Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
Although the idea of praying the rosary might be daunting for some, Dominican Father Lawrence Lew, the general promoter of the rosary for the Dominicans, said it doesn’t have to be.
In Houston’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church for feast of the Holy Rosary Oct. 7, Father Lew shared a handful of tips about this prayer.
1. “Begin praying the rosary slowly,” Father Lew said. “If you’ve found it (lacking), slowly begin with one decade a day.”
2. He advised those starting to pray the rosary to continue to gradually increase the number of decades prayed each day, praying one decade at a time, spreading each throughout the day.
3.In his role as general promoter of the rosary, he actively advocates and preaches about the rosary within the Dominican Order and encourages his fellow Dominicans to preach about the rosary, which he said is part of the sacred heritage of the Dominican order.
4. He compared praying the rosary to a doctor prescribing a new medicine to a patient. The effects aren’t typically immediate but people trust that the medicine will help in some way.
5.The rosary should “stir up and deepen our love for God. That’s the goal of prayer,” he added. “In a sense, it’s pointless to pray the rosary by rote in a way where it’s just ratcheting off words.”
6.Don’t rush through the Rosary: “It’s very, very clear in the Dominican tradition and Dominican teaching that the rosary must be prayed as a meditation. It’s better to pray one decade at a time, to pray that decade well rather than try to rush through all five decades in 20 minutes.”
And a word of wisdom: “But if people find themselves praying the rosary as a habit more than a meditation, they shouldn’t feel guilty,” he added.
“We’re human, and human beings get distracted in prayer,” Father Lew said.
As he sees it: “As long as we set our intention and begin to pray and our motivation is out of love for God and we’re still distracted, our prayer doesn’t lose its merit.”