Our school is imposing the rosary

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Yes, but saying the rosary to oneself, with time to perhaps linger on a thought that comes, is quite a different matter to saying it in a group, when it can become a conveyer-belt, with no time to pause.
 
I can’t believe some would call themselves Catholic and complain that the rosary is being prayed in a CATHOLIC school…

If you have a problem with it, take your kids to a public school but don’t you try and change that most beautiful and effective prayer in that school.

The world is in the state it is because not many pray the rosary.
 
Every time a hail Mary is said… We give our mother a rose…a whole rosary said gives her a crown of roses… Its out of love for her, even when we are tired that we give her gifts and she in turn blesses us with so much more…
 
Hi,

Maybe you could come up with a way to make the Rosary a time for your children to think about other people while saying the decans. Meaning, maybe a deceased relative, or their favorite friend or relative who is alive…just to begin. They may seem that it is more accessible to their present reality. Also, you could try to have them say only one decan, and then pause for a couple of minutes; their attention spans are usually not on repetition. Unfortunately, we’re taught to say the Rosary with out stopping, but my parish priest said that it is permissible to ponder on the mysteries while saying the Rosary.
Anyway, then when Rosary time comes around at school, they have a reference point in their mind about this duty. Also, repetitive prayer has been around for thousands of yrs. It is meant to open your heart via contemplation and meditation as it is done repeatedly. When I first started yrs. ago it took a lot of time until I could concentrate. (that’s what the repeats are for). The notion of private prayer being the only way to pray is Protestant in origin. The Hindus have their own form of Rosary using rope with I believe has 84 beads (although don’t quote me on the number). Orthodox Catholics use a knotted cord for meditation prayer.
Anyhow I hope this may help you.

Blessings
 
Every time a hail Mary is said… We give our mother a rose…a whole rosary said gives her a crown of roses… Its out of love for her, even when we are tired that we give her gifts and she in turn blesses us with so much more…
Code:
          Hopefaithcharit, This is indeed a beautiful statement!       
    Beautiful roses to honor Mary.
 
It appears that the OP has stopped responding, but I’ll add my two cents.

Like many, many others I’m very happy to read that a Catholic school is having the students pray the Rosary.

I went to a Catholic elementary school for 8yrs, and we were never, and I mean never, taught the Rosary, nor did we ever say it as a class, even in the upper grades.

I chalk it up to it being the 1970’s, when there were so many things omitted, and other things added to Catholic religious education (at least in my area).

Anyway, I wish we had been taught the Rosary in a formal way. Who knows? It might have kept me in the faith. Sadly, my family did not pray together. Our Lady has special graces for us and I ignored them as a young person. I’m just thankful that I returned to the Church after 30+ years.
 
What I have a problem with is forcing children to say a repetitive prayer (counted off on the beads, of course - we wouldn’t want to count incorrectly) when they could be offered the opportunity to make a more personal, meaningful prayer.
(NOTE: I have nothing against those with a devotion to Mary. I admire and respect that. It’s not for me, that’s all.)
We often force children in school to do repetitious work because it helps them remember it. That’s not necessarily the best way to do things, but it is an effective way of doing them. The rosary is not just any prayer. There is a reason it is called the Divine Psalter. It is a miniature catechism on living out your Christian life.

Every mystery of the rosary is something that you, and your child, will encounter on their walk of faith. When we meditate on the mysteries of the rosary, we discover how to correctly handle the trials and temptations that will inevitably come up in life. The more often we meditate on the meaning of those mysteries, the more ingrained they will become in us.

I have a book coming out called The Secret of the Lantern which is designed to help children and parents better understand the Rosary.
indiegogo.com/projects/the-secret-of-the-lantern/x/647354

I think you’ll find that your child’s faith is greatly improved by, and not harmed by, the prayers of the rosary.
 
A couple things:
Read about how to meditate on the Mysteries of the Rosary;
We also pray the words to Mary, in reparation for evil ,and in intercession for the needs of the world.
Google “the Year of the Rosary; the Miracle of Lepanto” on the Internet, to learn how
the Pope urged the Christians to pray and hence defeat an overwhelming force of Turks in battle on the Mediterranean.
In more recent times, Filipinos stood before tanks,armed only with their Rosaries,
interceding, and the tanks backed off. Now that is power!!
Mary has urged us to pray the Rosary for Peace, and especially for an end to abortion.
For, "there will be no peace in the world until there is peace in the womb."
 
Oh, I’m just a teacher at the school. I don’t want to make children take up rosary beads and count off prayers by rote. It seems meaningless to me. I suppose I have different and possibly unusual notions of what prayer should be.

Okay. One last time.

Those who disagree with me: What, exactly, is the purpose of praying the same prayer over and over again?
(I don’t want a throw-away answer like “it brings us closer to the virgin” or “it calms us in the stillness that is God”, or any other almost-meaningless platitudes).

I would like (if you would be so kind) a specific answer about why repetitive prayer is any better than personal prayer.
I suggest you find a job in a non-Catholic school because you don’t agree with the greatest Catholic devotion next to the Holy Eucharist. Those little children are in danger of picking-up your heretical views. Peace.
 
Keep in mind that we, as parents, send our children to Catholic school so that they have the opportunity to learn these prayers. My two sons went through Catholic school and know the Rosary backwards and forwards (better than I do, in fact). Why? Because they were required (i.e., “forced”) to learn the prayers and the mysteries. I was not. This is how you learn anything - including prayer. No, while you’re learning it, the prayers may not be “meaningful” and it may be “rote.” But, now that they’ve learned the prayers, when they do choose to pray the Rosary, it’s meaningful, because they’ve internalized it.

I had a similar experience when I learned to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. I’m guessing that originally my prayers didn’t have much “value” - I know that I was more concerned with learning the form than focusing on the content. But now that I know the form and can pray many of the psalms from memory, it has much value to me.

Just my $0.02.
 
I have no problem with Catholic schools doing Catholic things: school Masses, retreats, daily prayer, occasional confession opportunities, a general focus on good living, compassion and generosity. We are good at those things, even though few students or staff are actually “Catholic” in the way they practise their faith.

What I have a problem with is forcing children to say a repetitive prayer (counted off on the beads, of course - we wouldn’t want to count incorrectly) when they could be offered the opportunity to make a more personal, meaningful prayer.

For example, when I am required to say a prayer at a meeting, I always ask people to offer quiet prayers of a personal nature. This is in keeping with Matthew 6:6 (“go to your room” etc).

Another concern: if prayers are forced, they can’t be genuine. Therefore, they will not “get through” at all.

If Marian Devotion is not required of the faithful (beyond the main dogmatic statements which are more recognition than devotion), and if praying the Rosary is not required, I won’t be inclined to enforce this.

Surely a carefully considered prayer is of more personal and spiritual value than a dull, repetitive, forced prayer.

(NOTE: I have nothing against those with a devotion to Mary. I admire and respect that. It’s not for me, that’s all.)
Are they actually forcing them to pray, or are you just speculating?
 
I have no problem with Catholic schools doing Catholic things: school Masses, retreats, daily prayer, occasional confession opportunities, a general focus on good living, compassion and generosity. We are good at those things, even though few students or staff are actually “Catholic” in the way they practise their faith.

What I have a problem with is forcing children to say a repetitive prayer (counted off on the beads, of course - we wouldn’t want to count incorrectly) when they could be offered the opportunity to make a more personal, meaningful prayer.

For example, when I am required to say a prayer at a meeting, I always ask people to offer quiet prayers of a personal nature. This is in keeping with Matthew 6:6 (“go to your room” etc).

Another concern: if prayers are forced, they can’t be genuine. Therefore, they will not “get through” at all.

If Marian Devotion is not required of the faithful (beyond the main dogmatic statements which are more recognition than devotion), and if praying the Rosary is not required, I won’t be inclined to enforce this.

Surely a carefully considered prayer is of more personal and spiritual value than a dull, repetitive, forced prayer.

(NOTE: I have nothing against those with a devotion to Mary. I admire and respect that. It’s not for me, that’s all.)
 
This is from Catholic Answers:

catholic.com/magazine/articles/the-battle-that-saved-the-christian-west

Please read from EWTN: ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/rosary/

Read this story about the miracle at the Battle of Lepanto and Our Lady of the Rosary:

catholicradiodramas.com/articles/the-battle-of-lepanto-gilbert-k-chesterton/

St Dominic and the rosary:

catholic-pages.com/prayers/rosary_dominic.asp

The History of the Rosary:

theholyrosary.org/rosaryhistory

In the worldwide daily rosary group called Soldiers of Marys Rosary/ There have been miracles happen after we all said a daily rosary. One young man was dying of encephalitis the doctors said there was no hope. He is walking and talking. There was a 16 month old who got some kind of virus and was in a coma. She is laughing and moving and slowly getting better.

Google fathima, Lourdes, and read about Momma Mary and what she said These are church approved apparitians.
 
The Rosary being a purely Catholic but non scriptural devotion should be for those Catholics
That want to pray and meditate on the scriptural meaning of the mysteries of the rosary.
I grew up in a home where the rosary was prayed daily along with the evening meal. Once I realized that I was merely using the vain repetitions that Christ condemned in Matthew Chapter 6 , I quit praying daily rosaries. I also have a question for the group in that the rosary was given to St Dominic around 1221 ( EWTN DATE from their web site), what did the church do for prayer thru Mary to Jesus prior to that. Maybe they just prayed what was in their heart. Which is the way that Jesus told us to pray.
I think it would better if the children were just taught a biblical approach to prayer as instructed by Jesus through his words and his miracles with inclusion from the use of prayer by the apostles throughout the book of Acts.
 
The Rosary being a purely Catholic but non scriptural devotion should be for those Catholics
That want to pray and meditate on the scriptural meaning of the mysteries of the rosary.
I grew up in a home where the rosary was prayed daily along with the evening meal. Once I realized that I was merely using the vain repetitions that Christ condemned in Matthew Chapter 6 , I quit praying daily rosaries. I also have a question for the group in that the rosary was given to St Dominic around 1221 ( EWTN DATE from their web site), what did the church do for prayer thru Mary to Jesus prior to that. Maybe they just prayed what was in their heart. Which is the way that Jesus told us to pray.
I think it would better if the children were just taught a biblical approach to prayer as instructed by Jesus through his words and his miracles with inclusion from the use of prayer by the apostles throughout the book of Acts.
I am sorry this is your experience with the Rosary - however - you are mistaken and in error when you state that the Rosary is purely unscriptural … the Rosary is a prayer that is totally scriptural and I pray and use scriptures as I pray the Rosary and meditate on the life of Christ … I was once a Protestant “Bible Alone” Christian … I love the Scriptural Rosary … I love the Scriptures [the whole of the Scriptures] and I love my Christian faith - now lived fully in the Church Jesus founded … I love the family history, the traditions, the Stories - our faith 👍

Mary always leads us to Jesus - just as she told the servants at the Wedding Feast in Cana - “Do whatever He [Jesus] tells you” … is that not good scriptural advice? How about her Yes to God? , “I am just the servant of the Lord. Be it done to me according to Your will” Are we not to deny ourselves and follow our Lord where he leads?

The prayers of the Rosary were and are to uplift the common follower of Christ - to model our lives after Mary and be familiar with our story - our Story of redemption through the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus - that tory - our story is summed up concisely in the Mysteries of the Rosary …
 
This is an answer to the question about St Dominic and the rosary and what about before then.

The Holy Rosary

The rosary probably began as a practice by the laity to imitate the monastic Divine Office (Breviary or Liturgy of the Hours), during the course of which the monks daily prayed the 150 Psalms. The laity, many of whom could not read, substituted 50, or even 150, Ave Marias (Hail Marys) for the Psalms. This prayer, at least the first half of it so directly biblically , seems to date from as early as the 2nd century, as ancient graffiti at Christian sites has suggested. Sometimes a cord with knots on it was used to keep an accurate count of the Aves.

The first clear historical reference to the rosary, however, is from the life of St. Dominic (died in 1221), the founder of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans. He preached a form of the rosary in France at the time that the Albigensian heresy was devastating the Faith there. Tradition has it that the Blessed Mother herself asked for the practice as an antidote for heresy and sin.

Read the rest on www.ewtn.com
Janice K
 
The Rosary being a purely Catholic but non scriptural devotion should be for those Catholics
That want to pray and meditate on the scriptural meaning of the mysteries of the rosary.
I grew up in a home where the rosary was prayed daily along with the evening meal. Once I realized that I was merely using the vain repetitions that Christ condemned in Matthew Chapter 6 , I quit praying daily rosaries. I also have a question for the group in that the rosary was given to St Dominic around 1221 ( EWTN DATE from their web site), what did the church do for prayer thru Mary to Jesus prior to that. Maybe they just prayed what was in their heart. Which is the way that Jesus told us to pray.
I think it would better if the children were just taught a biblical approach to prayer as instructed by Jesus through his words and his miracles with inclusion from the use of prayer by the apostles throughout the book of Acts.
Several thoughts come to mind in response to this:

First of all: the Rosary is very scriptural. Not only are all the mysteries (except the last 2) directly from the Bible, the Our Father and the first half of the Hail Mary are directly from the Bible.

As to what Christ condemned in Mathew chapter 6, I assume you mean verse 7, yet that statement by Jesus is in context of when he gave us the Our Father. I do not think Jesus was condemning repetitious prayers. And furthermore it is only you who claim that the repetitions of the rosary are “vain”, not Mathew chapter 6.

As to its history, read this newadvent.org/cathen/13184b.htm . You will find that repetitious prayers as part of meditation has a very, very long history.

Finally, and I have discussed this fact with protestant friends and they come to relectabtly agree, in general protestants do not have the culture of praying a lot. I do not mean this as offensive, but their Christian lives are not focused around prayer. They don’t realize this, they have their Sunday and Wednesday services which are often focused on a sermon, they say their grace before meals, etc; but they do not have the established prayer regimen you find in many people and places of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches (ie, the ancient Churches). Liturgy of the Hours (5 different times a day where a set ritual is prayed), focused on scripture), daily mass, rosaries (some have referred to it as the layman’s breviary), night time examinations of conscience, etc. Catholics/Orthodox have a tradition of focusing our Christian life around prayer. Having kids pray a rosary on a regular basis is a good means of forming kids to do so.
 
Here is an excerpt from an article in Catholic exchange called "Lingering on Mary in the Rosary:

It is Mary on whom the Rosary is centered in a focus ever new. This prayer means a lingering in the world of Mary, whose essence was Christ.

In this way, the Rosary is, in its deepest sense, a prayer of Christ. The first part of the Hail Mary ends with His name: “And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” After this name follow the so-called mysteries (for example, “Whom thou, O Virgin, didst conceive of the Holy Spirit,” “Whom thou didst bear with thee to Elizabeth,” “Who was born to thee in Bethlehem”). Every decade of the Rosary contains such a mystery.

The whole, as it is expressed in the chain of beads, includes five decades and thus forms a cycle of five mysteries. There are three such cycles. The first is the Joyful Rosary; its mysteries deal with the sweetly serene and yet overshadowed youth of Jesus. The second, the Sorrowful Rosary, comprises His Passion from the hour of Gethsemane to His death on the Cross. The third, the Glorious Rosary, deals with the glory of His Resur*rection and Ascension, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and Mary’s fulfillment.

We see how, in this prayer, the figure and life of Jesus occupies the foreground: not as He does in the Stations of the Cross, immediate and in itself, but through Mary, as the tenor of His life is seen and sensed by her, “keep*ing all these things carefully in her heart.”

The essence of the Rosary is a steady incitement to holy sympathy. If a person becomes very important to us, we are happy to meet someone who is attached to him. We see his image mirrored in another life and we see it anew. Our eyes meet two eyes that also love and see. Those eyes add their range of vision to ours, and our gaze may now go beyond the narrowness of our own ego and embrace the beloved being, previously seen only from one side. The joys that the other person experienced, and also the pains he suffered, become so many strings whose vibrations draw from our heart new notes, new understanding, and new responses.

It is intrinsic in the virtue of sympathy that the other person puts his life at our disposal, which enables us to see and to love not only with our own senses but also with his. Something of this sort, only on a higher plane, happens with the Rosary.

catholicexchange.com/lingering-mary-rosary?mc_cid=c0e0d5c074&mc_eid=a47fccbe6f
 
s the rosary MINDLESS BABBLING

The purpose of the different beads on the rosary is to count the various prayers as they are said. Unlike the Moslem prayer beads and the mantras of Buddhism, the prayers of the rosary are meant to occupy our whole being, body and soul, while meditating on the truths of the Faith. Any prayer is vain, however, if said mechanically without devotion. Simply to repeat prayers is not the vain repetition condemned by Christ (Mt 6:7), since He Himself repeats His prayer in the Garden three times (Mt 26:39, 42, 44) and the Psalms (inspired by the Holy Spirit) are often very repetitive (Ps 119 has 176 verses and Ps. 136 repeats the same phrase 26 times).

Matthew 6:7 In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.

Psalm 136:1-26
Praise the LORD, who is so good;
God’s love endures forever;
Praise the God of gods;
God’s love endures forever;
. . . Praise the God of heaven,
God’s love endures forever.

Matthew 26:39 He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”

Matthew 26:42 Withdrawing a second time, he prayed again, “My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!”

Matthew 26:44 He left them and withdrew again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing again.

The Church believes that it is necessary for a Christian to meditate (prayerfully think about) the will of God, the life and teachings of Jesus, the price He paid for our salvation, and so on. Unless we do this we will begin to take these great gifts for granted and ultimately fall away from the Lord. Every Christian must meditate in some way in order to preserve the gift of salvation (James 1:22-25). Many Catholic and non-Catholic Christians prayerfully read and apply Scripture to their lives, that is, meditate on them. With the rosary this can be done virtually anywhere and anytime.

Read more: ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/rosary/scripture.htm#ixzz3GKZwjx88
 
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