Trouble praying the Rosary

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I always have difficulty praying the Rosary. I find it almost impossible to concentrate on the mysteries and the prayers at the same time. I usually only get around to praying one or two decades a day, and each one takes roughly half an hour to complete. Is there any way I could make my prayer easier and faster, while at the same time not mindlessly rushing through it?
 
Here are the 15 promises Our Lady revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche for those who pray the rosary: ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/15promise.htm

Read them and reflect on them. Reflect on the word “recite”. Don’t get tangled up in attempting to pray the rosary perfectly, most people can’t. You’re going to be distracted the more you strive for perfection. Expect that; offer it to Our Lady to bring to her Son.

Don’t walk away from the rosary. Keep at it. In our earthly lives, our prayers and pieties can look like the wrong side of a tapestry - all dropped stitches and mistakes. In eternal life we’ll see the right side of our tapestries. Stay with your prayers and I promise you your tapestry will be perfectly beautiful.

[SIGN]Pray without ceasing; it’s scriptual[/SIGN]
 
Thanks for the advice, but I was looking for practical tips on how to stay focused and meditate on the mysteries.
 
I use a Scriptural Rosary. Having a Bible verse for each bead really helps me to focus on the meditation. I’m sure you can find a Scriptural Rosary online. I use the one in the Gold Book of Prayers, available at most Catholic book stores or at Queenship Publishing. It costs $4.95, and I think well worth every cent!.

Peace,
Linda

PS I don’t know how to post links. :o Queenship has a website where you can order the book.
 
here’s what i do. i look online at the mysteries of the rosary. for example: you start with the first prayers on the bottom of the rosary right? then you announce the first mystery, today, the sorrowful mysteries, and then you say, for the fruit of: then you say 10 Hail Mary’s, after that, you say the Glory Be, and the Oh My Jesus, and then the Our Father, and you repeat it. keep your tv and phone turned off as well as any music. don’t get distracted. say the rosary slowly, and reverently. it usually takes about 20 minutes. ( for me )

that should do it for you. those are my tips for it. also another tip, praying it with people also helps. try saying it with other people.
 
schatzi said:
Here are the 15 promises Our Lady revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche for those who pray the rosary: ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/15promise.htm

Read them and reflect on them. Reflect on the word “recite”. Don’t get tangled up in attempting to pray the rosary perfectly, most people can’t. You’re going to be distracted the more you strive for perfection. Expect that; offer it to Our Lady to bring to her Son.

Don’t walk away from the rosary. Keep at it. In our earthly lives, our prayers and pieties can look like the wrong side of a tapestry - all dropped stitches and mistakes. In eternal life we’ll see the right side of our tapestries. Stay with your prayers and I promise you your tapestry will be perfectly beautiful.

[SIGN]Pray without ceasing; it’s scriptual[/SIGN]
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Pay more attention to this post. It is right on.👍
 
If you can, pray the Rosary out loud. Look at the beads while praying. Don’t try to concentrate so much on the words of the prayers - The Our Father, The Hail Marys and the Glory Be, they’re memorized so they should roll easily without concentration. Concentrate on the mysteries, like walking through the events. Picture yourself present at each mystery, like you’re watching it live. Before you know it, your ten Hail Mary’s have flown by.

Remember, the Rosary is simply a walk through Jesus’ life as seen through the eyes of His Mother Mary. It’s the Gospels. Imagine you’re standing next to Our Lady as a companion and she’s giving you the tour.
 
az_4_faith said:
Don’t try to concentrate so much on the words of the prayers - The Our Father, The Hail Marys and the Glory Be, they’re memorized so they should roll easily without concentration.
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But you should concentrate on what you’re saying; otherwise, you’d be praying “as the Gentiles do” (i.e., vain repetition). If the words of the prayers are so unimportant that one would be justified in reciting them from memory (as opposed to praying them from the heart), then why not just memorize anything and recite it while meditating?
 
Aragorn1 said:
But you should concentrate on what you’re saying; otherwise, you’d be praying “as the Gentiles do” (i.e., vain repetition). If the words of the prayers are so unimportant that one would be justified in reciting them from memory (as opposed to praying them from the heart), then why not just memorize anything and recite it while meditating?
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Because the Rosary is structured in such a way that it’s recitation allows for the free flow of the prayers, WHILE meditating on the mysteries.

The repetition of prayers in the negative way that you state was for show, not for meditation. That’s what made them empty prayers.
 
Aragorn1 said:
But you should concentrate on what you’re saying; otherwise, you’d be praying “as the Gentiles do” (i.e., vain repetition). If the words of the prayers are so unimportant that one would be justified in reciting them from memory (as opposed to praying them from the heart), then why not just memorize anything and recite it while meditating?
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It might help if you think of reciting the words of the prayers the way someone does who is playing a guitar or piano or other instrument and singing at the same time. His fingers know the chords and notes–he doesn’t have to concentrate on them to be playing them. What he is concentrating on is delivering the lyrics to his audience in the most effective way. As a singer/player, I know this to be true.

It’s the same with the Rosary. You know the prayers, and you ARE praying the prayers, but you are praying them as a background for meditating on the lives of Jesus and Mary. There is nothing vain or repetitious in doing that.

The prayers can also be likened to a child expressing his love for his mother or father who repeats the words: “Mama/Papa, I love you” over and over again. He means it even if he isn’t concentrating on each of the words he is saying.

I hope that helps you.
 
Della said:
It might help if you think of reciting the words of the prayers the way someone does who is playing a guitar or piano or other instrument and singing at the same time. His fingers know the chords and notes–he doesn’t have to concentrate on them to be playing them. What he is concentrating on is delivering the lyrics to his audience in the most effective way. As a singer/player, I know this to be true.

It’s the same with the Rosary. You know the prayers, and you ARE praying the prayers, but you are praying them as a background for meditating on the lives of Jesus and Mary. There is nothing vain or repetitious in doing that.

The prayers can also be likened to a child expressing his love for his mother or father who repeats the words: “Mama/Papa, I love you” over and over again. He means it even if he isn’t concentrating on each of the words he is saying.

I hope that helps you.
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Well said.
 
you could also find a group that prays the rosary aloud, or a recording you can listen to. the only one i have experience with is father groeschel’s “the rosary is a place”. it’s very soothing, and helpful for the meditation. assuming you can put up with the music… 😛
 
For me, when I first started the Rosary I did concentrate on the prayers themselves, as even by themself they’re pleasing to Our Lady and God. As I kept praying it I found it easier to concentrate on the Mysteries as well. There’s actually a website with several different things to meditate upon while reciting the Mysteries. If I find it I’ll post it on here. Part of my problem with meditating on the Mysteries was that I didn’t know what to meditate on for some of them. I actually have a hard time saying it with other people because I find I lose concentration that way (and wow, if I’m in a church while saying it…lets just say I start looking around at the stained glass and before I know it I’ve finished the Rosary and haven’t concentrated at all!). If you’ve been praying it the same way though, maybe you just need to try it a different way. Different environments work better for different people. Also, continue praying the Rosary. People say it’s one of the hardest prayers to pray, but it’s also one of the most beneficial.
 
Aragorn1 said:
I always have difficulty praying the Rosary. I find it almost impossible to concentrate on the mysteries and the prayers at the same time. I usually only get around to praying one or two decades a day, and each one takes roughly half an hour to complete. Is there any way I could make my prayer easier and faster, while at the same time not mindlessly rushing through it?
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Listen to St. Therese the Little Flower’s words about praying the rosary, and her struggles:
But when I’m by myself… it’s a terrible thing to admit, but saying the rosary takes it out of me more than any hair-shirt would; I do say it so badly! Try as I will to put force on myself, I can’t meditate on the mysteries of the rosary; I just can’t fix my mind on them.
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For a long time I was in despair about it, this want of devotion. I couldn’t understand it, because I’ve such a love for the Blessed Virgin that there ought to be no difficulty about saying prayers in her honour; her own favorite prayers, too! Now I don’t distress myself so much; it seems to me that the Queen of heaven, being my Mother, must be aware of my good intentions, and that’s enough for her. Sometimes, when I’m in such a state of spiritual dryness that I can’t find a single thought in my mind which will bring me close to God, I say an Our Father and a Hail Mary very slowly indeed. How they take me out of myself then; what solid satisfaction they give me then! Much more than if I’d hurried through them a hundred times over. Meanwhile, the Blessed Virgin isn’t angry with me; she shews that by always coming to my rescue at the moment I ask her to. Any anxiety, any difficulty makes me turn to her at once, and you couldn’t have a more loving Mother to see you through. Again and again I’ve appealed to her, and found out the advantage of having a mother like that, when I’ve been trying to talk to the novices.
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-Rob
 
RobNY said:
Listen to St. Therese the Little Flower’s words about praying the rosary, and her struggles:

-Rob
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Oh my goodness! What a comfort to know that one of our greatest saints had the same problems with the rosary that we do!!!

I have tried a variety of methods. The one that works better for me is to state the mystery and then proceed with the Our Father, I try to say the Our Father slowly and concentrate for a few seconds after that on the mystery. Then as I say the 10 Hail Marys, I think more about the mystery and the virtue that I would like to attain by that mystery. In other words, say for instance the Annunciation. The Angel came to Mary to announce to her that she would bare the Christ Child. If you think about it, a humbling experience. So I pray for humility. Etc., etc. It is difficult to pray the rosary, but I have found as others have that the more you say it the better your concentration becomes. But other posters are correct, the idea is that we pray with the right heart, Our Mother will help us and knows we will not nail it perfectly…I think THAT will happen in heaven. Just keep on pluggin.😉
 
When I pray the rosary, I try to attach a petition to each and every Hail Mary. The petitions are usually for the person and intention of the Pope, our local archbishop, the parish priests (we have a team of 2 pastors and a parochial vicar at my home parish), my family, my friends, petition for more vocations, world events, etc.
It helps a lot while you meditate on the mysteries and you are supporting others spiritually at the same time. It’s a way to avoid routine.👍
 
If you are up on more modern technology, you could get the free CDs from the St Philomena Foundation, rip them to a iPod (or just play the CDs on your stereo), and then use that night after night for a few weeks to help you pray.

saintphilomena.com/Howreq.htm
 
There’s an old story that says that a small congregation of nuns would gather daily in their chapel to pray the Rosary, and on the mantel in front of them, one of the nuns put a five-dollar bill in clear view.

She told the sisters that the first nun that could pray the rosary all the way through without distraction, could collect the five dollars.

Of course it went untouched for a long, long time.
(Might even be there still . . . )
 
I used to have the same problem praying the Rosary, I used to have trouble concentrating on both the prayers and the mysteries. I just kept trying to focus on the mysteries while reciting the prayers and before I knew it I was doing it right effortlessly and concentrating both on the prayer and the mystery. I thought this was very neat and that I had everything nail down, but after some time of success I found myself experiencing some dryness and I was unable to concentrate very well, or I felt that I wasn’t penetrating the mysteries deep enough. After this experience I tried the scriptural rosary which helped but after some time it wore off also. What I have come to realize is that praying the rosary is an act of faith and will and that poor concentration or good concentration come and go and the only important thing is the act of the will, sometimes we are rewarded with good meditation, sometimes we are not. My advice is just keep praying, without anxiety, and whatever comes to mind first while meditating just hold on to that and if nothing comes to mind then just pray consoled by the fact that you are praying out of love. A priest once told me that the spiritual life is like manning a sailboat, just keep adjusting your sails. Another thought is that if we are faithful to the Holy rosary God will transform us and we wont even notice, it’s like being in adoration, you sit there often times without feeling anything or without thinking anything but God is making you a better person. Hope this helps.
 
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