Tuesday, 10/7/14
Today we honor Our Lady of the Rosary, and I’ll just give my
two accommodations for saying the Rosary.
First, I was always twisted up by the need to meditate on
each mystery at the same time I was trying to mean the words of the Our Fathers
and Hail Mary’s. The way I have
gotten around that difficulty is by copying my behavior when as a four-year-old
I was tagging along with my mother at Christmas shopping. As mother muscled our
way though the crowded department stores, I would have my hand tight in hers
while I gave all my attention to the sights around us. Now, muttering the Hail
Mary’s is like holding Mother Mary’s hand as I give all my conscious attention
to the mysteries.
My second accommodation allows me to make up mysteries
different from the traditional Joyous, Sorrowful, and Glorious ones. Recent
research has shown us that those mysteries were not mentioned until three
centuries after Mary was said to have giving them to St. Dominic. And since my years
of mediating on the traditional mysteries has squeezed all the value from them,
I have taken up richer ones.
(There is a discussion on the origin of the Rosary in the last paragraph of Article 28)
In my morning walk I make fifteen mysteries out of the eight Beatitudes and the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. In my evening walk I make fifteen mysteries out of the key phrases in Chapter One of John’s Gospel. Let me number them.
1. 1. In the beginning was the Word. 2. The Word was
with God, and the Word was God. 3. All things came to be through him. 4. In him
was life, and the life was the light of the world. 5. To those born of him he
gave the power to be his children.
6.The Word was made flesh. 7. He pitched his tent with ours. 8. We have
seen his glory. 9. Through him comes grace and truth. 10. Behold the Lamb of
God. 11. For what are you seeking? 12. They stayed with him. 13.On this rock I will
build my Church. 14. Behold a man in whom there is no deceit. 15. They joined him
at the wedding feast.
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