Problem With Praying Rosary

  • Thread starter Thread starter kurt1
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
K

kurt1

Guest
Hey, I’m sorry for the long post, and for getting so personal, but I really want to get this out there and hear from people who don’t know me. This seemed like the best place to do it.
since May 1, I’ve decided to pray the Rosary each day. I enjoy praying the Rosary. it makes me feel like I’m doing something for God, especially since it usually takes me 30 minutes or more, so I always feel like I’m dedicating real time from my life to God in praying it. I’m in college and after I finished my semester, I had a lot more time on my hands, and I had just watched a video from a nun who prayed 3 Rosaries a day and so I felt challenged to do the same after my first thought had been “there is no way I could do that!” so the second to last week of May, I prayed the Rosary there times each day. during that week, I then watched a video challenging the viewers to pray 4 Rosaries a day, and I thought that would be a perfect way to finish up May, so I prayed 4 Rosaries a day the last week of May. I didn’t have any issues with doing it, though it did end up filling a ton of my day, which occasionally annoyed me, but I always reminded myself it was worth it, because I’m doing it for God, and to not do it, specifically for more time to give to my own wants seemed wrong.
wanting to “find new excitement” in the Rosary, I decided to add a 5th Rosary to each day starting in June (it’s now my second day having done so) and this is now where I want to talk about some of the results of my prayers.
  1. I feel like I have done more for God than ever in my life, and yet I feel like there wasn’t enough time in the day to do more. I have a craving to do more for God. and this is a good thing, I am not at all trying to paint that in a bad light.
  2. I have seen some answers to serious prayers. it’s brought a lot more faith into my life.
  3. I genuinely love praying the Rosary this many times and I don’t want to stop even when I go back to college. it’s almost addicting, I love the Rosary. I love spending that personal time in Jesus’ life, and through the eyes of a follower or Mary herself.
  4. I genuinely have great peace throughout the day, and do feel a greater awareness of my sins, both before, during, and after committing them.
    but this also seems to be where it ends. I was promised that this would transform my life, that I would see everything in life coming together around me, and that I would have a greater love of God. (1/2)
 
but I often feel alone, and although I have peace throughout the day, I also often feel like God didn’t hear my prayers. I feel emotionless and empty while praying, and often even fake-cry or fake-joy depending on the mystery, I have gone out of my way to try to cry, to try to be joyous, and to even change the pitch or tone of my voice to try to convince myself that I’m genuinely sad or joyous. and yet if I’m perfectly honest with myself, I don’t really feel anything. I truly believe in God and what the Catholic Church teaches and I love God more than anything. but I don’t feel like it’s a real emotional love, but rather a … soul love? a love that you might have for a childhood friend that you have great memories with but that you have a hard time speaking to in recent times. you love them, but it’s hard to show it, express it, and you almost feel forced to talk with them despite also wanting to talk to them. I hope that makes sense. I’m not actually confirmed into the Church yet, and perhaps this is all just Satan trying to keep me from entering, but I just feel worried entering and receiving the Eucharist when I feel this way. is something wrong? I dedicate one of my Rosaries to personal concerns and issues, and I always add in that I want a greater love and devotion to God and to have true emotions of love and joy and sorrow and repentance, and yet I haven’t seen answers to these. I still have to force myself to be emotional most of the time.
if anyone has even read this post, and read this far, thank you for listening, even if you don’t respond. to be honest I’m not really sure why I’m writing this, maybe just to get it out there. (2/2)
 
kurt1 said:
I don’t feel like it’s a real emotional love, but rather a … soul love?
Click to expand...
Firstly, I’m glad you enjoy praying the Rosary and am impressed that you manage to do so many a day.
As to your troubles, I think it’s mostly just that you’re experiencing the normal “growing pains” that come as you devote yourself more to God.

God usually gives us great consolations in the beginning, so that we can know we’re on the right path, but in order for us to truly grow it is necessary that we learn not to depend on such consolations.
The “real” emotional kind of love that you describe is a good thing, but it is only a thing. The “soul love” you describe is something much more valuable, although it can take a while to see that.

In other words; what God wants from you is “soul love”. Your emotions and feelings are gifts from God, and He will give as much of them as is healthy for you, but it is also necessary that you go through a period of spiritual dryness so that you will learn to look beyond His gifts and towards Him Himself.
And it’s not just you, this is something that we all need to learn and go through. The important thing is to persevere and trust God, and know that He will not allow this to last forever.
 
Don’t look for emotions. God wants us to love him, but we need not feel emotional love all the time.
I don’t know about other people, but I don’t feel “love” constantly for the people I love, the ones that I know I would give my life for if need be. How do I know that I love someone? I want to be around them, I want to do things to please them, I want them to be happy. I don’t feel these things, I just know them.
Please don’t depend on emotions toward God, because they will come and go, (mostly go, in my experience.) Just do your best to serve him. He can be depended on.
God bless.
 
kurt1 said:
often even fake-cry or fake-joy depending on the mystery, I have gone out of my way to try to cry, to try to be joyous, and to even change the pitch or tone of my voice to try to convince myself that I’m genuinely sad or joyous. and yet if I’m perfectly honest with myself, I don’t really feel anything
Click to expand...
This is troubling to me.

Stop trying so hard. Perhaps one heartfelt rosary is better than several mediocre recitations. It’s not a contest where God rewards people for saying more rosaries per day.

And you are not supposed to feel anything from saying the rosary. It is a way of praying. You are not saying prayers for God, but to God.
 
^^^ that.
| | |
Also can lead to scrupulous things.
Dominus vobiscum
 
Last edited:
Maybe some talk with spiritual guide can be necessary here. I need 1-3 decades of Rosary per day, but no more. There can be some periods, when more can be necessary, but generally - I doubt whether it is good idea to spend so much time on prayers. There are different charisma for different people and some people are people of prayer. It is hard to understand them, but they are. Maybe some research in your charisma, some mentoring is necessary.

Today there are so many opportunities to make the real changes happen to the world. E.g. artificial intelligence and robotics can eradicate hard jobs, human and animal exploitation and eradicate poverty. There are also open source projects, like ROS and opencog, just for example of the ambitions of repspective communities. These projects change the world, builds skills/experience/cv of their participants.

And then there is anti-aging/rejuvenation efforts that sees aging as illness and tries to overcome it (SENS Research foundation is some staring point). Again - there are some labs and some open source projects in which everyone can contribute.

Well - it is good to pray a lot, but my suggestion is to keep the perspective and choices open and to be smart about discovering ones own charisma and vocation. Work life, business life can be path to the sanctity and to the God too. Sometimes I am sad that so few saints are there from whom to see this, but my guess, that practical charismas exist as well.
 
Excellent post! That is what the Doctors of the Church teach us on prayer. Feelings come and go, but we have a will and that is what counts.

We truly grow closer to the Lord when we pray without feelings. He knows when to console us…trust Him!
 
It would be good if you could talk to a priest about your prayer life. It does not seem spiritually healthy to pray the Rosary several times a day as you describe.

The Rosary is a wonderful way to meditate on the life of Our Lord. It is also very good to say, throughout the day, “Jesus I trust in You.”

It is not necessary to stir up one’s emotions to pray well. It is your will to pray that counts. When we pray with faith and without feelings we draw closer to God.
 
I 100% support much of what has been said by posters in this thread. It’s a common problem to confuse feelings with love. Sometimes we have the feeling of love, but often times not. Be assured your prayers are meaningful, and that God hears them. As someone who had a round with scrupulosity I would recommend being careful with the feelings aspect, they can be helpful, but also occasionally misleading.

I also noticed a trait that could cause a challenge…since I was praying three rosaries I prayed a fourth, then a fifth… I have this trait on occasion. “Well since I’m building a dam I might as well make it twice the size, and since I’m doing that, I might as well add a hydroelectric generator, and then why not a power station…” Lol this $5000 project is now $25,000… it’s important to keep things in context.

I seriously applaud your prayer. Keep that going! But I would recommend finding a good, holy, priest to ask to set appropriate boundaries to keep it all in context. Prayer is vital, but we do often have worldly duties to fulfill as well, a balance is often appropriate.
 
Thank you all so much! this is truly helpful to hear and really makes me reconsider what I’m going through currently!
I would like to add that I don’t currently have a job for the summer, and as I said, I’m on summer break now, so I actually do have a lot of time now, which is why I’ve wanted to dedicate more of it to God.
One more thing to add, quite a few people are saying I’m praying too many Rosaries and that probably isn’t healthy or something along those lines… but the original Rosary was all 15 (for the time) mysteries, and so people would be praying three Rosaries each day. I don’t really understand how it could be unhealthy, especially considering that prayer is communicating with God, and how much time do we all spend each day talking or texting with friends and family? I probably still spend less time with God each day, than with my sister.
 
kurt1 said:
One more thing to add, quite a few people are saying I’m praying too many Rosaries and that probably isn’t healthy or something along those lines…
Click to expand...
In charity I don’t think anyone meant what they said to come off like that. I think what they were trying to say is that there is such a thing as overreaching in your prayer life, which can result in a burnout, and that is true.

I didn’t get the impression that you were suffering from praying more than your ability from your post, but if you are then don’t be ashamed to cut back a little. Still, there is nothing inherently wrong with praying several rosaries a day, quite the contrary. Spending time in prayer is absolutely the best use we can make of our time.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top