Lent has always been a good opportunity for me to do a spiritual check-up. Just like taking the car to the mechanic, I need to take a look under the hood and find out what spiritual practices are working well, and what needs a tune-up. Of course, there are staples that keep me going, like the Daily Office—Morning Prayer sets the tone for my day. On Mondays I spend an hour with other preachers as we focus on the upcoming Gospel, through Lectio Divina. As I spend time with my intercessory prayer daily list, I often find the Holy Spirit has led me down paths of prayers for others that I didn’t even know I’d be praying for. It’s sort of the spiritual equivalent of looking up a YouTube video on dishwasher repair and, twenty minutes later, having no idea why I’m watching videos of dogs skateboarding!
I worry about getting too comfortable with my practices. Indeed, a spiritual director told me that when prayer became too normative and comfortable, perhaps it’s time to change or add a practice. The point isn’t to make it so difficult that it’s not obtainable; but to find something that’s just difficult enough to shake things up. So, taking that advice, a few months ago I began praying the Rosary.
My first real exposure to the Rosary happened a few months prior during a stay at a Jesuit retreat center. Each morning, one of the brothers led the retreat group in a Rosary prayer. I have to admit that the experience was underwhelming to me. I felt that reciting the same ‘Hail Mary’ prayer was rote and gave me little inspiration. In fact, it had the opposite effect of all other positive experiences of the retreat. I found myself dreading the twenty minutes I spent with it. Once I returned home, I placed the Rosary beads I’d been given into a desk drawer—never to be looked at, again.
It was after the conversation with the spiritual director that I decided to give praying the Rosary another try. I would make it a weekly practice; and if there was no change after a month, I would give it up in lieu of trying something else. What I found—and it took a few times to get there—was that it opened me up to a deeper sense of prayer. The ‘Hail Mary’ prayers became a rhythm almost like breathing, and with each breath/prayer, I stopped focusing on it, and my mind began to ponder the specific Holy Mystery being prayed on that decade (a set of ten beads). The experience was powerful. I began using the Rosary to contemplate scripture readings and let myself dive deeper into those as I prayed. As I look back on it, I feel that the initial negative experience I had at the retreat center was likely because I was resistant to trying something new. As I gave myself into it later, and really prayed it the way it was intended, the experience was completely different.
A few months later, I introduced the Rosary over a four-week session to my church. The first week was spent as an introduction to explain what a Rosary was: how we would say the prayers and walking the participants through the Joyful Mysteries—The Annunciation to Mary; the Visitation of Mary; the Nativity of Our Lord; the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple; and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. It felt like it went well, and the comments I received were positive. As with many things, it’s the comments on the back side that are the surprising ones.
“Why are we praying to Mary instead of Jesus?” That’s probably the most-asked question when I speak to someone about the Rosary, to which I would answer, “You can absolutely pray to Jesus!” But then I follow that with, “Have you ever asked another member of the church to pray for you? If that’s the case, why would we not also ask one of the saints, especially one who may have undergone the same problem that you’re facing, to intercede on your behalf with prayer as well?” That’s usually an ‘aha’ moment for people, and suddenly the Communion of Saints begins to be seen in a new light. And, if we’re willing to ask a saint to intercede with prayers on our behalf, would we not ask for the person who was the closest to our Lord to pray on our behalf as well? When they see it in this light, a lot of the former prejudice they’ve been taught about intercessory prayer of the saints begins to peel away.
As we enter into Lent this year, my challenge will be to make this a daily practice. Spending fifteen to twenty minutes each day with this particular prayer is just enough to nudge me towards something achievable, yet something that will require effort. As I’ve shared this, I’ve challenged others that they could do it, too, in more bite-sized pieces. If they want to get their feet wet, just pray a decade at a time instead of all five at once—spread it throughout the day. It’s like having a chapel in your pocket; you can pull out the rosary at work, on the bus, or while having your morning coffee. They can also pray it in different ways. They can contemplate the Holy Mysteries, they can think about a portion of scripture they just read, or they can just open themselves to pray, sensing God’s voice to them. That’s why discovering the Rosary is like the ocean. For one person it could be walking in the shallows along the beach; for another, it could be deep-sea diving off a coral reef. Everyone can fully enjoy the same ocean while playing at different levels. And this is true with the Rosary.
—The Rev. Dion Crider
Church of the Resurrection, OKC