I feel guilty when I don't pray a full rosary

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mattd327

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I like to pray the rosary before I go out for the day and sometimes I just can’t even get through a whole decade which makes me feel guilty. Can anybody relate?
 
Nothing to “feel guilty” about.

One is not obliged to pray any part of the rosary (unless given as a penance in confession).
 
I all but never pray a full rosary… just use it as a guide for some prayer.

Plus my son likes to do it in parts. He gets super excited doing the next part each night.
 
mattd327 said:
I still like to devot my morning to Mother Mary.
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Fine but do not worry about it when you do not finish the particular prayers you intended.

Life changes…one day you might have to leave or something etc. Things come up.
 
I can somewhat relate, yes. Just this week, I’ve had to miss daily Mass two times (something I love going to) because of some other obligations.

But I think it’s important to understand that we shouldn’t go to daily Mass, or pray the Rosary, or do anything else simply based on how doing those things make us feel or not feel.

Praying one Hail Mary out of great love is worth many Rosaries prayed simply out of a feeling of guilt and obligation.

Or at least that’s what I think.
 
I recommend you read what the catechism has to say on prayer, its a few chapters but well worth the doing of… a tid-bit

ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/catechism/index.html

ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/catechism/index.html#630
  1. Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.
 
mattd327 said:
I like to pray the rosary before I go out for the day and sometimes I just can’t even get through a whole decade which makes me feel guilty. Can anybody relate?
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Yes, I can relate. But because of time constrictions and/or distractions it is sometimes not practical.
Yet, the guilt, for me, I believe is justified, because if I’d only commit to a schedule there’d be no problem. None the less everyday I arise to seek first His Kingdom. And before the crucifix, make my morning offering, surrender my will to God, renew my consecration to the Immaculata, implore her intercession, protection of her angels, and my song and praises to her.
Then I reach for my beads.
Since I know I probably cannot fit all five decades in one session, I commit to at least the first decade.
Later throughout the shift at work, driving in the car, or sometimes before or after Mass, I will usually complete all five decades.
To please God and Mary, force yourself to go the extra step. Sacrifice is doing something you don’t want to do to prove your love to someone.
It’s very easy to get caught up in other things and neglect completing the daily Rosary. It’s a shame when this happens because my days are much brighter when I fervently complete all five decades. It’s like Mary giving me a high-five and I coast down hill from there. It’s an enormously wonderful blessing to believe our actions have pleased Blessed Mother.
Once I update my schedule I’ll be reciting my Rosary publicly before the TLM three times per week and during holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament three times per week.
I’ve just memorized the Memorare after taking some time to practice. And I’m pleased to now have that prayer in my arsenal of spiritual warfare.
The late Fr. John Hardon, S.J. said he recited the Memorare over a hundred times per day.

And FWIW, I suggest ignoring every single poor sinner who informs you that you are not obliged to the Rosary or any other Marian devotion.
Do it anyway because you have the freedom to greet her, turn to her, beg her intercessory prayers for graces of sanctity, imitate her, be her child, ask her protection, respect her, thank her, serve her, offer her your heart, be taught, led, and guided to Jesus in union with her.
Mary is the most perfect image of God in a purely human creature.
The best protection of our Faith is devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Holy Spirit became fruitful through Mary His spouse. The Spirit through Mary shaped Christ’s human nature. The Spirit now effects each thing in us through Mary. It is the Spirits task to form Saints until the end of the world. But the Spirit does this with Mary, in Mary, and through Mary.
Mary does not block the action of Jesus, the sole Mediator between God and man, but rather completes it. Mary always operates in the background in union with the Spirit and leads man to conformity with Jesus.
She has authority and influence but always subordinate to her Son. And the authority she has is that she gets whatever she wants. Her influence as Queen and Mother for us is that if we want to obtain something from her Son, we go to her.
 
QUOTE=mattd327;13859669]I like to pray the rosary before I go out for the day and sometimes I just can’t even get through a whole decade which makes me feel guilty. Can anybody relate?

Praying half a rosary is a lot better than praying none of the rosary.

If this is becoming a daily problem, perhaps you could plan your day around praying the rosary? You schedule rosary time, and then you plan the rest of your day. That way, the rosary is the number one priority for the day. Everything else is secondary. If you do this for a week or two, the rosary will become part of your daily routine.

But I still believe that half a rosary is a lot better than none of the rosary.
 
I feel pretty guilty not doing the full rosary either. But it’s more personal than anything. There are certain promises attached to those who are devoted to the rosary, and I’ve already gotten so many of them personally that at this point, I feel like I’m being ungrateful to Our Lady if I don’t say the full one.

ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/15promise.htm
 
mattd327 said:
I like to pray the rosary before I go out for the day and sometimes I just can’t even get through a whole decade which makes me feel guilty. Can anybody relate?
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I do understand.

However, I also think that if we continue to make ourselves feel guilty, we can also end up making ourselves feel worse, especially if we have any kind of anxiety that we are dealing with, too.

Personally, I would just try and fit the Rosary prayers in where you can, and just do your best. If you can say a few of the prayers here and there to accomplish it, then I would just do that. 🙂

God bless you!
 
AI can understand fully. We all want to give it our all, but you cannot neglect your obligations to your station in life. For example:

Your have a baby with the colic and it requires a lot of time from you and your spouse. Do you think God would want you to dump all the responsibility onto your spouse to care for the infant so you can meditate on the rosary or go to mass daily? No.

You have a job that is taxing, either mentally or physically. You have to have your rest. Does God want you to go to work fatigued so you either end up dumping part of your fair share of the work on other employees or your such an old sour-puss from being sleepy no one thinks you’re very nice and have no reason to be drawn to your faith? No.

I suggest you look into other devotions that you can do on a daily basis when there isn’t much time. The morning offering that is a Jesuit devotion can be said in the moments from the time you wake up to the time your feet hit the floor. Also, pick up a book on Indulgences. Did you know there are short little prayers you can say during the day while working that you can get partial indulgences for? They are called ejaculations and are short statements like, “I love you, Jesus!” and “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.” These are big time devotions of some religious communities. Actually I think we should all feel a little guilt over not doing these regularly, as the bible says to pray ceaselessly.
 
Don’t man I usually do decades of 1-2.
The fact that you try is awesome and I should too
Don’t down yourself other things do that another

No need to feel guilty God loves the fact that you prayed at all
 
For me I used to find it very tiring to pray the Rosary and would only pray it on a Sunday. I liked to pray a novena of Rosaries before Christmas and then just kept going every day. Now that after many years of wearing the brown scapular I finally become enrolled in it on Divine Mercy Sunday the pries said I can pray the Rosary instead of reading the little office.

I find it much easier to pray the Rosary now, if you told me a year ago I would be shocked.

Sometimes I get interrupted when I pray the Rosary (children) but continue as if I leave I until the late evening I find it difficult to pray as I am tired.
 
Nothing to feel guilty about, you can do one decade every 3 hours, or whatever. It’s not wrong!
 
I do my best to pray the Rosary.

I pray the Rosary along with EWTN radio at night. I don’t do it every night, and sometimes I don’t pray it perfectly (difficulty staying awake, etc.), but at least I make the effort. And I make a special effort to be there on Friday nights to pray it as my Friday penance in place of abstinence from meat.

And, as others have said, we aren’t required to pray it under penalty of sin, so praying it when I can or as best I can is better than not praying it at all.
 
If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

I have to disagree. I decided to give up my atheism for Lent and, though I haven’t been able, yet, to completely disavow my atheism, my prayers for belief has been very effective in that I find myself slowly incorporating belief into my life on many levels, though not all. Whether prayer is a form of self hypnosis or not, it is having a real affect on me as it is now more of a habit as I find myself praying much more frequently over time. Note, too, that I’m also doing a LOT more in this regard (Mass, squelching atheistic thoughts, trying hard to feel God, etc.).
 
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