Falling asleep while praying the Rosary

[Zooey]

I am pretty much guaranteed to fall asleep every night saying the rosary, because if I am still awake after the first one, I start another one.
A wonderful lady told me many years ago, that the best way to treat insomnia is to pray yourself out of it–not to be anxious, but just to use the time you are awake to pray. I started it, & I rarely lie awake trying to sleep anymore; I fall asleep naturally with the rosary in my hand.
I, too, sometimes wake up still holding the beads, & when I do, I finish the prayers.
I love the idea that the angels may be finishing my prayers…Or maybe it might be my parents & grandparents in Heaven?? In any case, I know that to fall asleep praying is a :yup: beautiful experience…

 

[wcknight]

Hey the Rosary is my personal lullaby. I get it started and invariably I am asleep before the end of the first decade, and most times even before that. I never intend to get through more than a mystery or two, when I start it late at night.

Only when I’m really not sleepy which is very rare as I usually go to sleep much too late (I’m a bit of a night owl and I never get enough sleep even on weekends) do I even get past the first mystery, and I certainly do not ever remember getting past the second or third.

IF my guardian angel, Michael, is doing his job, he finishes it for me as they say.

 

[paramedicgirl]

InSearchOfGod:

I try to pray the rosary every night, but a few nights, including last night, I fell asleep before I finished it. It was the end of the day, I was in bed, I was closing my eyes to try to focus on the prayer, and while praying I guess my mind somehow wondered off to dream world.

Is this a really bad habit?

I used to do this, too. After awhile, I felt prompted to pray the rosary earlier in the day, which I now do regularly.

 

[jmm08]

My minimal training in Psychology tells me that the times that have the greatest influence on us are:
a) The last moment before we fall asleep
b) The first moment we wake up

The only way to pray the Rosary in your last moment before falling asleep is to start praying the Rosary and fall asleep while praying it. Your devotion to the Rosary is wonderful.

If you love to pray the Rosary and pray at least one a week (40 mysteries), check out the Rosary Confraternity.

See rosary-center.org/

 

[otm]

Ghosty:

We’re bound by the Church to finish the (apparently new) Sacrament of the Rosary, now?

Any Canon Lawyers in the house?

Unless we have gone to 8 Sacraments, not.

Anyone who insists, suggests, or implies that one has to finish the Rosary should Read the first couple of paragraphs of what Pope Paul 6th had to say about the Rosary, in which he commented about how wome people have been guilty of excesses.
The Rosary is simply a prayer, and a prayer format. It is not magic; tying any “needs” or “rules” to it is at the least inappropriate. Nothing bad is going to occur if one says, for example, one decade; or part of one decade, or several decades and doesn’t complete it.

As a matter of fact, the Rosary popularly consists of 5 decades; however (at least before the introduction of the Luminous Mysteries), a complete Rosary consisted of 15 decades - all three sets of mysteries. Practically, then, with the addition of the new mysteries, a full Rosary would be 20 decades.

I wonder if the Dominicans are now going to go to a 20 decade Rosary?

 

[Jguerra]

A few said they were taught that if you fell asleep while praying the Rosary, the angels would finish it for you. A good and pious thought. Fr. John Bertolucci, in his cassette tape of the Holy Rosary, said it is a beautiful and pious sentiment that if you dozed off while praying the beads it was like falling asleep in the arms of Our Lady.

Frankly, if I haven’t prayed my daily Rosary throughout the day, I would pray it in bed. Dwelling on the mysteries of the Rosary while waiting for sleep is a better practice than thinking about the last images from the TV set.

 

[allhers]

Jguerra:

A few said they were taught that if you fell asleep while praying the Rosary, the angels would finish it for you. A good and pious thought. Fr. John Bertolucci, in his cassette tape of the Holy Rosary, said it is a beautiful and pious sentiment that if you dozed off while praying the beads it was like falling asleep in the arms of Our Lady.

Frankly, if I haven’t prayed my daily Rosary throughout the day, I would pray it in bed. Dwelling on the mysteries of the Rosary while waiting for sleep is a better practice than thinking about the last images from the TV set.

and my Grandmother and Mother said the same thing about the Angels when I was little too! :angel1: Now I pray it earlier in the day, sometimes I pray it with Mother Angelica and her Sisters on EWTN, my husband and I usually pray it together daily, have for years. Sometimes I pray it falling asleep too, (I pray it earlier in the day in order to properly mediate on the Mysteries.) I pray a lot all day long, I try to constantly lift people up in prayer and I pray when I hear something tragic on the news, like that earthquake today, I pray when someone leaves the house (for their safety), when I read something on these forums of someone requesting prayer, I try to remember all when I go to Adoration and at Mass, etc…I’ll bet most of us pray all day long, sometimes we just don’t realize it until we think about it.

 

[Anonymous_1]

sometimes i nod off in prayer…

 

[auroraj42]

I’ve begun nodding off during prayer recently as well…I try to stay awake, but sometimes I just can’t…in my case I asked a priest I know about this and about some fasting questions I had…I think I gave him a good chuckle…because I’m 7 weeks pregnant, and was worried that God would be mad at me for falling asleep while I pray and not being able to make it through the fast very well…He reminded me that I’m doing the work God wants me to and that He couldn’t be upset with me for doing what I need to do (sleep and eat) to help this little blessing grow…

I think that falling asleep while praying for whatever reason, is a good way to fall asleep, comforting in many ways. What better presence to fall asleep in than the comfort of Our Lord and His Mother.

Jamie

 

[Orionthehunter]

Jenlyn:

Love this! Does it work for unfinished prayers too?

I was taught to always have the words “Oh my God” on the tip of my tongue as it is the first words of the Act of Contrition in the event I would suddenly face immediate death. Just as Jesus said “My God, My God why have You forsaken me” before His death to begin praying Psalm 22 (and according to Jewish custom the Rabbi would say the first line of a Psalm and the faithful were to join in), my beginning of the Act of Contrition will be joined by the Church Triumphant (Guardian Angel for some to gain for me eternal salvation.

Now to the issue at hand regarding saying the Rosary before bed, I don’t **know ** if the angels/Church Triumphant will finish this prayer for you but I believe that you might even be finishing it in your sleep and of course the Saints/angels in heaven are always praying with us and so often do the real heavy lifting for the Church Militant so I believe they are finishing it for us.

 

[Annunciata]

singerlady:

A dear friend of mine says that if you fall asleep while praying the Rosary, the angels will finish it for you.

My former Archbishop told us this…
Pray for him…

 

[fix]

otm:

should Read the first couple of paragraphs of what Pope Paul 6th had to say about the Rosary, in which he commented about how wome people have been guilty of excesses.

Can you give us a citation so we can read it in context?

So, far I have found this:

In this context we wish to mention two attitudes which in pastoral practice could nullify the norm of the Second Vatican Council. In the first place there are certain persons concerned with the care of souls who scorn, a priori, devotions of piety which, in their correct forms, have been recommended by the magisterium, who leave them aside and in this way create a vacuum which they do not fill. They forget that the Council has said that devotions of piety should harmonize with the liturgy, not be suppressed. Secondly there are those who, without wholesome liturgical and pastoral criteria, mix practices of piety and liturgical acts in hybrid celebrations. It sometimes happens that novenas or similar practices of piety are inserted into the very celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. This creates the danger that the Lord’s Memorial Rite, instead of being the culmination of the meeting of the Christian community, becomes the occasion, as it were, for devotional practices. For those who act in this way we wish to recall the rule laid down by the Council prescribing that exercises of piety should be harmonized with the liturgy, not merged into it. Wise pastoral action should, on the one hand, point out and emphasize the proper nature of the liturgical acts, while on the other hand it should enhance the value of practices of piety in order to adapt them to the needs of individual communities in the Church and to make them valuable aids to the liturgy.papalencyclicals.net/Paul06/p6marial.htm

From other readings I find the biggest concern of the last few Popes was incorrect suppression of devotions, not a problem of superstition.

 

[jman507]

If you had a child that was going to bed, and he ment to say “I love you” would you be upset if he feel asleep before he could finish? If your trying to do the mediations I doubt Mary would feel nothing less than love even if you did not finish. Nor do I think God would mind so long as you try.

Well I’ll keep telling myself that, I’ve had many times too I feel asleep in prayer too, especially in the chapel after a long nights work. But as I heard before, could there be a better place to sleep than next to the Blessed Sacrament, of course snoring might not be so good. The more time in the chapel the better.

 

[Fergal]

Blessed Josemaria Escriva has this to say about praying the Rosary at night.

***"A sad way of not praying the Rosary is to leave it for the end of the day.

If you say it when going to bed, it will be done at best badly and with no meditation on the mysteries. It will be difficult then to avoid routine, which is what drowns true piety, the only piety worth the name."***

---

The Furrow - 476

 

[InSearchOfGod]

Fergal:

Blessed Josemaria Escriva has this to say about praying the Rosary at night.

***"A sad way of not praying the Rosary is to leave it for the end of the day.

If you say it when going to bed, it will be done at best badly and with no meditation on the mysteries. It will be difficult then to avoid routine, which is what drowns true piety, the only piety worth the name."***

---

The Furrow - 476

I think that depends on the state of your mind when you climb into bed. Are you tired? Are you restless? Are you able to concentrate? May days are rarely routine, so the times of day in which my mind is most active is not so predictable, and my bed time is rather random. This quote seems like a bit of a generalization, but a good reminder to perhaps pray the rosary when you can dedicate your mind to it.

 

[Fergal]

Oh course silly me!! The above quote somes from St Josemaria Escriva and I should not have said Blessed Josemaria.

Apologies to all me OD friends.

 

[InSearchOfGod]

Fergal:

Oh course silly me!! The above quote somes from St Josemaria Escriva and I should not have said Blessed Josemaria.

Apologies to all me OD friends.

I’m not sure what you mean? Do you believe that what I said in response to the quote was wrong? What does OD stand for?

 

[Annunciata]

InSearchOfGod:

I’m not sure what you mean? Do you believe that what I said in response to the quote was wrong? What does OD stand for?

St. Josemaria Escriva is the founder of Opus Dei…
the Furrow

 

[InSearchOfGod]

Annunciata:

St. Josemaria Escriva is the founder of Opus Dei…
the Furrow

Ah, thank you! I have never heard of this before.

I like 478 as well:

“You always leave the Rosary for later, and you end up not saying it at all because you are sleepy. If there is no other time, say it in the street without letting anybody notice it. It will, moreover, help you to have presence of God.”

How true!

 

[Fergal]

My apologies for not clarifying my post!

I had written Blessed instead of the well deserved title of Saint and just wanted to rectify that!

God Bless,