Rosary: Help trying to focus on the mysteries

[PaulVI]

I’m having problems lately staying focused on the mysteries as I pray and I was wondering what helps you. I have some scriptural rosaries and a few booklets that used to help, but lately I haven’t been using any of those (they stopped being very helpful). I had been doing very well for a long while with just me and my Rosary. So, I guess I’m wondering if there’s something that has helped other people through this kind of thing.

 

[puzzleannie]

for me, especially when I am puzzling about the meaning of mystery, it is to go back to the scripture and pray with it for a while, until I am at the point where merely stating the name of the mystery is enough for me to recall the scripture.

 

[deekod1967]

I also have problems with this - you are not alone!

I have typed up scriptural meditations cribbed from the web and printed them out in A4 format. I also have a small A6 booklet with the meditations in pictorial form.

I open both books at the mystery to be meditated upon and place the small booklet on top of the A4 scriptural meditations.

I then use the small boklet to meditate on the picture of each mystery during the Our Father and also then use it as a marker following each line of the scriptural meditation.

This allows me to flit between picture and scripture for each Hail Mary, I find this helps me to visualise the scriptural passages, but my mind still tends to wander!

Like you - when I first started praying the Rosary I never knew I was supposed to be meditating upon mysteries. And I have to say that those Rosaries were the most contemplative I ever made! - they allowed me to think of all my worries and put them before Jesus and Mary and gave me a lot of peace.

I often wonder if I should just simply go back to this, or whether Jesus and Our Lady would frown upon this - any views would be most welcome!

Puzzle annie - how often do you find you have to pray on the scriptures to have the mysteries ready to be recalled during the Rosary? - do you do this regularly?

 

[scapularkid8]

I imagine that I’m part of what’s going on. For example, if it’s the Sorrowful Mystery of Crowning with Thorns, I imagine that I’m a tied up prisioner in the same cell as Jesus and I watch the whole thing happen from across the room. I have never found texts helpful (except for the very small Scripture quote used to support each Mystery). This might work for you.

 

[DVina]

I sometimes imagine the scene. Frequently a Scripture verse will pop into my mind, too. I remember Fr Groeschel saying something about knowing all of Scripture through the rosary, because a mystery causes you to dwell on a Scripture passage, and that reminds you of another, etc.

JPII also had a suggestion in his encyclical, to add a phrase afer “Jesus” in each Hail Mary pertaining to the mystery. For example, Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, scourged for us.…