Defending the Rosary

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EphelDuath

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How do you explain to someone that we aren’t putting Mary in a higher regard than God by doing ten Hail Marys for each Lord’s Prayer?
 
The entire Rosary is directed towards God. Each decade is, in fact, a mediatation on the life of Christ and other notable events of the gospel.

It’s as though we are asking the Blessed Mother to be our guide and walk us through that sacred history through which our salvation was attained for us.
 
EphelDuath said:
How do you explain to someone that we aren’t putting Mary in a higher regard than God by doing ten Hail Marys for each Lord’s Prayer?
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Tell me does the Hail Mary prayer put Mary above God? The prayer itself is taken out of the Gospel of Luke. Hail Mary, full of grace comes from Gabriel’s Greeting. Hail, Full of Grace. The Lord is with you. Holy Mary, Mother of God comes from the Council of Ephesus in 431 when the Church Council defended the divinity of Christ by affirming the title Mother of God or Theotokos.

Elizabeth herself called Mary, How is it to me, that the mother of My Lord should come to me?" My Lord is often use by Jews when addressing God. The Four Mysterious of Rosary are a mediative prayer of Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If God was truly taken out. You would not have the Glory Be, the Our Father, the Fatima Prayer, The Apostles Creed.

When you pray, you mediate on the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus.
 
I would simply say that prior to each Hail Mary, we’re to meditate on the particular mystery of the decade we’re praying.

For instance, the 3rd sorrowful mystery, before every Hail Mary I think about a verse of Scripture regarding Jesus being crowned with thorns or imagine what was being said and done to our Lord at that time.

The Rosary is the prayer of the Gospel, to paraphrase Father Corapi.
 
The entire Rosary is directed towards God. Each decade is, in fact, a mediatation on the life of Christ and other notable events of the gospel.
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This person’s response to that would then be, “so why not ten Lord’s Prayers, then a single Hail Mary for each decade?”
 
EphelDuath said:
This person’s response to that would then be, “so why not ten Lord’s Prayers, then a single Hail Mary for each decade?”
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Mary’s Fiat - “Let it be done to me according to thy word” and the last words of Mary recorded in Scripture “Do whatever He tells you.”

THAT is what I think of with every Hail Mary I say. (Along with meditating on the mystery for that decade. I’m a woman, I can multi-task. 😉 )
 
The prayer calls upon Mary, who is full of grace and close to her Son, to intercede for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. With the disciple to whom Jesus entrusted her on Calvary when he said: “Behold your mother,” we share her as mother. Mary will always bring Christ into our life. From the beginning she knew him; she witnessed his life, death and resurrection; will she not help us to know him and the mysteries of his life? We trust her to care for us as she cared for the newly married couple at Cana in Galilee. We can trust her with our needs.
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Sir Arnold Lunn, a British convert, told how, when he had been buried in an avalanche, he didn’t even think about praying. After he ws rescued he thought about that and was grateful for every Hail Mary he had prayed since his conversion because he knew when it DID come to the hour of his death, Mary would be there praying for his soul, even if he couldn’t.

Sir Arnold Lunn said, "The Rosary has been the favourite devotion not only of the great saints but also of men of outstanding intellectual attainment. It is the prayer of simplicity and meditation. It is for the humble and simple of heart. ‘He that humbles himself shall be exalted.’ "

The Apologist Frank Sheed said, “If anyone’s prayers have power with God, our Lady’s have, she is the Mother of all men, and so most ready to come to our aid.”
 
The ten hail Mary’s during the Mysteries are not the focus of our meditation !! We are not meditating on Mary 10 times as much as meditating on God. True, we mean the words of the Hail Mary, but during the 10 Hail Mary’s of the mystery, we are thinking about the biblical mystery at hand, not the words of the Hail Mary. The 10 Hail Mary’s are kind of a beautiful musical background chant so as to focus our minds on the Mysteries.
Even St. Louis De Montfort said so in his book The Secret of The Rosary.
God bless,
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+
 
In his apostolic letter on the rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II emphasized that this prayer is meant to focus our attention on Jesus Christ: He says: “Although the repeated Hail Mary is addressed directly to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love is ultimately directed,” from RVM 26. Each Hail Mary focuses on the “fruit” of Mary’s womb: Jesus!
 
He’s still not convinced. Is there anything else I could say to him so that he would understand the significance of the Rosary?
 
EphelDuath said:
He’s still not convinced. Is there anything else I could say to him so that he would understand the significance of the Rosary?
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Is he even Catholic? Does he understand that the mysteries are the life of Christ - and THAT is the focus, while we ask Mary to pray for us. I’m probably repeating someone else but the first part of the Hail Mary is straight from Scripture, and the second part is affirming Christ’s deity and asking for her prayers.

At this point I would explain that it is a private devotion and is not required of anyone. Also, www.catholicity.com has a CD called “The Truth About Mary” that might be helpful.
 
EphelDuath said:
How do you explain to someone that we aren’t putting Mary in a higher regard than God by doing ten Hail Marys for each Lord’s Prayer?
Click to expand...
" A more simple and still more elevated way of reciting the Rosary is, while saying it, to keep the eyes of faith fixed on the living Jesus Who is always making intercession for us, and Who is acting upon us in accordance with the mysteries of His childhood, or His Passion, or His Glory. He comes to us to make us like Himself. Let us fix our gaze on Jesus Who is looking at us. His look is more than kind and understanding: it is the look of God, a look which purifies, which sanctifies, which gives peace. It is the look of our Judge and still more the look of our Saviour, our Friend, the Spouse of our souls. A Rosary said in this way, in solitude and silence, is a most fruitful intercourse with Jesus. It is a conversation with Mary too which leads to intimacy with Her Son." - Garrigou-Lagrange
 
From what I understand, he would be OK with the Rosary if it was less Hail Mary and more Our Fathers/Jesus Prayers/etc. His problem is that you’re spending more time asking for Mary’s assistance than God.
 
EphelDuath said:
This person’s response to that would then be, “so why not ten Lord’s Prayers, then a single Hail Mary for each decade?”
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I would say that if this is the only thing preventing someone from praying the rosary, he should go ahead and pray the rosary that way. It’s his choice which we have no right to criticize, just as he has no right to criticize those of us who prefer the traditional form.
 
Ask him if he tells his wife that he loves her fewer times a day than he tells God the same thing. In exactly the same way. He can’t use the “I tell God I love him through my actions” defense because he won’t accept that from you in terms of the Rosary. He won’t accept that although we’re saying the Hail Mary, we’re focusing on Christ’s life, so hold him to the same standard. If he says “I love you” to his wife more times a day than he says those same words to God, then he obviously loves his wife more than he loves God.

Of course, it’s all in the delivery. If you’re snarky and abrasive about it, you’ll put him on the defensive, and might win the argument, but that’s all.
 
EphelDuath said:
From what I understand, he would be OK with the Rosary if it was less Hail Mary and more Our Fathers/Jesus Prayers/etc. His problem is that you’re spending more time asking for Mary’s assistance than God.
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It’s amazing how quantatative the human mind can divise the Devine.

Do you have a problem with it, too? “…you’re spending…” instead of, “…we’re spending…”

Why would God need to ask for Mary’s assistance?
 
I’m not sure if I’ll have anything of value to add for your specific circumstances, but I’ll try.

I, too, used to have much trouble with Marian Devotion, believing (erroneously) that Mary was being used as a substitute for Christ. For a very long time I would not pray the last Mystery of the Glorious Mysteries (Mary’s Crowning-as-Queen-of-Heaven), preferring instead to substitute Christ’s direction to Peter: “Feed my Sheep.”

But what I did not understand is that whenever we speak of Mary, we are speaking of Christ.

“The Spring through which all graces flow,” from that beautiful Marian Hymn “Hail Holy Queen,” speaks to us precisely, I think, of who Mary is. Jesus is All Graces, is He not?

God is able to choose from among all women that ever were, are and ever will be, who would be able to bear not only the responsibilities, but also the great burdens of being the Mother of the Savior–who among us would stand by as their son were being killed, without trying to substitute themself, or steal him away to keep him safe? Who among us could sublimate our own parental instincts to the Will of God whose plan necessitates the murder of the “fruit of one’s womb?”

And she knew this from the very beginning of her Son’s life: Simeon prophesied: “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted, and you yourself a sword will pierce, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Lk 2:34-35.

Mary is great among us precisely because there was no other woman in all of time who could bear such responsibilities and burdens. There was not, is not and will not be any woman greater than she, else the Kairos would not have been 2000 years ago. It would have been a different moment in time.

Everything about Mary is geared toward Her Son, and away from herself (“Do whatever He tells you” as Eileen T pointed out above).

In Mary, when we pray to her, we have the perfect model of the Church, of personhood, of womanhood, of motherhood, of spousehood–of who we were created to be–Christophers: the bearers of Christ.

In Mary, when we pray to her, especially the Rosary, we are hoping to become like her: ALL FOR HIM!
 
EphelDuath said:
How do you explain to someone that we aren’t putting Mary in a higher regard than God by doing ten Hail Marys for each Lord’s Prayer?
Click to expand...
The Rosary is a marian devotion. If he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t have to pray it.
 
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