I know that when I was a Protestant, and truthfully for many years after I converted, I could not understand why on earth anyone would pray the rosary. The only reasons I could come up with like, it must be because their mother taught them, or because Sister Mary Margaret Perpetua of the Sacred Whatevers would slap them with a ruler if they didn’t and those just didn’t resonate with me. Now I am pretty stubborn and closed minded…there are boat achors that are more likely to budge than I am when my mind is made up…so I don’t know if hearing what the rosary meant to other Catholics would have helped me or not. My conversion to the rosary took the flying-flaming-baseball-bat right between the eyes by God, who thankfully has never met a boat anchor He couldn’t move.
But if you are wondering why in the world those Catholics are so attached to their rosaries….or perhaps why Martin Luther was attached to his (yes…that’s true)….go read this collection of posts hosted by Heidi Saxton over at Behold Your Mother. I am guessing that Catholics who don’t pray the rosary and ones that love it dearly will also enjoy this collection which includes my thoughts that I posted here.
1 response so far ↓
1 Abby // Dec 2, 2008 at 6:57 pm
I think that I, a Catholic, pray the rosary because it focuses on Christ. I know we pray the Hail Mary more often, but the line “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, jesus” refers to when Elizabeth praised Mary because she was to be the Mother of God, and her Son would be Holy, Son of the Most High. Jesus was brought into this world to redeem everyone. Today, I attended a funeral Mass for an 18-year-old that was killed in a car accident early Thanksgiving morning, Father said something that caught my attention. He said, “But even after all the pain and emptiness of loss, we experience an odd sense of hope, in realization that we will someday be reunited with Joseph (18-year-old), and share in his eternal happiness with God.” The rosary centers around that. That kind of thing, God’s saving power and unconditional and unfathomable love. We pray to Mary, Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, showing them glory and honor, and this centers around Catholic belief. As proven in a statement in the Nicene Creed, which states all Catholic faiths, “Four our salvation, He came down from Heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became Man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered died and was buried.” This truly expresses what the core beliefs of the Rosary are, and the events in Christ’s life serve as the basis for the mysteries. Personally, when I pray the Hail Mary, it reminds me of the sacrifices she made in order to fulfill God’s will, and gave up her only Son so He could do what God wanted Him to do.
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