7Editor’s note: This is part 36 of a series, “The Kingdom of Grace.” Part 36 can be found here.
Over the last several articles, we have discussed petitionary prayer, lectio divina, meditation, silence, vigilance, recollection of the Cross, and the invocation of the Name. In one way or another, all such practices help us grow in sanctifying grace and in the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God. It is now time to consider the splendors of the Rosary.
Why is the Rosary such a wonderful form of prayer? Why have so many Popes and Saints commended it for so many centuries? It is admittedly a difficult way to pray. Everyone finds it challenging. Even Saints have said they find it difficult. Nevertheless, the Rosary is a most commendable and even essential way to pray. Why?
The Rosary is a wonderful form of prayer because the Rosary is a complete form of prayer. Many ways to pray are available to us in the holy Church of God, but the Rosary somehow unites them all. Each decade begins with the Our Father. Thus, we pray as Jesus taught us. We turn our eyes to the Father of lights. Each decade summons us to meditation and gives us a mystery to ponder with love. All the mysteries are about Jesus even if Mary is also a character in the story. Each mystery, in fact, is one of the memories of Mary. She lived through them all in one way or another, and each is her memory of how Jesus has loved us. In the Rosary, her memories become our memories too. So, too, does the pondering of her heart. The cycle of the mysteries together is essentially the story of the gospel. The whole life of Christ from its beginning until now is set before our eyes to consider in love.
The Hail Mary is a gem. The first half is pure Scripture. It is the happy proclamation of an angel and a woman flooded with prophetic light. Just to say the words can become a moment of lectio divina even without a bible in front of us. At the center of the prayer, of course, is the holy Name – radiating the presence and energy of Jesus. During the sorrowful mysteries, we pray with both The Cross and The Name. In the second half, we profess Mary to be the Mother of God – the Theotokos. “This name,” Saint John Damascene says, “encapsulates the entire mystery of the economy” (Orthodox Faith, III.12). We also do what Christians have done since time immemorial. We humbly acknowledge we are sinners, and we ask the Mother of God to pray for us. We also remember death.
Humble contrition and the memory of death, though, is not where each decade ends. Each decade ends in doxology, in praise of the Holy Trinity, in the Glory Be. Each decade of the Rosary is an exercise in doxological contrition. Knowing we are sinners, we stand humbly before the Holy Trinity, at once both praising his glory and beseeching his mercy. Doxological contrition is of particular importance in the spiritual life. For it always leads on to greater divinization by grace.
The Rosary is also a petitionary prayer. To dedicate one’s Rosary for a certain intention or a set of intentions is a time-tested practice. Through the Rosary, countless generations of people have cast out devils, cured diseases, brought down tyrants, ended wars, won conversions, saved marriages, assisted priests, overcome all odds, and obtained so many graces for humanity that heaven alone knows the totality of it. There is a reason why Our Lady, in every approved apparition of recent centuries, calls everyone to pray the Rosary. Its impact is immeasurable.
The Rosary is a road to constant prayer. Years ago, Father Jean LaFrance carried out a ministry of spiritual direction with many people who wanted to “pray always” (1 Thess. 5:17). The Jesus Prayer, of course, is a proven path to constant prayer. So, many of his directees tried the Jesus Prayer, but it did not work for them. The Rosary, however, worked. Father LaFrance gathers many of their testimonies together under one cover, and comments on their experience in his book The Rosary: A Road to Constant Prayer. In my own time as a priest, I have met more than a few people whose prayer life has become something of a perpetual Rosary. How it works in practice is a mystery, and it is different for each person, but it is a grace for them all. Indeed, the perpetual Rosary in their hearts is a grace for the whole Church.
One way to understand how someone might pray the Rosary perpetually is to realize that one need not always pray the Rosary in the same way. Beginners pray the Rosary in one way, those making progress pray it in another way, and those living in deep mystical union with God in another way still. In beginners, the Rosary tends to be primarily vocal and meditative. In those making progress, it tends to become less discursive and more affective. The gaze tends to simplify, the heart tends to burn with love. In those living in deep union with God, the Rosary becomes a place just to slip into silence and awe before the Presence. Many people take the vocal and meditative style of beginners as the only measure of a Rosary well said, but the way in which one prays the Rosary should adjust and adapt to different stages on the journey of prayer. If someone living in deep union with God can only announce the mystery and begin the Our Father but cannot go much further without slipping into an altogether silent union of love with God, so be it. The person should feel no guilt for not praying the Rosary vocally or discursively. For the person has arrived at the whole point of praying the Rosary!
In Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope Saint John Paul II was intent on driving home an important point. The Rosary is a way to contemplative prayer. Christians of the East sing the praises of the Jesus Prayer and rightly so. It slowly but surely prepares the heart for the grace of contemplative prayer. The Jesus Prayer is truly a road up Mount Thabor, and people pray it in the hope of coming to behold the face of Christ. John Paul II, however, calls the Rosary “an outstanding means of contemplating the face of Christ” (General Audience, Oct. 16, 2002). Rosarium Virginis Mariae has a subsection titled A Path to Contemplation where John Paul II says this: “The Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a typically meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the ‘prayer of the heart’ or ‘Jesus prayer’ which took root in the soil of the Christian East” (RVM, 5). In other words, like the Jesus Prayer, the Rosary too is a road up Mount Thabor. John Paul II taught us to pray the Rosary in the hope of coming to behold the face of Christ.
Among all the practices on the pathways of metanoia, the Rosary has a particularly outstanding value. It is a simple way to pray, yet it unites many forms of prayer in one. It has great petitionary power – especially to obtain new graces. It is a road to constant prayer, and it is a road to contemplative prayer. The splendors of the Rosary are many indeed, but there is only one way to learn them for yourself. Pick up the beads and pray.
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Image: Deposit Photos
Father James Dominic Brent, O.P. is a Dominican Friar who lives and teaches at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of The Father’s House: Discovering Our Home in the Trinity. His podcast is called Contemplata — a podcast for contemplative souls. He posts select homilies, spiritual conferences, interviews, and radio spots on his personal Soundcloud site. He frequently lectures for the Thomistic Institute and appears on Aquinas 101.
