Learning to Love the Rosary

I used to hate the prayer of the rosary.  From a young age I equated it with death since funerals were the only place that I ever heard the recitation.  When my grandma on my mother’s side died, I was five-years-old.  The night she died, as the family prayed the rosary, I was taken by mom to say good bye to my grandma, and I remember being terrified of the dead body; yet, mom made me go up to it, kiss and say goodbye.  After, I remember sitting through the novena watching my mother cry and mourn her loss. At that impressionable age, I didn’t understand fully what was happening, I just saw the daily gathering of the pueblo women to recite these prayers that made mom cry.  For a young child, nine days seemed like an eternity and I just wanted the praying days to end so that I would return to my normal life where mom was happy.  When my brother died, a group of women also gathered in my home to pray a novena for his repose and again I chose to leave the house so that I wasn’t present during the prayers.  Every day, I would grab Dollar and off we would disappear. 

As I explored the Christian faith, I learned in the non-Catholic churches I attended that reciting prayers written by other people was unheard off, God wants to hear us “in our own words” was the message I received.  “He especially delights in the prayers of new Christians who are still so humble that they haven’t picked up cliché phrases to make their prayers sound better,” I was told.  Thus, I got really good at having conversations with God, of telling Him using my own language my needs and hurts.  However, in moments of true desolation, when I had nothing to say I found that something was lacking.  As I reverted to the Catholic faith, I realized that the prayer of the rosary really helped when I was speechless in the presence of God.  I saw in my Jovenes Para Cristo community that the rosary was not just prayed in funerals, but was a highly favored prayer by the Church with mysteries that were joyful and luminous too.  I heard it prayed with the accompaniment of music and in community and I began to understand its beauty and power.

In my family we never gathered to pray, even though my mother is a very devout Catholic, she usually would just step away daily to pray her rosary privately.  As I have gotten older, I try to live my best life now and this is how the idea of planning a one night a week family prayer gathering came to me.  This year has been a challenging one for my family and I, thus, I invited them all to a Thursday rosary prayer moment.  We have been gathering to pray the rosary for each of our needs now for a little over a month and I can already see blessings from these short prayer moments.  Sometimes our own words are insufficient and having a guide to help us be in communion with God is such a blessing.   We all gather and in one voice we praise God and leave our petitions at His feet knowing that He will provide for our needs.  Thursdays are the luminous mysteries, mysteries that fill us with hope - to see God in each of the mysteries and reflect on holy his life is so encouraging.  I have learned that the rosary is quite a perfect prayer not only perfect for funerals, and novenas, but also to pray daily as a source of sustenance and that’s what I am trying to pass onto my family- though I am pretty sure they already new that.