The Rosary: beloved school of prayer

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

The Holy Rosary is not merely a bland ritual or old devotion but a profoundly deep school of of contemplative practice that, when practiced properly, slowly draws one from the very beginnings of petitionary prayer to the prayer of quiet and thence to the prayer of union…

While often beginning as a devotional practice in its early stages of use it can bring us to the heights of Kataphatic Prayer as It speaks to every aspect of our being, drawing us into stillness of the body and mind through the repetitive passing of the beads through the fingers, it cultivates the faculty of the imagination, drawing the rational mind into a deep “lectio” of the Divine Mysteries of the Life of Jesus and the Blessed Mother (especially when combined with the reading of Sacred Scripture relating to these mysteries), and so arouses in the heart-centre a readiness for the gifts of true compunction and compassion that mark the work of the purifying power of the Holy Spirit to bring about the deepest conversion of heart… or perfect metanoia…going beyond this stage the praying of the Rosary can become the way to arrive at the fulfilment of that desire of Christ that we would pray always, (it is in fact the Western version of the Jesus Prayer having at its heart the prayerful repetiition of the Holy Name at the centre of every Hail Mary), and through the mindful repitition of the prayer in its cycle we arrive at the beginnings of that resting in the Divine Presence that marks the Prayer of Quiet and the beginning of the Apophatic path to the true prayer of Union…

The extarordinary value of this holy practice as a school of prayer and sanctity is born out by the countless saints, doctors, popes and holy men and women of every age who have recommended it as the quickest and surest way to walk with Christ in deep prayer through inviting Mary His Mother, (from whom all that was Human in Christ is received, and through whom all that is Divine in Christ is received), to guide us in the way of perfect union with the Holy Trinity… a unity which she never lost…. so what are you waiting for… take up your beads…
#talktoyourmothershehasntheardfromyouindecades