Innovation - a thought

[DL82]

At some point in history, somebody walked into their parish church and said to the people in the pew next to them: I’ve joined this new group, they take a bunch of beads in their hands and pray an Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s and a Glory Be five times over while meditating on the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s called the Rosary. I’ve found the Holy Spirit speaking to me in whole new ways since I joined them.

And at the same time, somebody in the pew next to them probably turned around to them and said, “None of these new innovations for me thanks, I’ll stick with Traditional Catholicism!”

Just a thought.

 

[Cranch]

At some point in history, somebody walked into their parish church and said to the people in the pew next to them: I’ve joined this new group, they take a bunch of beads in their hands and pray an Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s and a Glory Be five times over while meditating on the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s called the Rosary. I’ve found the Holy Spirit speaking to me in whole new ways since I joined them.

And at the same time, somebody in the pew next to them probably turned around to them and said, “None of these new innovations for me thanks, I’ll stick with Traditional Catholicism!”

Just a thought.

Cute. But hardly a “new innovation”. Did you know that the Desert Fathers counted prayers on a knotted “prayer rope” in the 4th century? This replaced the earlier practice of counting by throwing pebbles into a bowl, allowing the monks to pray when outside their cells. Or that the Venerable Bede observed in the 8th century that prayer beads were available in the churches in England and France? Or that in the 12th century, the rule of the English anchorites specified how groups of fifty Hail Marys were to be broken into five decades of ten Hail Marys each? All this before Saint Dominic saw the apparition of Our Lady of the Rosary in 1214. Frankly what could be more traditional than praying the Lord’s Prayer given to us by Christ Himself and honoring His Blessed Mother while giving glory to the Father? Undoubtedly this accounts for the rosary’s popularity through the ages.