Distracted during the rosary?

[o_o_82]

Hi,
I am a cradle Catholic, and I have recently discovered the Rosary. I am trying to say the Rosary daily (i.e. one mystery a day). Unfortunately I get distracted. Also I am not sure if I am doing this correctly.

(I do this alone) For each decade, I say the Our Father. Then while I am saying the 10 Hail Mary’s I try to think about various aspects about the mystery that I am saying. However I find that I cannot easily do that – and my concentration suddenly drifts to something that has happened during the day (while I am continuing saying the Hail Mary’s). I then feel that I have not thought much about the mystery and end up saying more than 10 Hail Marys  most of the time. 

Is this the correct way of doing this. Also any suggestions for avoiding distractions? (I think I get more distracted because I am doing two things at the same time – if I am just simply praying I don’t get so distracted.)

Thanks to all of your replies,
O.O.

 

[mommyof4]

Ok, it’s me again with more advice - hope you’re ready.

First of all, distractions aren’t all bad- it may the God’s way to help you think about things and people in your life. Can you turn your “distracted thought” into a prayer? For example, if I’m praying the rosary, and I begin thinking about a situation with one of my children, I try to ask the Lord for guidance in this situation. Or I might simply thank Him for giving my the gift of my child.

Secondly, if you really want to concentrate on the mystery, try using a meditiation like the ones at this site (my favorite):

familyrosary.org/main/rosary-daily.php

I also have another site, but I’ll have to look it up - I’ll get back to you.​

Ok, found it in time to edit this post:
pacifier.com/~rosarweb/howto.htm
If you click on the highlighted mysteries at the top, they will lead you to a short meditation for each hail mary on the rosary.

If you haven’t already done so, I would encourage you to join the Rosay Confraternity. This is a world-wide group that promises to say all of the mysteries of the rosary once a week. In this way, you are joining your intentions to all of the other people in the confraternity whenever you say the rosary.

 

[sconea]

Distractions during prayer are pretty common. Each time this happens stop and apologize to God and then continue. This will improve with time. Also consider asking your guardian angel to pray with you. God bless.

 

[kell0618]

Hello!

How wonderful that you have begun praying the rosary! There are many good booklets that you may purchase that will help you focus, but I suggest that you purchase a rosary cd or listen to Catholic radio and pray it along with them. Better yet, go here and download this to your computer: Virtual Rosary

Check out catholicity.com as you can get a cd for free!

God bless you,

Kelly

 

[jmm08]

This following story is told by some a few different ways. In Fulton Sheen’s “Life Is Worth Living” television series – the episode on prayer – the story is told thus:

Distractions should not be a serious problem in prayer. Saint Bernard had a friend once who told him he never had any distractions. Saint Bernard confessed to having trouble with them. The two were out horseback riding when Saint Bernard said, “I will give you this horse, if you can say the Our Father without distraction. Now, get off your horse and say the Our Father.” His friend got as far as the words, “Give us this day our daily bread”, when he looked up at Saint Bernard and asked, “Can I have the saddle too?”

I find distractions so frequent. Although I have prayed the Rosary every day for a little more than a year, I can also ask myself if I have ever prayed the Rosary. For me, distractions are frequent and my mind easily wanders. I am probably very fortunate if I can pray as much as a single decade a day with minimal mental distraction. And I can wonder if this is as frequent as a dozen times a year.

So consider yourself normal and keep trying anyway. Even Saint Bernard had this problem.

jmm08

 

[accidental]

<-SNIP->
I then feel that I have not thought much about the mystery and end up saying more than 10 Hail Marys most of the time.
O.O.

You don’t have to pray the rosary perfectly, and you don’t have to be perfect, that’s the great thing about it: We can’t hide our weaknesses from God, and we shouldn’t even try, because God looks at us and loves the whole mess! Isn’t that awesome? When we begin to walk more closely with God, we do it with baby steps. Right intent in prayer is what God wants from us, not perfection.

Everyone’s distracted during prayer. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t beat yourself up about it, allow the distraction to float away from you and gently re-focus your attention on God. While you’re watching it float away, ask yourself if it really is a distraction–maybe it’s something God wants you to see and pay attention to. You’ll know the difference if it is.

Remember, you are beloved. Take the time to say to God “I love you too.”

 

[Larry1700]

o_o_82,

I’m glad you started this thread. It’s always comforting to hear that other people have the same difficulties I have. Sometimes I end up saying more than 10 intentionally because I don’t feel like I meditated on the mystery – I was thinking about something else. I’m beginning to believe this might be scrupulosity, and might be making the Rosary more of a chore, instead of a special encounter.

One hangup I have, even after several years of praying the Rosary, is the expression “Our life…our hope.” (I am a convert from Southern Baptist). A poster in another thread suggested a book (or CD, or article) by Fr. Groeschel, but she didn’t have the details. I’d like to get over this issue, because I’m sure it’s negatively impacting my prayer.

 

[LilyM]

o_o_82,

I’m glad you started this thread. It’s always comforting to hear that other people have the same difficulties I have. Sometimes I end up saying more than 10 intentionally because I don’t feel like I meditated on the mystery – I was thinking about something else. I’m beginning to believe this might be scrupulosity, and might be making the Rosary more of a chore, instead of a special encounter.

One hangup I have, even after several years of praying the Rosary, is the expression “Our life…our hope.” (I am a convert from Southern Baptist). A poster in another thread suggested a book (or CD, or article) by Fr. Groeschel, but she didn’t have the details. I’d like to get over this issue, because I’m sure it’s negatively impacting my prayer.

You mean the line in the Hail Holy Queen that goes ‘Mother of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our hope’? … well, think for a second. Mary is the mother of Christ. We can certainly safely call Christ our mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope, no? Well if Mary is HIS mother, then she is also mother of mercy and mother of our life, our sweetness and our hope, no?

Where’s the problem?

 

[Larry1700]

Call it a residual block from my Baptist background (hey, I overcame a lot of blocks to get to the Catholic Church ), but I consider Jesus “my life” and “my hope.” Mary and the Church are mediators (helpers) on our spiritual journey to see Christ face-to-face. As I see it, my life and my hope is Christ. Jesus said “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. Noone cometh to the Father but by Me.”

Don’t get me wrong. If the Church says it, I must believe it. I’m just looking for a good explanation so I’ll be **comfortable **with saying it.

 

[Larry1700]

Sorry, I didn’t do the reply properly. My previous post was in response to LilyM.

On a side note, o_o_82, if you don’t mind me asking, what does your username mean?

 

[LilyM]

Call it a residual block from my Baptist background (hey, I overcame a lot of blocks to get to the Catholic Church ), but I consider Jesus “my life” and “my hope.” Mary and the Church are mediators (helpers) on our spiritual journey to see Christ face-to-face. As I see it, my life and my hope is Christ. Jesus said “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. Noone cometh to the Father but by Me.”

Don’t get me wrong. If the Church says it, I must believe it. I’m just looking for a good explanation so I’ll be **comfortable **with saying it.

The prayer IS calling Jesus our life and our hope Mary, being his mother, is also mother of his attributes.

Put it like this, if we said a prayer to Mary and called her ‘mother of our way, our truth and our life’ would you find that uncomfortable? Given that she IS the mother of Christ, and Christ IS our way, our truth and our life, it’s quite appropriate to call her mother of all those things.

I can understand it much easier perhaps because there’s a parallel in our royal family. Queen Elizabeth II’s mother had the title of - guess what - Queen Mother. Not meaning that the mother was Queen while holding this title, which only came to her after Elizabeth II began her own reign as Queen. There’s no such thing as having two reigning Queens at the same time, after all. It was simply a shorthand way of saying ‘Mother of the Queen’.

So saying ‘mother of mercy, life sweetness and hope’ is shorthand for ‘mother of HIM WHO IS our mercy, life, sweetness and hope’

 

[Larry1700]

Put it like this, if we said a prayer to Mary and called her ‘mother of our way, our truth and our life’ would you find that uncomfortable?

No, I wouldn’t find that uncomfortable.

Given that she IS the mother of Christ, and Christ IS our way, our truth and our life, it’s quite appropriate to call her mother of all those things. So saying ‘mother of mercy, life sweetness and hope’ is shorthand for ‘mother of HIM WHO IS our mercy, life, sweetness and hope’

So have I misunderstood the Rosary all along? When I say “Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope,” I thought the adjectives “our life, our sweetness, and our hope” referred to the pronoun “Mary.” In other words, I thought there were 5 descriptives of Mary here: 1) Holy Queen, 2) Mother of Mercy, 3) our life, 4) our sweetness, 5) our hope. Mary is our life, Mary is our sweetness, Mary is our hope.

You’re saying that “our life, our sweetness, and our hope” refer to “Mercy,” which in turn is Jesus? Said another way, "Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Jesus, who is our life, our sweetness and our hope.

Do I understand you correctly? Do you have any reference to support this as the meaning of that phrase?

 

[dulcissima]

Larry, Mary is my hope. I hope that she will lead me to her Son. She has been assumed into Heaven, body and soul, completely united with God’s will. I think we should all look at her life and her sweetness and hope to share in it.

 

[stbruno]

My wise mother who always said a rosary before she went to bed…she taught me that if I become distracted or if I may even fall asleep when I was reciting the rosary…my guardian angel would finish it for me.

The action of intending to recite the rosary and actually doing it allows you to receive the grace from it. Distractions are human. The phone rings, your thoughts drift, you begin to tire…all those are human failings or outside interventions, there is no sin in it. But you can always ask God to help you get better at it.

Most of us aren’t saints…at least not yet, so don’t beat yourself up. Just keep trying! That’s all God expects of us…to be faithful, not successful!

 

[o_o_82]

Dear mommyof4,
Thanks for posting again. Thanks for your links. I think I certainly looked at the second one – twice before, because I remember the pictures there very well.

Secondly, if you really want to concentrate on the mystery, try using a meditiation like the ones at this site (my favorite):

familyrosary.org/main/rosary-daily.php

I also have another site, but I’ll have to look it up - I’ll get back to you.​

Ok, found it in time to edit this post:
pacifier.com/~rosarweb/howto.htm

One of the oft repeated words along with the rosary is “meditation”. I thought I understood that – but now I guess I might be wrong. Can you explain to me what exactly do you do during the Hail Mary part.

If you haven’t already done so, I would encourage you to join the Rosay Confraternity. This is a world-wide group that promises to say all of the mysteries of the rosary once a week. In this way, you are joining your intentions to all of the other people in the confraternity whenever you say the rosary.

Thanks for this information. I think I looked at this before – but I don’t think I would like to join. Now I am student so I have a bit of time – but later on I don’t know what would happen to me.

Regards,
O.O.

 

[o_o_82]

Distractions during prayer are pretty common. Each time this happens stop and apologize to God and then continue. This will improve with time. Also consider asking your guardian angel to pray with you. God bless.

Thanks sconea. I get much less distracted when I am just praying than when I am saying the Rosary. I think that the requirement of the Rosary of trying to do two things i.e. saying the Hail Marys and thinking about the Mysteries at the same time – is too difficult for me. So I am wondering if I am doing it the correct way?
O.O.

 

[o_o_82]

Better yet, go here and download this to your computer: Virtual Rosary

Oh, so this is Rosary Software! I had never heard of it before. Anyway if I understand what I am doing wrong in my recitation of the Rosary – then I guess I would be OK.
Thanks for responding Kelly,
O.O.

 

[o_o_82]

Distractions should not be a serious problem in prayer. Saint Bernard had a friend once who told him he never had any distractions. Saint Bernard confessed to having trouble with them. The two were out horseback riding when Saint Bernard said, “I will give you this horse, if you can say the Our Father without distraction. Now, get off your horse and say the Our Father.” His friend got as far as the words, “Give us this day our daily bread”, when he looked up at Saint Bernard and asked, “Can I have the saddle too?”

I am sure I have heard of this on the EWTN show of Bishop Sheen.

I find distractions so frequent. Although I have prayed the Rosary every day for a little more than a year, I can also ask myself if I have ever prayed the Rosary. For me, distractions are frequent and my mind easily wanders. I am probably very fortunate if I can pray as much as a single decade a day with minimal mental distraction. And I can wonder if this is as frequent as a dozen times a year.

It seems that you are having the same problem as me. So do you repeat the parts where you were distracted – or you just let it go?

Thanks for sharing jmm08,
O.O.

 

[Vianney]

This reminds me a true story:

There was a convent whose nuns would pray the rosary together daily in their chapel. Hung up on the wall near the crucifix was a 5 dollar bill. Ten years prior, the Mother Superior had put the 5 dollar bill on the wall saying, “Whoever can pray the whole rosary without once getting distracted is welcome to take these 5 dollars.”

Praying a long and repetitive prayer like the Rosary is not easy. The most crucial thing is that we don’t give up when it becomes difficult. Our greatest profit is from praying when we least want to.

 

[o_o_82]

You don’t have to pray the rosary perfectly, and you don’t have to be perfect, that’s the great thing about it: We can’t hide our weaknesses from God, and we shouldn’t even try, because God looks at us and loves the whole mess! Isn’t that awesome? When we begin to walk more closely with God, we do it with baby steps. Right intent in prayer is what God wants from us, not perfection.

Everyone’s distracted during prayer. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t beat yourself up about it, allow the distraction to float away from you and gently re-focus your attention on God. While you’re watching it float away, ask yourself if it really is a distraction–maybe it’s something God wants you to see and pay attention to. You’ll know the difference if it is.

Remember, you are beloved. Take the time to say to God “I love you too.”

Thanks accidental and welcome to the CAF. (Looks like your second post here.)

I was looking for this information i.e. do I repeat the stuff that I was distracted on or do I just go ahead. Thanks for clarifying the issue.
O.O.