renew our efforts at receiving this incomparable gift.
Our much beloved Pope St. John Paul II even wrote an additional set of mysteries, the Luminous, inspired by the devotion and writings of St. Bartolo Longo. Through these “Mysteries of Light” we meditate on Jesus’ public ministry and the foundation of our Sacramental life. The Rosary has much to offer everyone regardless of mystical or theological temperament.
Change of Perspective
In the simple but profound prayer of the Rosary we gradually learn to turn our hearts and minds away from our problems and instead entrust them to Our Lady’s maternal care. As she always points “to Jesus through Mary,” entrusting our problems to her care ultimately means we are entrusting them to God’s care, to His Divine Providence. In this way, praying the Rosary becomes training in the virtues of Hope and Trust.
Through the Rosary, we find ourselves able to let go a little bit more each day. This does not mean that we become passive or fatalistic. It means we turn our attention to those things that we can do instead of trying to control those we cannot. What we can do is the work God has given us for that moment according to our state in life. What we can do is the next right thing.
By turning our hearts and minds away from problems that are too big for us by praying the Rosary, we become more present to the duties at hand, which is where God’s grace is. When we are living with a seemingly intractable problem or when we are in a crisis, offering our problem to Jesus through Mary frees our agency to act upon those things we can change rather than fruitlessly worrying about those we can’t.
Each problem and crisis is Mary’s training ground away from worry and anxiety and toward Hope and Trust. Each Rosary offered to surrender a beyond-us issue changes our perspective away from what seems impossible, toward the graces of the moment for what is possible.
It may seem crazy but the simple act of praying the Rosary and then doing the dishes can allow God the room to move in our life, to orchestrate the solution to our crisis. Quieting our hearts enough to pray in the middle of a crisis, however, is not easy. This is another reason to pray the Rosary daily. Ordinary, daily praying will train us to be able to lean into that devotion, wield that “weapon,” when we need it most.
A Simple, but Not Necessarily Easy System that Changes Our Perspective
- Pray the Rosary daily
- Be present to the moment’s graces by doing that moment’s duty
- Trust that God will order all the rest in His Providence and timing
In this way we seek first His Kingdom in the firm hope that all else will be added. By meditating on the Joyful, Sorrowful, Luminous, and Glorious Mysteries of Jesus’ and Mary’s lives, we seek His Kingdom by changing our perspective. In daily life and especially in crisis, we can lose our eternal perspective, our sub species aeternitatis. This loss of perspective allows our problems to grow beyond their true size. As huge and all-encompassing as our problems may be, they remain small in comparison to our truly all-encompassing God. Regaining our eternal perspective, as well as our Trust in the God who loves us and wills the best for us, makes our problems lighter, even when they don’t seem to be changing at all.
The Only Bad Rosary Is the One We Don’t Pray
There are many reasons why people don’t pray the Rosary. One of the most common is the concern of not praying it well as deduced by the sense of not “getting anything out of it.” This is nothing new. St. Therese of Lisieux wrote about how often she fell asleep while praying her Rosary. She went on to say that she found it tedious and dry. But Therese, and so many saints like her, kept trying. In the spiritual life, outside of extraordinary graces, real change takes time. God can be the judge of whether you are getting anything out of it or not. Keep putting yourself into it as best you can and leave the rest up to Jesus through Mary.
Some days will be better than others. Some Rosaries will literally feel like the Blessed Mother is holding your hand and getting you through those crises. Other days the recitation will accompany you in your busyness, keeping you flowing in the grace God gives. Hopefully, increasingly throughout life, the Rosary will become that prayerful, meditative respite from the day, into eternity and the Mysteries of our redemption.
Our Lady loves us. When she admonishes us to pray the Rosary daily, it isn’t for her good, but for ours. Aside from the fifteen promises she made through Blessed Alan de la Roche, Mary also promises world peace and an end to war if we persist in this powerful devotion. We shouldn’t allow repetitiveness or dryness to stop us. We are called to persevere like the saints and to trust our Momma. She will lead us to Jesus as she gently opens our clenched fists and gives our problems to Him. The peace that comes over time will allow us to be present to each moment God gives for the accomplishment of that “next right thing.” Meanwhile, He will be working behind the scenes, accomplishing all else for our eternal good.
Blessed Mother, please help us to pray your Rosary daily, to persevere in the Duty of the Moment and to entrust all else to Jesus through you. May our efforts to do so draw down graces for ourselves, our families, and the whole world. Our Lady of the Rosary, Queen of Peace, pray for us!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
