Questions on how you pray the rosary

[mdgspencer]

A number of questions about praying the rosary have come to mind over the years, so I just thought I would ask them here. I am not bothered by any of these, just wondering what people have to say.
Though this is said to be a Marian prayer, Mary never appears in some of the mysteries, such as the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Are the mysteries where she does not appear Marian too?
When I pray the rosary, I can only pray one thing at a time. I can either concentrate on the words of the Hail Mary or on the meaning of the mysteries. I wonder what people here focus on?
Do people sometimes change the order they pray over the mysteries from the customary one?
Do people have a set meaning they consider for each mystery, or see them in different ways different times?
Until several years ago I had trouble understanding what the coronation of Mary stands for. Do some people have questions about the meaning of some of them? I am not asking this of people have trouble believing in them, but just in understanding them to their satisfaction.

 

[Andruschak]

Though this is said to be a Marian prayer, Mary never appears in some of the mysteries, such as the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Are the mysteries where she does not appear Marian too?.

O yes. She may not be mentioned explicitely, but tradition has it that she was one of the women who followed Jesus around and assissted in his Ministry. If she was not there at the actual event, she certainly heard about it soon afterwards.

 

[jmm08]

Do people sometimes change the order they pray over the mysteries from the customary one?

Yes it is perfectly OK to change the order when you pray the Rosary by yourself.

A few months ago, I prayed a few random mysteries when I prayed the Rosary (instead of following a normal set like the “Joyful”). I just picked five mysteries that I happen to like and wanted to pray. Since then I’ve done it a few times. So it tends to be Thursday or Friday nights when I do this (“favorite five”, or “pick 5”). Then I read the following in Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s book “The Rosary – Chain of Hope” pages 24-25:"It is interesting to note that when the Holy Father [John Paul II] has recited the Rosary via international television, he has often mixed different mysteries from different sets, so that in the course of five decades he has included [something from] joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries."So my present hypothesis is that I wasn’t lazy or wrong to praying the Rosary with random mysteries. Instead I was merely being human. Our minds typically wander a bit (at least mine does quite a bit). So I suppose it is natural to sometimes allow our minds to naturally wander through the mysteries of the Rosary in a little bit of an unorganized way.

I really recommend Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s book “The Rosary – Chain of Hope”. There is content within that book that will interest a Christian regardless of their experience with the Rosary. I read the main part when I was just starting to learn to pray the Rosary. The book helped me to memorize the mysteries.

jmm08