Rosary as sleep aid

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JaredR

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I find the rosary to be very relaxing and comforting. I like to pray it as I go to bed. I usually fall asleep halfway though. Do you think this satisfies Mary’s request that we pray the rosary daily?
 
I think she’s satisfied that you made an attempt of saying the Rosary, and she probably doesn’t care that you fell asleep. I was reading a similar thread like this a while back and someone said that they heard/were told that if you fall asleep while saying the Rosary, your guardian angel says the rest for you.
 
Simone Weil urges a Christian poetic that insists on educating the reader into paying attention to people and to language and to things, because the cultivation of attention directed to the other (the suffering neighbor; the created order as God intended it, or shalom; the created order as it is, broken; and God) is fundamental to the ethics of Christianity.

One cannot love or help a person one refuses to listen to; one cannot redeem a world one doesn’t look at; one cannot serve a God one doesn’t engage with, ask questions of, listen to, study. And, as Weil points out, one cannot space out and pray, prayer demands attention. Perhaps a Christian poetic might insist on nourishing a broken faculty of the modern mind – attention.

I would recall the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:2 when he recalls Jesus’ warning to his followers to be on the watch — a warning about expectation of the end-time, which will come upon sleeping humans like “a thief in the night” (Matthew 24:43).

So rather than that comforting twaddle about some angel completing the rosary for you, look out for another angel who will administer a slap upside your head. Prayer is important, one of the most important things you do all day.

dj
 
I pray the rosary daily, while I’m awake. I also got into the habit of praying it in bed and falling asleep with it (I started this when I was getting demonic attacks at night and have found it very helpful). I definitely find that I get more out of the rosary when praying it attentively, sitting up or kneeling, during the day or evening, than when falling asleep. I can’t meditate on the mysteries when I’m exhausted and/or half asleep.

On the other hand, saying the Our Father and Hail Mary over and over is a great way to fall asleep and then if you wake up from a nightmare, you have your rosary in your hand. And it’s better than not praying it at all.
 
I often say it while I am on the way to somewhere (I don’t drive), when I work often on the way to work in the morning, when I walk or on the train or bus.
I find that when I am tired and say it on the bus or train, sometimes there is the chance that I doze off a bit…
I can say it very well while I walk (of course I wouldn’t recommend it where it’s dangerous/needs much attention due to traffic). It has happened that if I didn’t find time before during the day to pray the rosary, that I’d go on a “rosary walk” :).

Kathrin
 
Pope John Paul II had said that if started there is not a bad rosary said!!! My mother always told me that if a rosary was started before sleep…the angels finished it! I always believed my mother!
 
Kathrin said:
An angel slapping somebody’s head is a weird picture… 😦
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Why is that weird? You’ve recalled a childhood image of mine: angels with flaming swords barring Adam and Eve from paradise (Genesis 3:24). I think we should fear God and his angels far more than anything on this earth, yet most Christians I know (in Protestant USA) see Jesus as their best friend rather than their King and God (“who needs intercession when Jesus is your pal?” is their sentiment), with a perception of God that forgets or ignores Luke 12:4-5 (see Luke 12:4-12). There’s a reason everyone is always falling down in front of God and his angels in Biblical texts – the Father in the OT, the Son in the NT, and the Ark of the Covenant in the OT as well, in some passages, so I guess you could say they also fell down before “the Spirit of the Lord”, the Holy Spirit(?) …

All that being said, it seems weird to me that someone would expect to receive Mary’s promises for praying the Rosary if they don’t complete praying it. It’s like considering Jesus’ commandment to clothe and feed the naked and hungry, etc., and you say, “Well, I got the supplies and drove halfway there …” or “Well, I started feeding them, and there were more waiting, but I got distracted …” We need only look back to Jesus’ passion (I think in Luke), and see Jesus’ pain that his disciples could not stay awake praying in the Garden with him, when he was only a stone’s throw away.

Fr Serpa or Michelle Arnold answered a question in the Ask An Apologist board about sleeping in the chapel with Eucharist Adoration, “curling up on the ground so peacefully,” the woman wanted to do, and the answer was, “No.” There is a time to sleep, and a time to pray – there is a time for all things. I would – in fact, did, for a time – pray the Rosary kneeling, away from my bed, and then go to bed afterward. My knees would be sore afterward, but it seemed a good form of bodily mortification.
 
I say the rosary once in a while when in bed at night and will fall asleep sometimes before I finish. I find it relaxing.
 
I guess it all depends on the intention too.
It’s different if I say they rosary in bed because i know I will fall asleep after the first decade “so I get out of saying the whole rosary”, than if I say it before sleep in real prayerful adoration and just find God’s peace doing it.
 
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