The other day I took a short break at work and went for a walk to clear my head. It was a bright, sunny day so I took a path that followed a small inlet of water from the San Francisco Bay. While I usually listen to an audiobook on my walks (remember, I’m still trying to get through the entire Catechism this year) I discovered that I forgot my headphones. Instead I took my rosary out of my pocket and began to pray it.
As I was taking my prayer walk, I suddenly got a sinking feeling in my stomach. What would happen if someone saw me and was offended by my public display of religion? How would I respond if someone told me to put those beads away? As outrageous as that may sound, remember that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was very possible to come across an atheist with the ACLU on speed dial in my neck of the woods.
“How dare you pray in public! What if a child saw you?”
I then got my wits together and thought of a more realistic scenario. What if someone saw me walking with my rosary and curiously asked what it was? What if someone asked me to describe rosary prayer or describe the mysteries I was meditating on? That got my mind racing on how I would explain the rosary to a casual passerby.
I rehearsed talking about how I meditate on not being so materialistic when I pray the First Glorious Mystery. I ran a through a small monologue in my head about living a clean life of good works when praying the Second Glorious Mystery. I pictured myself saying how I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me when I pray the Third Glorious Mystery. And so on…
And while I didn’t know it at the time, when constructing my defense for a possible confrontation I was in fact meditating and thinking about the themes and lessons of each rosary mystery. I wasn’t thinking about work. I wasn’t thinking about a movie, tv show, or news article. I wasn’t thinking about any of those topics that usually distract me and put me on prayer “autopilot.” Like a student furiously cramming for a test, I was focused of all the reasons I pray the rosary and what lessons it teaches me. In short, I was praying the rosary correctly.
I was never cornered by atheist. I didn’t have anyone come up and ask questions. I didn’t get any odd stares from people I passed. But by preparing for the worst I did experience one of my deeper, least interrupted rosary meditations.
Are you prepared to explain what you’re meditating on if someone asks? Suppose you had an apparition of the Virgin Mary while you were praying. Sound crazy? Remember, you don’t pray the rosary in a vacuum. Who do you think you’re asking to intercede for you when you pray the rosary? What if Mary vocally responded as she’s done to a select few throughout history. What if Our Lady first thanked you for praying the rosary and then quizzed you on what exactly you were praying for. Would you be ready to answer or scrambling because you zoned out?
Believe it or not, I do have other interests besides rosary prayer. I enjoy watching movies, reading Wired and Popular Science, and learning about the stock market and personal finance. And while every aspect of life does have some implicit connection to prayer, it brightens my day when I see someone write about the power of prayer and meditation in a non-religious blog. In this case, I follow a personal finance blog called The Simple Dollar. Trent Hamm wrote an interesting piece about the power of prayer and meditation when it comes to making financial decisions. He writes:
Meditation and focused prayer provides us with an opportunity to mentally focus on what we need to change in our lives. Regardless of whether we’re focused on financial success or any other aspect of our life, both prayer and meditation give us a chance to mentally focus on those things.
Well said Mr. Hamm. This is the idea I’ve always tried to get across in my RosaryMeds articles. The rosary gives us an opportunity to meditate and inspect how we live and treat others and focus on how we can do better. By meditating on the lives of Mary and Jesus in the rosary mysteries we see examples of perfection that we can strive to imitate. The more we pray the rosary, the more we focus on those images of perfection and the more they will influence us.
When I think about mental focus and change, the Third Luminous Mystery of the rosary comes to mind. The full title of this mystery is The Proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Call to Conversion. I read so many rosary websites and guides that leave out the second part of the title about conversion. That is unfortunate because I like that direct call to action. God asks us to convert all our earthly ways into heavenly ways. He wants us to look at all the ways we separate ourselves from his grace and to make an effort to remove those barriers. But how can we lead a life of conversion if we don’t know what we need to convert? As The Simple Dollar article points out, meditation helps us mentally focus on what we need to change in our lives. Mary gave us the rosary for just that purpose — to focus on moving closer to her son, Jesus Christ.
The article ends with a nice prayer about finances and faith that I will leave you with:
Dear God,
I ask that you remove my worries, anxieties, and fears about money, and replace them with faith.
I ask you to help me understand my purpose in life and to act on that purpose with courage and strength. I know that prosperity will come, in part, by doing work I love. Please help me use my skills and knowledge to be of service in the world.
I ask you for the strength I need to make difficult financial choices, to change my daily money decisions, and to get rid of my debts and build for my future.
I ask you to help me release all negative thoughts about money, and know that prosperity is my true state.
I know and trust that my debts will be paid and money will flow into my life. I have only to look to nature to see proof of the abundance you provide.
I commit to being grateful for all that I now have in my life.
I started listening to The School of Greatness podcasts which focus on self improvement. In one episode, host Lewis Howes interviewed retired Navy SEAL, Eric Greitens. Greitens talked about resiliency and how to overcome monumental challenges. As an example, he used his experience of SEAL training‘s “Hell Week” which is the toughest week of the toughest military training program. Greitens said that the recruits who focused on the enormity of the challenges of Hell Week became overwhelmed and rang out (quit). Those who survived focused on accomplishing smaller goals whether it be doing one more push up, running one more mile, or making it one more hour. Greitens referred to this tactic as segmenting where you keep your focus on a small task you can accomplish rather than focusing and becoming overwhelmed by the big picture.
I really like the idea of segmenting especially when it comes to rosary prayer. I think too often people avoid praying the rosary because praying five decades seems like a large task that will require too much time and energy. How many times have you thought:
“I don’t have 20 minutes for prayer!”
“I’m just not in the right mood for prayer”
“I’ll pray later after I…”
“I don’t know how to pray the rosary correctly.”
“I’ll just pray something easier.”
Excuses like those definitely swirl in my mind whenever I have a few minutes and I haven’t prayed my daily rosary yet. And it’s easy to let those thoughts consume me and prevent me from praying the rosary. But if I commit to praying just one decade I find that I will actually pray another, then three, four, and eventually an entire set of mysteries. Instead of telling myself that I need to pray a whole set of rosary mysteries, I tell myself I’m going to pray a few Hail Marys. That segmenting mindset breaks that initial set of excuses and in a way allows the Holy Spirit room to work and help me pray the entire rosary.
Jesus teaches us a lot about segmenting in the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery of the rosary. When he took up the cross, he had a long road to walk and fell multiple times. In order to die so that he could rise again and redeem us all, he had to walk step by painful step under the cross. As the First Sorrowful Mystery shows us, Jesus was scared of his coming crucifixion. But he didn’t let that fear overwhelm him and prevent him from doing God’s will. He endured the abuse one step at a time.
Jesus showed us that it’s okay to stumble and fall as he did three times under the cross. But each time Jesus got back up and put one foot in front of the other. Through his painful example, Jesus shows us how to approach life’s challenges. While they can appear overwhelming when thought about in their entirety, we can endure by segmenting our fears, worries, and anxiety of the big picture into smaller, more achievable chunks. Instead of giving up in despair, we just need to tell ourselves to first stand up, and then take one step, and another, and another just as Jesus did under the cross.
Jesus carrying cross (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Segmenting has positive results beyond rosary prayer and spirituality. It’s a lifestyle choice. Let’s face it, life can be overwhelming when you think about everything you need to do. I constantly face pressures from large work projects and family life. I’m often alone taking care of my two boys. Initially, the prospect of feeding, changing, clothing, and playing with them is enough to turn my hair gray. I can work myself up into a stressed state if I start thinking about all the things that could go wrong (or at least become difficult). But when I focus on making it to lunch, or a nap, or the next bottle then before I know it I’ve managed to make it through the entire day. It really all comes down to how we choose to perceive our world. We can work ourselves up and turn any project or task into a monumental and unbeatable challenge. Or we can choose to just tackle it in small chunks. I’ve found that regular rosary prayer really helps keep all of life’s challenges in perspective and prevents me from stirring myself up to the point where I feel overwhelmed.
Here’s a final thought coming from St. Francis (I think). When someone asked him how to best work towards peace, St. Francis told him that closing the door softly would be a great start. I don’t know if loud, slamming doors was an issue for St. Francis, but it’s a great lesson — if you want to accomplish large goals, start with small acts.
Huzzah to San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone! For those of you who don’t live in the California Bay Area, the Archbishop has come under attack for clarifying specific teachings of the Catholic faith that high school faculty in the archdiocese must not publicly confuse or contradict. You can read the full text of what will be included in the teachers’ handbook. However, you might as well recite the Apostle’s Creed and the Ten Commandments because that’s basically what the archbishop is asking teachers to uphold in Catholic high schools.
This additional wording to the faculty handbook has caused quite a stir. Archbishop Cordileone was already under attack from various groups because of his vocal stance on traditional marriage in the very liberal Bay Area. Now many are upset because of his request that high school teachers not confuse or dilute the teachings of the Catholic Church in Catholic schools. He’s not asking teachers to be saints or even practicing Catholics, but merely keep in mind who their employer is and what is expected of them in the workplace. But in today’s world, asking Catholic schools to espouse Catholic teachings is considered controversial.
Crackers!
Let’s back up and look at other work environments. Suppose I worked at a factory that made crackers. I would have to follow the guidelines outlined by my employer and not do things that harm my company or consumers. I couldn’t modify the cracker recipe to my liking. I couldn’t tamper with the machinery. I couldn’t sabotage or undermine the company because I personally don’t like the crackers being made or I prefer a different company’s crackers. I would be fired for such things. Most of us would be fired if our employers caught us saying anything nasty about them on social networks.
Now look at Catholic schools. What is their product? I would say it’s a Catholic education. So employees (the teachers) have a duty to produce the best possible product for their employer. Teaching personal opinions that are contrary to the Church’s teachings or watering them down sabotages that product and undermines the employer. In other professions, such behavior would land you a pink slip.
I can sympathize on how difficult it must feel to work for an employer you may personally disagree with. Or it may be tough to accept rules that have always been in place but never really clarified or enforced. But no lay person has ever been forced to work at a Catholic school. Working at a Catholic school truly is a vocation because teachers generally make less money and benefits than their public school counterparts. And some people, who may be great teachers, just won’t flourish and be happy working under a Catholic employer. Like with any form of employment, you have to ask yourself if it’s truly an environment you want to work in or if there is something else that would be a better fit.
My Story
I completely understand what Archbishop Cordileone wants to avoid. I went to a Catholic high school with a very confusing Catholic identity. It was a great school and didn’t do anything in open defiance to Catholic teaching. But the focus on a truly Catholic education was missing. We had a one priest and one nun so there wasn’t an overt Catholic presence on campus. Furthermore, many masses on holy days of obligation were optional and held in the morning before classes started. Good luck getting a teenager to school on time, let alone an hour early. The masses that were held with the full student body were more like mandatory choir concerts as no one would be actively participating except those singing. High school students are just at that age where expressing faith isn’t very cool and doing so makes you about as popular as the student who sits in the front row of the class, raises his hand for all the questions, and gets A’s on all the tests.
I really wish there was a strong statement like the one delivered by the archbishop when I was in high school. I think a lot of students would have benefited from going to a Catholic school rather than a secular school (in practice) that had mandatory religion classes. Since espousing the Catholic faith wasn’t a priority at my high school I learned that it wasn’t something I should make as a priority in my life. I basically bought into the idea that faith was something practiced in a church on Sundays and shouldn’t be made public out of the fear of offending someone. It took me a long time to realize the joy and freedom that comes with actively participating and celebrating the faith because of my experience attending a high school with a muddled Catholic identity.
I was in high school before the internet took off and no one had ever said the words social network. Now we live in a world where there is a constant drumbeat of ideas that run counter to the Catholic Church’s. I applaud Archbishop Cordileone for not allowing the Church’s core teachings to be drowned out by popular culture. If the world is screaming and attacking the Church, the Church has every right, even duty, to shout back.
Do you stand with Archbishop Cordileone? Take 30 seconds to sign this petition.
My wife turned to me the other day and said, “I really don’t feel like it’s Lent right now.” I replied that I felt the same way. As parents, every day of our lives feels a bit “Lentish.” We continuously sacrifice our time, money, sleep, and freedom to raise our boys the best we can. For 365 days a year parents have to sacrifice those little luxuries that others just put off for 40 days.
But before I give myself a Purple Heart for the sacrifices I’ve made in the parenting line of duty, I have to recall the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery of the rosary — Jesus Carrying the Cross. I don’t think anyone would disagree that Jesus endured and sacrificed a lot during His ministry and particularly during His Passion. No one would have been too critical of Jesus if He never got up from one of His falls under the weight of the cross. After all, He was in a human body that could only take so much punishment. And yet, He dug down deep, got up, and kept moving knowing that His earthly life was only going to get worse. Why? Because His love of God and doing His Father’s will outweighed all the pain and suffering.
Icon of Jesus being led to Golgotha, 16th century, Theophanes the Cretan (Stavronikita Monastery, Mount Athos). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We should follow Jesus’ example in His Passion and dig down deep and find that extra spiritual energy during Lent. It’s not like we have a sacrificial quota and those who make sacrifices all year are exempt or can take it easy during Lent. It’s actually just the opposite. God calls the spiritually fit and conditioned to push themselves even further. Jesus was the most spiritually fit person to walk the earth and He pushed Himself through the Passion and ultimately Crucifixion. God asked that of His son so surely we can do whatever small things God asks of us this Lent.
Even if you pray, fast, and live a Catholic life all year around, Lent is the time to go that extra mile. Like Jesus getting up after a fall and carrying His cross, we can all do a little more to better connect with a God who loves us and we should love in return. It doesn’t matter whether practicing your faith begins and ends one hour every Sunday or if you are Pope Francis, there is always a little something more you can do during Lent that you don’t do other times of the year.
To help, I found this article on Catholic Exchange about making the most of Lent. It’s still early in the Lenten season so if you’re off to a slow start (I’ve accidentally forgot that I gave up snacking twice already), give this a read and hopefully it will jumpstart your Lent.
Welcome to 2015! I’m really excited about my new year’s resolution. I know, I know. I previously wrote about how new year’s resolutions are bad because labelling them as a resolution almost guarantees that you won’t actually follow through. But this year, with the help of a little technology, I think I will be able to meet my goal — reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
But why? Isn’t it a bit dry and the spiritual equivalent of reading up on tax law? Or, isn’t the Catechism more like a reference book that you search through when you have a specific question and not something you read end to end? To answer that, we’ll need to learn a little literary history.
Let’s go to 19th century France. The man is Victor Hugo and the book is Les Misérables. This is a looooong book clocking in at nearly 1,500 pages for a standard sized paperback version. The reason why it’s so long is because Hugo went to great lengths to provide a historical context for the events in the book. He dedicates chapters describing the battle of Waterloo, the Parisian sewer system, life in a nunnery, Parisian street slang, 19th century manufacturing processes, etc. These aren’t little Wikipedia like descriptions either but are the size and scope of small books onto themselves. These tangents paint a richer world for the events of the book to take place in. The characters in Les Misérables don’t exist in a vacuum, but live in a bigger world that we can relate to or at least understand because Hugo provides seemingly endless background information.
Fast forward to the 20th century and look at J.R.R. Tolkien. You know his seminal works — The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. What you may not know is that there is a lot of auxiliary writings which describe Middle Earth, the land where the events of those books take place. Tolkien wrote extensively about the culture of hobbits, dwarfs, elves, etc. He wrote a book called The Silmarillion which describes the universe of Eä which contains Middle Earth as well as other lands. Like Victor Hugo, Tolkien wrote the background of the places and characters in his books to provide a much richer reading experience because the events happen within a known context. The Lord of the Rings isn’t a small book or movie because Middle Earth is not a small place. Elves, dwarves, hobbits, humans, and orcs all act the way they do in the books and movies because Tolkien gave them a detailed history. Without that history and culture being spelled out, I bet The Lord of the Rings would not have been the complex, layered, and rich book/movie it turned out to be.
By now it should become increasingly obvious why I want to read the CCC. I want to become more knowledgeable about the Catholic faith so that I can have a richer experience living that faith. When I pray the rosary or listen to a homily I want to have what I learned reading the CCC in the back of my mind to make new mental and spiritual connections. I hope that reading the CCC will generate a whole new level of intentions and meditations when I pray the rosary. I hope that the increased understanding of the Catholic faith will seep into my writings in my future books (fingers crossed) and on RosaryMeds.
Think of it like this. Your average Catholic who hasn’t read the CCC is like someone who has only seen the Les Misérables musical or The Lord of the Rings movies. They have a good understanding of the material and appreciate it but they don’t know the whole picture as envisioned by Hugo and Tolkien respectively. But the person who has read more church documents like the CCC is like the person who has read Les Misérables or The Silmarillion and understands the greater context and all the little details that are left out of the more popular works.
New year’s resolutions fail because many people only define a goal, not a process for achieving that goal. I’m a software engineer and I’m all about defining processes for achieving goals. So here’s how I will achieve my goal of reading the Catechism. Last year I finally bit the bullet and bought my first smartphone. It has opened up a whole new world of productivity, especially during my commute. I spend roughly six hours a week on the road. Thanks to an app called @Voice Aloud Reader I can turn any text into an audio book. Combined with my Catholic prayer app, Laudate, I can listen to the entire Catechism on my commutes. I know I won’t have Doctor of the Church level retention of the information, but I will pick up the major themes and a general understanding.
Here’s wishing you all the best of luck in this new year!
There is a best selling book titled Heaven is for Real about a young child’s glimpse of Heaven. You may have heard of it since it was also made into a movie. But have you heard about the much darker prequel, Hell is for Real? Okay, it’s not really a prequel and it doesn’t go by that title. I’m talking about the first secret of Fatima when in 1917 Mary showed three Portuguese children a glimpse of Hell. Since November is dedicated to praying for souls, I want to focus on Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory and how the Fatima Prayer in the rosary is a great tool for praying for souls in need.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo – The Madonna of Carmel and the Souls of the Purgatory – WGA22270 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
First, what is the Fatima Prayer?
While not part of the original tradition of the Rosary or in the original text of the vulgate, many Roman Catholics choose to add it after the Glory Be to the Father after the Blessed Virgin Mary was said to have requested its use during her apparition at Fátima, a miracle deemed “worthy of belief” by the Church. The following text of the prayer appears first in Latin and then in English.
Domine Iesu, dimitte nobis debita nostra, libera nos ab igne inferiori, perduc in caelum omnes animas, praesertim eas, quae misericordiae tuae maxime indigent. Amen.
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. Amen.
And now a flashback to my childhood. In my grade school I remember we had “rosary afternoons” in May where we broke up into small groups to pray the rosary. The groups were led by an eighth grader who explained how the rosary worked and led a group of seven other students, one from each grade 1st through 7th, through five decades. When I think back to those childhood rosary days I now recall one prayer being noticeably absent — the Fatima Prayer.
I think my early experience with the rosary was typical for a lot of kids. Someone thought it was best to shield us from the “scary prayer” that mentions the fires of Hell. I don’t believe this was done out of a disbelief of the reality of Hell, but more out of a concern of not opening that door of fear or questions from the inquisitive youth. I’m sure the school didn’t want to receive calls from angry parents about how their kid came home and said everyone is going to Hell or asked if Uncle Barney, who never went to church, was in Hell.
But the avoidance of talking about the afterlife, particularly Purgatory and Hell, didn’t end with the omission of the Fatima Prayer from my grade school’s rosary education. To this day, it’s a topic that most priests don’t touch with a ten foot pole. When was the last time you heard a homily about the eternal consequences of sin or the need to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Over the decades, talking about sin and its consequences was unofficially deemed offensive speech. A priest cannot teach about sinful behavior without being labeled intolerant, self righteous, and uncompassionate. That is truly unfortunate because pretending that sin and Hell don’t exist does not make them any less real. Instead of explaining these scary aspects of reality and providing people with the knowledge, prayers, and the will to confront them, we sweep them under the rug. Instead of urging people to pray and help those “souls in most need of Thy mercy” we, as a Church in general, let people just dive into the fire because we’re afraid of offending someone.
Praying the rosary is a great way of meditating on the afterlife and praying for souls. Because talking about sin and Hell may be a taboo topic we have to put extra emphasis on them in our rosary intentions. After you pray each decade, that Fatima Prayer is that little reminder of Heaven, Hell, and even Purgatory (more on this in a bit). It encompasses asking for the intercession of the saints in Heaven, praying for at risk souls on earth, and those souls in Purgatory. Unfortunately, I too often race through the Fatima prayer. I treat it more like a placeholder while I think about my intentions for the upcoming decade. But slow down because there’s some heavy stuff in this prayer.
“O my Jesus” — God sent his only son for our benefit. He wants us to have a personal relationship with him. You don’t say, “O Jesus.” That “my” is in there for a reason.
“Forgive us our sins” — We all sin and are in need of reconciliation. There is nothing wrong acknowledging that we aren’t perfect and we screw up at times. We are asking for Jesus’ mercy for all peoples’ sins, hence the word “our” and not “my.”
“Save us from the fires of Hell” — Again, we are asking Jesus for his mercy on all souls. The fact that this phrase comes after “forgive us our sins” highlights that connection between sin and Hell. We implicitly acknowledge that sin is the cause of going to Hell.
“Lead all souls to Heaven” — This is where we want to go! Everything we do in life should be aimed towards one day living in God’s glory in Heaven.
“Especially those in most need of Thy mercy” — There are many people on that edge of eternal damnation. But there is still hope for them. They need our prayers and the intercession of Mary, the saints, and the Holy Spirit.
Where does Purgatory factor into the Fatima Prayer? There is a bit of a mistranslation of this prayer from Portuguese into English according to Br. Alexis Bugnolo:
I would point out that this English translation is not exactly correct; because the Portuguese does not say “souls”, but “little souls”, a term of endearment among Portuguese Catholics for the souls in Purgatory, equivalent to our phrase “poor souls”. The the context of the phrase refers to the deliverance of all souls from purgatory into heaven; and thus never signified universal salvation.
Remember, souls in Purgatory rely on your prayers to get into Heaven. Imagine knowing that you are saved and you’re so close to entering God’s kingdom but there is nothing you can do unless people on earth pray for you. That frustration alone must be part of the purification process in Purgatory for your sins. But now you have a reason to remember those souls in Purgatory every time you pray the Fatima Prayer. Time to pray it forward because hopefully someday we all may be in a position where we will need those prayers.
Want to know the secret to a long and healthy life? I’ll give you a clue, it doesn’t come from some pill derived from a Far Eastern plant root. It doesn’t come from a self-help book containing “ancient” wisdom kept secret by the Masons. It doesn’t come from going to the gym five days a week or sticking to a paleo diet. It comes from… people! And no, I’m not talking about Soylent Green. I’m talking about marriage, family, community, and prayer. The Catholic San Francisco ran this interesting little piece last week where they talk about how marriage and religiosity are important factors in living a long life.
“The health benefits of marriage are so strong that a married man with heart disease can be expected to live, on average, 1,400 days (nearly four years) longer than an unmarried man with a healthy heart,” said Dr. Scott Haltzman, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
“This longer life expectancy is even longer for a married man who has cancer or is 20 pounds overweight compared to his healthy but unmarried counterpart,” Haltzman added. “The advantages for women are similar.”
Couples with higher levels of religiosity “tend to enjoy greater marital satisfaction, fidelity and stability, with less likelihood of domestic violence,” according to a compilation of studies by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.
Right now I’m taking this research on faith since I’m a father of two boys that are sending me on the express lane to gray hair. I’m not quite sure how being a human jungle gym and getting no sleep will exactly extend my life expectancy. Then again, maybe chasing after my toddler and rocking my infant to sleep does have a healthy workout aspect to it so maybe there is a grain of truth to the health benefits of married and family life.
These studies showing the countless benefits of marriage, family, and prayer make intuitive sense to me. When you feel like you are part of a community, whether it be the small family circle or a large parish, you belong to a group of people who mutually reinforce and support each other. In other words, you don’t face life’s struggles alone and you don’t don’t live solely for yourself and your desires. We need that occasional second opinion that pushes us to try harder or put the brakes on our impulses. Personally, I know that I act differently now that I’m a husband and a father then when I was single because I know there is a lot more depending on me to be my very best.
This is also why the rosary is such a powerful prayer for both your physical and spiritual health. When you pray the rosary and meditate on its mysteries, you hopefully arrive at an understanding that you are also part of a larger community — the community of Christ. You are connected to our Mother Mary, the saints, angels, and the departed in Heaven. You are also connected to all the other people united in prayer. I truly believe that the rosary helps you realize that there is so much more to your life than just your immediate needs and desires. You not only understand that there are others looking out for you, but you also realize that there are opportunities for you to help someone else.
For example, when I pray the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery, Jesus taking his cross, my initial intentions revolve around asking the Lord for strength to do his will even when my crosses weigh me down. But then I remember that I have the ability to help others carry their crosses and lighten their burden. I ask God to give me an awareness of how I can help others in my life. My rosary prayer may start with asking God to help me but they often end with me thinking how I can help others. To put it another way, my rosary prayers usually start with an inward focus but end with me thinking outwardly about my role in the greater community of humanity. And when millions of people do the same in their prayers, we become a huge community of individuals helping each other and bringing out the very best in each other.
For those of you who visit RosaryMeds regularly, there is a link on the left-hand side you may have overlooked. The site is called “Come, Pray the Rosary” and is a 24/7 rosary prayer that you can join in at any time and also post intentions. When I first came across it, the site maybe had a dozen people praying together at any given time but now it always well over 100 (140 at the time of this writing). It really drives home that the rosary is a community prayer. Plus I love the almost hypnotic quality of the website’s intro music.
I previously wrote about how rosary prayer is a lot of Navy SEAL training. The rosary can be a difficult prayer that is monotonous, time consuming, and requires a lot of concentration. Not surprisingly, many people either ignore praying the rosary or substitute it with easier and shorter prayers. I want to explore more in depth what we can learn from the Navy SEALS and apply it to rosary prayer and meditation. Let’s take a look at one of the SEALS’ famous sayings.
“Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable”
Image of BUD/S trainees covered in mud during Hell Week. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To say SEAL training and their missions are tough is an understatement. They are pushed to their breaking point both physically and mentally in training so that they can remain focused in the field where their lives are on the line. During training, they will wake up to a routine of lying in the extremely cold ocean to the point of hypothermia before starting whatever grueling challenge the instructors have planned for the day. The instructors call it getting “wet and sandy” and whenever they say that, the recruits must run into the water and then roll on the sand until they are covered head to toe. The idea is that a SEAL needs to be able to focus on the task at hand regardless of the situation. They have to block out all distractions to get the job done. When they accept that discomfort is just part of the job then that is one less thing that will occupy their thoughts.
What can we learn from this SEAL motto in regards to rosary prayer? I think it’s important to accept that the rosary is a difficult prayer. I know it’s almost taboo to admit that many times I don’t feel like praying the rosary. It’s not that I don’t like the rosary, but I do find it challenging to get into the frame of mind where I can make the most of rosary prayer. When I think about the fact that I will spend the next 20+ minutes saying the same prayer 50 times over, flipping on the television and flipping off my brain starts to sound very tempting.
When you accept that praying the rosary will be difficult then you will start to become more comfortable praying it. In other words, while there are dozens of activities that are easier and maybe even more immediately gratifying than the rosary, mentally you just filter them out as an option. Once you learn to commit to praying the rosary you never will look back at what other things you could be doing. A SEAL in the freezing water has to push out of his mind how nice it would be to lay next to a warm fire with some hot food because that will just distract him. Rosary SEALS (SoulsEnthusiastically Approaching the Lord) also need to just move forward and completely commit to the rosary and not let the other easier options on how to spend our time become a distraction.
“Don’t think of the thousands of other things I would rather be doing right now”
When we can push forward and get comfortable with the discomforts of the rosary, we can begin to grow spiritually. By praying the rosary instead of giving into those distractions, you prove to yourself that you have the ability to push yourself and make the rosary and your faith a priority in your life. When you accept those “discomforts” of prayer you will then have that much more room in your mind, heart, and soul to let the Holy Spirit guide you and discover even more what God has planned for you. You just have to ignore Satan and his minions urging you to embrace the immediate, physical comforts of this world instead of getting “wet and sandy” in the rosary.
Those truly devoted to my Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
Phew, that was close! I thought I painted myself into a corner after reading Mary’s 7th rosary promise. I initially thought that this promise basically rephrased her earlier promise about not dying an unprovided death and I would have nothing to say about this one. The two promises do share a similar theme revolving around one’s final minutes in this life. The important difference between these two promises is that the earlier promise focuses solely on receiving God’s mercy for one’s sins. This promise goes one step further and implies one will receive graces through the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Anointing of the Sick. In other words, those devoted to the rosary not only avoid damnation but really “seal the deal” to receive eternal salvation.
“Extreme Unction”, part of The Seven Sacraments, by Rogier Van der Weyden (1445). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am going back to the auto insurance analogy to explain the difference between this rosary promise and the earlier one. Promising that you won’t have an unprovided death is a little like having basic collision insurance. It’s the bare minimum grace that helps you receive God‘s mercy instead of incurring solely His justice. It’s better than nothing, but not great. Dying with all the sacraments of the Church is like having full coverage. You die with your soul in the best possible state to stand before God and quickly enter His kingdom (you still may need to go through Purgatory first).
What’s the difference between not dying an unprovided death and dying with the sacraments of the Church? After all, won’t you end up in Heaven by either means? And isn’t making it into Heaven all that really matters? Ask yourself this. Why would you only want to barely sneak into Heaven in the first place? Why wouldn’t you want to be as close to God as possible throughout your entire life, let alone at the moment of your death? It might say a lot about how you prioritize your relationship with God if you only want to be close enough to Him to not be damned to Hell. All of us should be striving to not just have the bare minimum of graces to enter Heaven but to live as shining examples of God’s grace always up to the moment of our death.
And there lies the difference between the saints and regular people. Many of the saints didn’t have any more insight about the Catholic faith than the normal lay person. And many of them didn’t have any super natural powers that made it easier to act saintly. What separates the saints from the lay person is that the saints chose to make living in God’s grace a priority in their life. They made that difficult decision to resist the temptations of a comfortable, wealthy, or powerful life and instead tried their best to live for God’s kingdom of Heaven. And as impossible as it may seem, we all have the ability to become saints by embracing a life of living prayer and receiving the sacraments.
I infer from this promise that those devoted to the rosary will not only die with the sacraments of the Church, but that they will also want to live with those sacraments as well. Those who pray the rosary understand how important their relationship with God is and are always striving to live deep in His grace by fully embracing the Catholic Church’s sacraments. When we think about Mary’s promise, let us remember that the sacraments aren’t graces reserved for the dying, but for all of us. May we take advantage of those sacraments as much as possible throughout our lives whether it be going to Confession regularly or really embracing the true meaning of the Eucharist. We should rejoice that we have so many chances to have God touch our souls. May the rosary kindle our passion for receiving the sacraments.
And to think that I initially couldn’t come up with anything to say about this promise! Thank you Holy Spirit, Mary, and the saints for the guidance.
