Why not try praying the rosary?

My husband and I agreed: … Saying a decade of the rosary together every day is changing our lives. Not drastically. Just a little bit. But undeniably.

We are not the kind of couple you’d look at and say, “Oh yeah, they’re big into the rosary.”

I never liked the rosary. I was never sure if I was supposed to be focusing on the mystery, or the prayer, or my intentions, or some combination. It was what you did as a penance, or because your parents made you. I never knew if I was supposed to be coming up with some brilliant new insight into the life of Mary, or finding some kind of spiritual comfort in the familiarity of the lack of brilliant new insight, or what. And darn it, I always lose track and end up saying either nine or eleven Hail Marys.

But more and more often, dealing with the problems that naturally come with full lives, we found ourselves saying, “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I just don’t know what to do.” And while there is some relief that comes with realizing your own limitations, sometimes we really did have to do something, and we were just at sea. We do both know how to work our way through a set of beads, though, so at very least it seemed like a rosary couldn’t hurt.

We already go running together most days, so we decided to make a decade of the rosary part of the routine. Since we’ve made it a daily practice, literally come rain or shine . . . well, things have been better.

Surely, part of the improvement is attributable to human psychology: when you decide to commit to doing something to make your life better, that in itself helps. By making an effort, you’re signaling to yourself that you’re worthy of effort and worth taking care of; and this is a thought that, repeated often enough, is very likely to improve your outlook on life. It’s a self-fulfilling, self-help routine.

But that doesn’t explain everything. Since we started praying together regularly, we are less prone to fight, less likely to fall into misunderstandings, and more hopeful about the tasks that lie before us, and more at peace about things which should, by all rights, be overwhelming. I don’t think it’s just the power of positive thinking, powerful though that may be. I think it’s just grace.

I think God likes it when you show up with an empty bowl and say, “I’ve got nothing; please feed me.” […]

I have spent an awful lot of my life not praying because I knew I was praying wrong. I knew I would be focusing so much on my intentions that I wouldn’t really thinking about God at all, but just myself. I knew I would be letting my mind wander and, even while I was mouthing words of praise and adoration, I would only be giving God about a tenth of my actual attention.

[…] But for whatever reason, we decided not to let all that stop us this time. Maybe it’s because we’re in our late forties, or maybe it’s because it’s the year 2021, but at a certain point, you just have to look around and conclude that you’re helpless. We’re out of ideas. We’re failures. Might as well say the rosary every day.

And what do you know: It helps. There’s an anchor. There’s a constant. There’s stability. There’s a reason for hope, and it doesn’t lie with us.

Adapted from Simcha Fisher

August 6, 2021

https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/simcha-fisher-why-not-try-the-rosary/