RBWords

     Could there be a more typical (non-sacramental) prayer for Catholics than the rosary? (OK, maybe the Sign of the Cross!)  A rosary hanging from a rear-view mirror in a car is a sure sign there's a Catholic on board!  My itinerant preaching ministry has brought me to parishes all over this country and I would hear the rosary being recited before or after Mass at many of them!  What is the purpose of this "comfort prayer?"

     Briefly put, the purpose is to meditate on events in the life of Jesus, Mary or even other important spiritual figures in Catholic faith.  However, that purpose sometimes gets lost because we simply say, "The Resurrection" or "The Presentation," or "The Agony in the Garden" and move right to the familiar repetitive Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be, etc..  At retreats, I suggest to people that they move out of the familiar "mysteries" (even out of the five "Luminous" ones that St. John Paul II added) to use five parables (like the Good Samaritan quoted above), or five miracles or five statements (like the "I AM" statements from the Gospel According to John.  We could use five "prophets" like Jonah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel! This can have the effect of slowing down a prayer that we tend to run through without thinking about it.

     We Dominicans became involved with the rosary intensively in the 15th century with the preaching of Bl. Alan de la Roche, OP.  He had a dream in which he envisioned the Blessed Mother directly giving the rosary to St. Dominic, which has been painted and repeated for centuries.  His principal contribution, however, was the foundation of Confraternities of the Rosary around 1455 which were open to people of any class.  The movement took off and spread all over Europe and then beyond.  Pope Pius V, a Dominican, attributed a great Christian naval victory at Lepanto in 1571 to the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary and established the feast with the 15 familiar "mysteries" that we know so well. (There were different lists of them!).  We Dominicans wear a 15 decade rosary as part of our "habit."

     Each morning, I take a long walk on the Texas Tech campus and pray the rosary in which I have a long litany of intentions for friends and family.  And, yes, I do vary the "mysteries!"  The sheer portability of the rosary makes it one of the true marks of a Catholic.  October is the month of the rosary and today's feast is a good reminder of this wonderful and venerable prayer.  AMEN