Meditating On The Rosary

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ATeutonicKnight

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I have a problem with meditation. For many years, I didn’t know you were supposed to meditate on the mysteries, so I focused on the words. When I learned you were supposed to meditate on the mysteries, I realized it would be a problem. I was never taught to meditate. How do you do it? Do you play a scene in your head? Do you focus on a picture? What is meditation?
 
Different personalities meditate in different ways.

For instance, the first joyful mystery is the Annunciation. I imagine I am watching Mary being greeted by the angel, and she responds in the affirmative to what is asked of her.

I keep that picture in my mind, and I meditate that I should be responding in the affirmative to God’s will in all my daily circumstances, as I say the Our Father and the Hail Marys.
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
I have a problem with meditation. For many years, I didn’t know you were supposed to meditate on the mysteries, so I focused on the words. When I learned you were supposed to meditate on the mysteries, I realized it would be a problem. I was never taught to meditate. How do you do it? Do you play a scene in your head? Do you focus on a picture? What is meditation?
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My impression from my pre VCII nun teachers has always been that one pictures oneself in the scene, with its sounds, sights, smells, weather, surroundings, etc. and then imputes the words to a human figure. In other words, one “puts skin on” the situation. A lot of this went out the window in the late 60s and 70s when contemplative prayer and devotiaonalism was ruled ignorant by the AmChurch crowd. It sunk the Church in Europe but can be regained by following the current pontiff.
 
The Catechism tries to explain it.

II. MEDITATION CCC 2705 - 2708
.

III. CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER CCC 2709 - 2719

I hope this helps.
 
Thank you for all of your great answers. I’ve tried playing a scene in my mind, but I have a problem with that for the mysteries that are “quick” to me, such as the Ascension. I’ll just focus on a picture when I pray the Rosary on those decades.
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
Thank you for all of your great answers. I’ve tried playing a scene in my mind, but I have a problem with that for the mysteries that are “quick” to me, such as the Ascension. I’ll just focus on a picture when I pray the Rosary on those decades.
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I am on a Blackberry right now and cannot provide links but I strongly suggest searching Google for the methods of the rosary as suggested by Saint Louis de Montfort. One uch suggestion has a scene of a mystery for each Ave.

Take the Ascension for example. Start with the gathering in the Garden of Olives, Christ’s words before He ascends (the great commission of baptising all nations) then proceed to the Ascension its self. Then what comes after it. His welcoming into heaven by the Angelic choir, being seated at the right hand of God, our desires to join Him and indeed his Second Coming to judge the living and the dead etc.
 
My method is to close my eyes and being in the garden, handing Our Lady roses and bowing before each Haily Mary, each mystery and kind of being in the events on distance, picturing the places, the people there, the smells and how things happened.

I also bow before each Lords prayer and Haily Holy queen at the end (bowing and kissing her feet). It might sound strange to some of you. Most of the time while praying the rosary, i keep my eyes closed, in a dark room with 3-6 candles. Taking the needed time is also a good idea.
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
I . I was never taught to meditate. How do you do it? Do you play a scene in your head? Do you focus on a picture? What is meditation?
Click to expand...
you do it all the time. It is using your imagination, intellect and emotions to ponder a mystery, usually drawn from the gospels or other scriptures. You do it when you are really engaged in the story told by a movie or book, go on to imagine yourself in the story, think about the characters and their reactions etc.

Meditation on the gospels, which is the source of the rosary prayer, is much the same. First read the verses directly from the gospel as an aid to memory. Imagine yourself in the scene, you are seeing, hearing, smelling, sensing, observing what is going on. How do the characters act and react. How do you imagine their response to God’s intervention to be based on those actions. Then in the prayer phase you move on to your prayer, your response to the story.

when you don’t have the bible in front of you, it is very helpful to adopt a practice long advocated by many spiritual leaders such as Romano Guardini, and Pope JP in his letter on the rosary, after the word “Jesus” in the Hail Mary, interject an invocation about the specific mystery

…fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem
…Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins
…Jesus, who changed water into wine as the first of his signs
 
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