The Rosary is NOT the Way

[fix]

Oh, and let’s not forget the importance of Lectio Divina I think there are so many devout and well meaning Catholics who will focus so much of their time and energy into praying rosaries that they forget about the very beneficial and more ancient practices of meditation, Divine Office, and Lectio Divina.

Too much time and energy? This is why I have a problem with this thread.

 

[RyanML]

Too much time and energy? This is why I have a problem with this thread.

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I meant to say that there are many Catholics who worry so much about getting their rosaries said and they feel like they haven’t prayed well if they haven’t prayed a rosary. But any form of prayer is pleasing to God as long as it has the correct goal in mind…union with Him.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

If the Rosary is NOT the Way, then why is EWTN even bothering to pray a SPECIAL Rosary Novena every day as we approach this most crucial election?

 

[RyanML]

If the Rosary is NOT the Way, then why is EWTN even bothering to pray a SPECIAL Rosary Novena every day as we approach this most crucial election?

Because it is a very beautiful and very powerful prayer. The only point the OP was trying to make was that you don’t have to say the Rosary to be a good Catholic. This thread is like beating a dead horse! God bless!

 

[Leonius]

Actually it is.

Private prayer is a personal experience, unique to each pray-er, and what one gets from it is of utmost importance to one’s spiritual growth - an intimate connection with our loving God.

Prayer is about God, how it makes you feel is secondary and unimportant, until you realise this you are praying for selfish reasons. Prayer is the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God to adore Him, to thank Him for His benefits, to ask His forgiveness, and to beg of Him all the graces we need whether for soul or body.

It is not about how it makes you feel, and to reject a form of praying based on how it makes you feel is a mistake.

With regards to the Rosary the question you should ask is not:

How does this make me feel? Do I like it?

The question you should ask is:

How does this make Our Blessed Mother feel? Does she like it?

I pray you never have to experience the dark night if you think prayer is all about how it makes you feel.

When a person says they don’t like to pray the Rosary they are effectively saying they do not like to pray a lot of Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s and they don’t like meditating on the lives of Jesus and Mary.

I have to tell you I feel it is a very strange Catholic that does not do these things given that after the Mass itself they are so central to Catholic spirituality.

 

[Joannm]

When a person says they don’t like to pray the Rosary they are effectively saying they do not like to pray a lot of Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s and they don’t like meditating on the lives of Jesus and Mary.

I.

I respectfully disagree. Perhaps they like to pray those prayers but do not like the fact that they just repeat. I have spent time in prayer meditating on the Lord’s Prayer for a longer amount of time than it takes to say one mystery of the Rosary. I pray the Hail Mary several times each day. I find the rosary boring and I get very distracted while praying it or fall asleep ( dangerous when I pray the rosary in the car). However, I can also spend some very good quality time meditating on the lives of Jesus and mary while engaging in Lectio or sitting in mediation during Adoration. The long repitition of prayers is distracting. But I can pray the shorter chaplet of Divine Mercy or the Jesus Prayer without being distracted. So I guess it is the length of the rosary that throws me offf. I do not disagree that it can be a powerful prayer, but for some it just isn’t.

 

[Leonius]

I pray the Hail Mary several times each day. I find the rosary boring and I get very distracted while praying it or fall asleep . The long repitition of prayers is distracting. But I can pray the shorter chaplet of Divine Mercy or the Jesus Prayer without being distracted. So I guess it is the length of the rosary that throws me offf.

Respectfully my brother/sister those things are not the fault of the Rosary and can be overcome with perseverance and discipline, learning to overcome these temptations is one of the benefits of the Rosary.

Start with a single decade and build yourself up. Don’t give up just because it is hard(boring, difficult to concentrate, long etc).

 

[RyanML]

How does this make Our Blessed Mother feel? Does she like it?

Respectfully my brother/sister those things are not the fault of the Rosary and can be overcome with perseverance and discipline, learning to overcome these temptations is one of the benefits of the Rosary.

Start with a single decade and build yourself up. Don’t give up just because it is hard(boring, difficult to concentrate, long etc).

Our Blessed Mother is most happy when souls draw closer to her Divine Son. Joannm seems to have a very healthy prayer life that consists of vocal prayer and meditation. Just because this may not be in the context or form of the Dominican Rosary does not make her/him any less devout a Catholic or devoutee of Mary.

 

[Leonius]

Our Blessed Mother is most happy when souls draw closer to her Divine Son. Joannm seems to have a very healthy prayer life that consists of vocal prayer and meditation. Just because this may not be in the context or form of the Dominican Rosary does not make her/him any less devout a Catholic or devoutee of Mary.

First, I never said Joannm was less of anything.

Secondly anyone who does not say the Rosary and starts would be even more devout and devoted if they added the Rosary to whatever their current devotions are

Are we wrong beaus we make an obligation to Our Lady to say the Rosary everyday and then feel bad when we fail to do so as was previously criticised on this thread? Certainly not, it is wrong to break your word to anyone let alone the BVM, and any guilt about that is good, especially if it spurs you on to greater efforts in the future.

Now think carefully, one side of this debate is encouraging people to pray the Rosary and the other is discouraging people to pray the Rosary, which side do you think is been most pleasing to the Blessed Mother on this thread?

That goes to everyone on this thread who has a problem with the Rosary, what good are you seeking to attain by promoting your negative view of this devotion?

If you don’t like it your time would be better spent promoting the devotions you do like than criticising those that others love or the way you imagine we pray it.

 

[Steeltemplar]

The Rosary is a wonderful devotion which should be promoted throughout the Church. I would say, however, that in ALL prayer we should always take care not to wander from true prayer and begin merely repeating words.

St. Teresa of Avila, in her Interior Castle, spoke of the subject much better than I ever could:
Interior Castle:

I do not say mental prayer rather than vocal, for, if it is prayer at all, it must be accompanied by meditation. If a person does not think Whom he is addressing, and what he is asking for, and who it is that is asking and of Whom he is asking it, I do not consider that he is praying at all even though he be constantly moving his lips. True, it is sometimes possible to pray without paying heed to these things, but that is only because they have been thought about previously; if a man is in the habit of speaking to God’s Majesty as he would speak to his slave, and never wonders if he is expressing himself properly, but merely utters the words that come to his lips because he has learned them by heart through constant repetition, I do not call that prayer at all – and God grant no Christian may ever speak to Him so!

 

[Zahmir]

First, I never said Joannm was less of anything.

Secondly anyone who does not say the Rosary and starts would be even more devout and devoted if they added the Rosary to whatever their current devotions are

Are we wrong beaus we make an obligation to Our Lady to say the Rosary everyday and then feel bad when we fail to do so as was previously criticised on this thread? Certainly not, it is wrong to break your word to anyone let alone the BVM, and any guilt about that is good, especially if it spurs you on to greater efforts in the future.

Now think carefully, one side of this debate is encouraging people to pray the Rosary and the other is discouraging people to pray the Rosary, which side do you think is been most pleasing to the Blessed Mother on this thread?

That goes to everyone on this thread who has a problem with the Rosary, what good are you seeking to attain by promoting your negative view of this devotion?

If you don’t like it your time would be better spent promoting the devotions you do like than criticising those that others love or the way you imagine we pray it.

Leonius,

No one here, at least from what I’ve seen, has actually discouraged praying the Rosary, or fostered the belief that the Rosary should be prayed less.

Indeed, if you think that this is my stance, then it must be because you think that when most people say the Rosary, they just say the words without contemplation and without sincerity. I wasn’t asking that people stop praying the Rosary, but that they seek out deeper communion with God. My point was that the Rosary seems to be one of those things that people do to feel good about their faith but then are severely lacking in other areas of their faith life. Now, you might argue that the Rosary is a wonderful way for them to grow in their faith, and I agree. My original post, then, was merely to prod these people to reflect sincerely on their lives and their motivation for praying the Rosary. I only meant the best. I don’t think it’s appropriate, on these forums, to be called a Protestant or be accused of being in mortal sin simply because one is challenging others to deeper faith.

Finally, wouldn’t it be great if we loved Mary not for her own sake but for the sake of her Son who saved her and the God whose grace Mary accepted with all her heart? I think Mary would be well pleased by one who comes to God, in her example, by speaking with her Son directly and praying to him. Then again, I’m sure she is more than willing to intercede for those who ask her to. Of course, then, I would strongly recommend that we all ask for Mary’s intercession on a daily basis, whether that would be through the Rosary or some other devotion. I only ask that remember why we pray, to enter into deeper communion with God.

 

[Leonius]

Leonius,

No one here, at least from what I’ve seen, has actually discouraged praying the Rosary, or fostered the belief that the Rosary should be prayed less.

Your very title does this.

Indeed, if you think that this is my stance, then it must be because you think that when most people say the Rosary, they just say the words without contemplation and without sincerity.

You can read my mind now can you? Your arrogance knows no bounds it seems. Your thread is nothing more than an attack on those of us who pray the Rosary and promote it to others. I don’t think that most people do anything. Do you know why? Because I have never even met most people, and nor have you, but it didn’t stop you from attacking our devotion to the Rosary as been shallow superstition did it?

I wasn’t asking that people stop praying the Rosary, but that they seek out deeper communion with God. My point was that the Rosary seems to be one of those things that people do to feel good about their faith but then are severely lacking in other areas of their faith life.

See there you go again passing judgement, you can’t stop can you? Devotion to the Rosary means you are a shallow Catholics is what your saying, I find the opposite is true so I call you false.

Now, you might argue that the Rosary is a wonderful way for them to grow in their faith, and I agree. My original post, then, was merely to prod these people to reflect sincerely on their lives and their motivation for praying the Rosary. I only meant the best. I don’t think it’s appropriate, on these forums, to be called a Protestant or be accused of being in mortal sin simply because one is challenging others to deeper faith.

When you set yourself up in judgement over people and criticise them do not be surprised that they object. The reason you are been likened to a protestant is frankly because you sound exactly like them, you are pretty much suggesting not to bother with Mary because it is better to just go straight to God.

Like this for example:

Ultimately, I think it’s more important to encourage people, especially those who are in some way straying from the faith, to direct conversation with God.

 

[RyanML]

Leonius,

No one here, at least from what I’ve seen, has actually discouraged praying the Rosary, or fostered the belief that the Rosary should be prayed less.

Your very title does this.

Leonius,

The only point the OP is trying to make is that the Rosary is not an absolute necessity for a healthy prayer life. There’s no need to make it more complicated than that. No one is trying to discourage the praying of the Rosary. Instead of bickering about what prayers are better than others, we need to be lifting each other up and encouraging each other to just PRAY! Don’t worry about whether you pray the Rosary, or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, or the Divine Office, JUST PRAY! God bless!

 

[ac_claire]

Leonius,
The only point the OP is trying to make is that the Rosary is not an absolute necessity for a healthy prayer life.

Except nobody has said that the Rosary is “an absolute necessity for a healthy prayer life.” Therefore all of y’alls protestations to the contrary tell a different story. It’s like wrestling with a straw man. The OP of this thread was in no way neutral as some are trying to say it was.

It’s one thing if the Rosary maybe isn’t your favorite prayer, or maybe you never even pray it. It’s another to go online and post topics about it. It is indeed a passive way of discouraging the praying of the Rosary.

p.s. in repsonse to one of your earlier posts, I just want to point out that the Rosary pre-dates and transcends any approved private revelations.

 

[Cristiano]

… Therefore all of** y’alls **protestations to the contrary tell a different story…

Is that a Latin expression? Are you fixing to let us know?

 

[CradleCath]

Right and here is the next paragraph:

2679 Mary is the perfect *Orans *(pray-er), a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple we welcome Jesus’ mother into our homes,39 for she has become the mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her. The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope.40

I still fail to see the point of the OP and his supporters in this thread.

Maybe I can help. You may already realize that our Heavenly Mother was more or less cast aside from the mid 1960’s to approximately 2,002 when John Paul declared that year as the “year of the Rosary” & added a new set of mysteries. Why??
I’ll start at the beginning, as I know it & lived it. I was just entering into my own years of Motherhood & I had attended a high school run by the nuns of the Sacred Heart. These years had given me a great devotion to Mater Admirabilis, so this change was especially painful for me.

In 1952 Dr. A. Mitterer brought out a book in which he distinguished between Our Lady’s biological virginity and her spiritual or moral virginity. He claimed that Jesus could have been born in the normal human way, and Our Lady still have remained a virgin, spiritually. His was an attempt to deny the Virgin birth without actually coming out & saying that the physical virginity of Mary was “impossible”. He got his point across without putting his position with the Church in danger…at least he thought so.

This “theobabble” was picked up by liberal scholars, like Fr. Raymond Brown, by theologians like Fr. Karl Rahner, and by the Catholic feminist movement. The Vatican issued a warning in 1960 (or close to 1960) about the danger of such writings & of irreverence toward the Blessed Mother

However, Vatican warning or not…this was the mindset of the so-called “intellectuals & scholars” of the time & of course, it manifested itself in the second Vatican council.

The first Marion schema was delivered to the council with the words “'who [the Son] willed the bodily integrity of his Mother to remain, in the moment of birth (in ipsomet partu), incorrupt and untouched…’, a statement that totally contradicted the latest from Mitterer, Rahner, &. the “intelligentia” .” Unfortunately, Father Rahner, the most influential peritus at the Council, was able to sabotage this schema.

Fr. Ralph Wiltgen in his very informative, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, ( & anyone who has not read this book & wonders what happened to the Church…should read it) writes:

   "When the German and Austrian Council Fathers received their copies of the schema, they asked Father Rahner to prepare comments on it for presentation at the forthcoming Fulda conference.

"According to Father Rahner, whose written comments were distributed to all participants in the conference, the schema as then drafted was ‘a source of the greatest concern’…Were the text to be accepted as it stood, he contended, 'unimaginable harm would result from an ecumenical point of view, in relation to both Orientals and Protestants.’ It could not be too strongly stressed, he said, 'that all the success achieved in the field of ecumenism through the Council and in connection with the Council will be rendered worthless by the retention of the schema as it stands.

It took a bit of time before I began to wonder what happened to the rosary, it was not prayed before or after Mass anymore. After the council, It was not recommended from the pulpit, either. (Actually not much was recommended or condemned from the pulpit after Vat. II, but the absence of calls for devotion to Mary was really noticeable.)
The custom of the May crowning of the statue of the Virgin by the school children just disappeared, as did the Novenas & the hymns we sang in her honor during May & October. All of a sudden, Mary was “out”. There are still those few liberals, I call them the “white haired hippies of the 60’s” who find the Virgin Mother to be so “old-Catholic” & consider devotion to her almost embarrassing. I don’t know whether the OP is one of them, but I find his concern about the rosary disquieting.

I wonder if we can ever make up to her, what was done in order to be acceptable to the Protestant faiths…Churches that really wanted none of us anyway.

 

[Yellow_Belle]

Prayer is about God, how it makes you feel is secondary and unimportant, until you realise this you are praying for selfish reasons. Prayer is the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God to adore Him, to thank Him for His benefits, to ask His forgiveness, and to beg of Him all the graces we need whether for soul or body.

It is not about how it makes you feel, and to reject a form of praying based on how it makes you feel is a mistake.

Prayer is about our relationship with God. Where did I ever say it was primarily about our feelings? In another post on this thread #131], you accuse the OP of attempting to read your mind and of being judgemental. Yet, here you are doing precisely the same thing to me - someone you’ve never met - ‘reading’ my mind and heart, deciding my prayer is based primarily on my feelings and judging that I am ‘praying for selfish reasons’.

Leonius wrote:

With regards to the Rosary the question you should ask is not:

How does this make me feel? Do I like it?

The question you should ask is:

How does this make Our Blessed Mother feel? Does she like it?

I pray you never have to experience the dark night if you think prayer is all about how it makes you feel.

Please refrain from preaching at me personally or trying to usurp the role of my spiritual director. Again, where have I said that prayer is all about how it makes one feel? As for the Dark Night - your prayers, though based on an erroneous assumption, are appreciated but about two years too late. Had my prayerlife been based primarily on feelings, I would not have survived.

Leonius wrote:
When a person says they don’t like to pray the Rosary they are effectively saying they do not like to pray a lot of Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s and they don’t like meditating on the lives of Jesus and Mary.

I have to tell you I feel it is a very strange Catholic that does not do these things given that after the Mass itself they are so central to Catholic spirituality.

Please read what you wrote again and explain to me how it is not everything you accuse others of, from mind-reading to arrogance to judgementalism.

 

[Joannm]

Prayer is about our relationship with God. Where did I ever say it was primarily about our feelings? .

This is so true. Prayer is communication with our Creator and the One who calls us His beloved. If a certain kind of prayer does nothing to sustain that communication or even blocks it, then that type of prayer is not good for that person at that time in their life. Yes prayer is praise and thanksgiving to God, but if it remains only at that level without allowing God to speak to us through that prayer then we do not progress spiritually. Those saints who went through dry periods persisted in prayer, but I would guess that they tried different forms of prayer, or even simply sitting in silent contemplative prayer, waiting to hear the voice of God. Genuine prayer does not require that we say words or do certain actions. The highest form of prayer is communion with the Godhead, and that usually is beyond any set formula of prayer that we can say. However, this level of prayer is usually not achieved without great spiritual maturity and is pure gift, but we can dispose our selves to it. For me, saying the rosary does nothing to help me achieve this state and distracts me from listening to God. But, as I have written, I do pray it several times a week, but more out of sense of keeping to tradition or more of a spiritual exercise.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

So are some of you saying we shouldn’t bother praying the special Rosary Novena prayed on EWTN?

Hard to take, when Catholics look down on the Rosary.

 

[fix]

Maybe I can help. You may already realize that our Heavenly Mother was more or less cast aside from the mid 1960’s to approximately 2,002 when John Paul declared that year as the “year of the Rosary” & added a new set of mysteries. Why??
I’ll start at the beginning, as I know it & lived it. I was just entering into my own years of Motherhood & I had attended a high school run by the nuns of the Sacred Heart. These years had given me a great devotion to Mater Admirabilis, so this change was especially painful for me.

In 1952 Dr. A. Mitterer brought out a book in which he distinguished between Our Lady’s biological virginity and her spiritual or moral virginity. He claimed that Jesus could have been born in the normal human way, and Our Lady still have remained a virgin, spiritually. His was an attempt to deny the Virgin birth without actually coming out & saying that the physical virginity of Mary was “impossible”. He got his point across without putting his position with the Church in danger…at least he thought so.

This “theobabble” was picked up by liberal scholars, like Fr. Raymond Brown, by theologians like Fr. Karl Rahner, and by the Catholic feminist movement. The Vatican issued a warning in 1960 (or close to 1960) about the danger of such writings & of irreverence toward the Blessed Mother

However, Vatican warning or not…this was the mindset of the so-called “intellectuals & scholars” of the time & of course, it manifested itself in the second Vatican council.

The first Marion schema was delivered to the council with the words “'who [the Son] willed the bodily integrity of his Mother to remain, in the moment of birth (in ipsomet partu), incorrupt and untouched…’, a statement that totally contradicted the latest from Mitterer, Rahner, &. the “intelligentia” .” Unfortunately, Father Rahner, the most influential peritus at the Council, was able to sabotage this schema.

Fr. Ralph Wiltgen in his very informative, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, ( & anyone who has not read this book & wonders what happened to the Church…should read it) writes:

"When the German and Austrian Council Fathers received their copies of the schema, they asked Father Rahner to prepare comments on it for presentation at the forthcoming Fulda conference.
"According to Father Rahner, whose written comments were distributed to all participants in the conference, the schema as then drafted was ‘a source of the greatest concern’…Were the text to be accepted as it stood, he contended, 'unimaginable harm would result from an ecumenical point of view, in relation to both Orientals and Protestants.’ It could not be too strongly stressed, he said, 'that all the success achieved in the field of ecumenism through the Council and in connection with the Council will be rendered worthless by the retention of the schema as it stands.

It took a bit of time before I began to wonder what happened to the rosary, it was not prayed before or after Mass anymore. After the council, It was not recommended from the pulpit, either. (Actually not much was recommended or condemned from the pulpit after Vat. II, but the absence of calls for devotion to Mary was really noticeable.)
The custom of the May crowning of the statue of the Virgin by the school children just disappeared, as did the Novenas & the hymns we sang in her honor during May & October. All of a sudden, Mary was “out”. There are still those few liberals, I call them the “white haired hippies of the 60’s” who find the Virgin Mother to be so “old-Catholic” & consider devotion to her almost embarrassing. I don’t know whether the OP is one of them, but I find his concern about the rosary disquieting.

I wonder if we can ever make up to her, what was done in order to be acceptable to the Protestant faiths…Churches that really wanted none of us anyway.

Thanks for that info. Yes, I agree there seems less Marian devotion. As we look to the Church it is very clear how important these Marian devotions are.