help praying the rosary

[jtodisco]

I would like to begin by saying that I really enjoy praying the rosary. I find that it makes me feel closer to the Blessed Virgin Mary and that it often gives me a sense of calm and spiritual renewal afterwards. I am a member of the Rosary Confraternity and I try to pray the entire rosary at least once a week (per the obligation of the RC).

Unfortunately though I have been struggling more and more lately when praying the rosary. I’ve always had problems here or there with distracting thoughts or maybe getting a little tired, but lately these issues have become far too common. I tend to either be too mentally active and am thus interrupted constantly with unrelated thoughts or I tend to be too mentally relaxed and literally find myself fighting off sleep. I still pray the rosary and feel that God and Mary will take note of my efforts even if I’m not able to pray as well as I would normally like to. But I would like to pray better on a more regular basis.

I’ve read several pamphlets on praying without distractions and they all seem rather vague to me and despite the noble intentions of those who wrote them they haven’t been able to help me thus far.

So my question for those of you who pray the rosary (or engage in similar forms of prayer like praying various chaplets, etc.) is this: how do you keep focused and alert while praying?

Thanks for any helpful advice you may be able to give.

 

[Dorothy]

Distractions are a common problem. In my own case I found that praying the Scriptural Rosary keeps me focussed on the prayers and meditation on the mystery.

In the Scriptural Rosary, there is a line of scripture before each Hail Mary. I say it (mentally) hesitate for a bit, and then say the Hail Mary.

You can do a search to find one online that you can print out…just type in Scriptural Rosary.

 

[velvetsky]

I agree with Dorothy and found that this helped me too. I got a little rosary booklet from the church and in addition to the scriptures it also has pictures of each mystery which I find helps me to focus more fully when praying the rosary.

 

[jtodisco]

Thank you both for your advice. I’ll will certainly give it a try.

 

[Nowhere_Man]

I’m a very sensory-orientated person so to help keep me concentrated when I pray the Rosary I put up an image of the Theotokos, burn incense, speak each prayer aloud, and play chant, very quietly, in the background. This helps me to involve all my senses and keep me focused, maybe it will work for you too.

 

[Robintrinket]

I found the ten steps for each decade to be helpful, where you have a short thought for each bead. There is one at the Rosary Center website. Here is a link to the Joyful Mysteries:rosary-center.org/joyful.htm This site also has ten steps for each decade of the other sets. (I don’t know if that is a one you’ve already seen, or will help you.)

God and Mary certainly do take notice of your effort when you pray the Rosary when it is hard. Have you ever read “Secret of the Rosary” by Saint Louis de Montford? He said something to the effect that your rosary has more merit when it is harder to pray, and that your feelings are not a judge of how good your rosary is.

 

[jtodisco]

Nowhere Man: Thanks for your advice. I would love to use incense, etc. while praying the rosary. However, since I live in an apartment with very sensitive smoke detectors that’s not a possibility at the moment. I do say the prayers aloud since I’ve always understood that to be part of saying the rosary (i.e. the verbal prayers equate to the “body of prayer” and the meditations on the mysteries equate to the "soul of the prayer). I don’t think I could mentally say the prayers and also mentally focus on the mysteries at the same time even if I wanted to do so.

Robintrinket: Thanks for your advice. I actually own the booklet “Praying the Rosary Without Distractions” that is put out by the Rosary Confraternity. It worked for me in the past when I used it, however I felt a desire to have deeper more “fluid” meditations on the mysteries so I temporarily abandoned the booklet and tried to do things on my own. But, just last evening I decided to give it another chance and I must say it was quite refreshing to be able to focus so easily on praying the rosary so I thank you for making the suggestion.

Also, I have read “Secret of the Rosary” by Saint Louis de Montford, but found myself distracted by his suggestions to imagine your prayers as little roses to crown Mary and Jesus with. It’s certainly a beautiful image to have, but I couldn’t think about that while also focusing on the mysteries and saying the prayers all that the same time.

Thanks again to everyone for their suggestions.