Difficulty praying the Rosary

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I have real trouble praying the Rosary; either I become so engrossed in the mysteries that I lose count or start leaving off half the Hail Mary or I become so focused on saying the prayers that I forget to meditate. I think part of the problem is that I’m a convert (Baptist) to whom both memorized parayers and meditating while praying aren’t yet second nature (though I don’t have any nearly as much trouble with my daily Chaplet of St, Michael as I do with my daily Rosary–go figure). Does anyone have any suggestions?
 
jtav said:
I have real trouble praying the Rosary; either I become so engrossed in the mysteries that I lose count or start leaving off half the Hail Mary or I become so focused on saying the prayers that I forget to meditate. I think part of the problem is that I’m a convert (Baptist) to whom both memorized parayers and meditating while praying aren’t yet second nature (though I don’t have any nearly as much trouble with my daily Chaplet of St, Michael as I do with my daily Rosary–go figure). Does anyone have any suggestions?
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It’s a bit like the old trick of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time - takes practice, and for some of us it takes more practice than others. I still, even as a cradle catholic, occasionally forget the ‘O my Jesus’ prayer when I say it by myself :o Hang in there and you’ll get it.

Perhaps use a cd or audio Rosary to listen along to. There are a couple of different ones at EWTN.com that you can download for free onto your computer - saves you having to send away for a CD or anything. Do a search in the ‘audio library’ and you should find 'em.

You may prefer the version with Mother Angelica and the nuns - she goes a little bit slower than most. That way you can relax about things like keeping count or remembering all the words and prayers and it will sink in more naturally.
 
I strongly recommend that you use a SCRIPTURAL ROSARY.
Just go to Google and type in SCRIPTURAL ROSARY, and links to scriptural rosaries will come up.
A Scriptural Rosary is an excellent aid to becoming very good at praying the Rosary. It has a verse of scripture before each “Hail Mary,” and the verse of scripture is in some way,directly or indirectly, related to the Mystery being meditated upon.

There is also a wonderful book out by Edward Sri called
THE NEW ROSARY IN SCRIPTURE, which discusses the Mysteries thoroughly AND contains a Scriptural Rosary in it, too. A fantastic book, available at amazon.com

May your prayer life become joyful and richly rewarding !!
Love,
Jaypeeto4 (aka Jaypeeto3)
 
LilyM said:
It’s a bit like the old trick of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time - takes practice, and for some of us it takes more practice than others. I still, even as a cradle catholic, occasionally forget the ‘O my Jesus’ prayer when I say it by myself :o Hang in there and you’ll get it.

** Perhaps use a cd or audio Rosary to listen along to. **There are a couple of different ones at EWTN.com that you can download for free onto your computer - saves you having to send away for a CD or anything. Do a search in the ‘audio library’ and you should find 'em.

You may prefer the version with Mother Angelica and the nuns - she goes a little bit slower than most. That way you can relax about things like keeping count or remembering all the words and prayers and it will sink in more naturally.
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jtav, you can do the above; that will let you meditate while someone else keeps pace. Since the mysteries are the essence of the Rosary it’s okay to become engrossed with them. The Hail Mary’s are there as “timers” and give us time to meditate on each mystery. If you leave off Hail Marys or parts of them or whatever, it’s okay.

Give each of the suggestions upthread some good tries and see which is the best aid to your prayer.
 
Congradulations
I am going to tell how I learned. Pray the Rosary with another friend, ask around in your church and trust in Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary will ask her son Jesus to put another spiritual mate in your prayer life.
I will pray and devote one of todays Rosary prayers towards your quest. Let me know how things turn out. And be patient.
PS: Thed Hail Mary prayers are a background hymnal while one totally focuses on the mystery.
 
Becoming engrossed in the Mysteries of the Rosary is not a difficulty in prayer, it is the point of the prayer. The recitation of the formal prayers is to prepare the mind and heart for that contemplation of the mysteries. If you are already there, simply meditate until you have pondered what the Lord has put in your heart at this time, then move on and begin the formal prayers again. That is exactly why we have beads to “keep track”, because we anticipate we may stop and start again. If sometimes no particular thought about the particular mystery comes to mind, simply continue reciting the formal prayers attentively and meditatively. If this happens a lot, you may want to read the actual scriptures about each mystery before beginning each decade, to help recall the events to mind.

Converts who are well versed in scripture and have been accustomed to regular prayer with scripture may very well be quite advanced in calling the mysteries to mind and meditating, and the formal prayers for them are “background music” so to speak.
 
jtav: I’m a convert too.

At first, I only prayed a little to Mary. I had prayed a bit before, but at first the Hail Mary was not an easy prayer for me to say with my heart. It took awhile of reading other Catholic books before I was more comfortable. I found books by Fulton Sheen very helpful, but you may find some other author that you prefer.

After awhile at bedtime I started praying an Our Father, 10 Hail Mary’s and another Our Father (with no mysteries). That went on for perhaps a few months or more.

I thought it was very difficult to remember all the mysteries.

Two Christmases ago I bought Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s “The Rosary – Chain of Hope”. Don’t be scared of how thick the book is. Many of the pages are blank and many pages have a nice picture. The pictures and the brief narrative for each Rosary Mystery made it much easier for me to remember.

Even so, it took almost another year before I figured out how I can fit in praying the Rosary every day.
 
When I first started praying the Rosary, I found it impossible to both pray and meditate.

So I focused on praying and a brief visualization of the mystery during the Our Father, and focused mentally on images that had to do with the mystery. And that was unforced. I felt it more important to get the prayers down so that my mind would be free to reflect.

It took some time, but it happened. Best not to stress about it 🙂
 
I don’t remember the source for one of my favorite quatations:

**If you can pray well do so. **
**Otherwise pray poorly like the rest of us. **
 
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