Day 61 - Pray the Rosary

Date: March 8th, 2010

I don't know about you, but driving across several states in a single day really takes it out of me.  I was still very tired on Monday when I started looking for something to do for the day, so I wanted something that wasn't too... rowdy.  You know, no wrestling galactic invaders or learning a catering business from the ground up.  Those things would be... a little too involved.  So, I swung all the way the other direction and decided to spend some time looking inward for the day.

I meditate a decent amount, pray a good deal of the time and have certain Bible verses memorized.  I remember them both for inspiration (Psalm 23) and for giggles (Ephesians 5:18).  For personal growth and learning too, of course.  Its a great book.  So part of the reason I didn't pray the rosary before (in addition to not being Catholic) was that I figured it would basically be more praying.

While there is some "overlap", its a very different and very spiritual experience.  Of course, like I said, I'm not Catholic... so step one was figuring out what it meant to pray the rosary in the first place.  My two Catholic sourcebooks (two men I hold in very high regard - Sean and Mario) were not presently present, so I was on my own.  I found a site that was a great source for explaining some of the basics of the prayer.  It is... a bit more involved... than I thought it would be.  See?

The prayer involves several "Our Father"s and "Hail Mary"s, as well as the recitation of certain events in the Bible to honor the lessons one can learn from them.  There are four sets of mysteries, which is what they call the events.  I chose "Joyful Mysteries", as one can always benefit from a little more joy.  It turns out that the joyful mysteries have to do with Jesus's birth, early life and how Mary acted during these times. 

After reading the mysteries, you're supposed to say ten "Hail Mary"s.  I used to giggle at the idea of having to say a short prayer over and over again as penance or as part of a larger method of praying.  I didn't really understand the point.  Without meaning to say something anyone will take offense to, I had a realization as I was praying the rosary.  If you take all the "Hail Mary"s and "Our Father"s and focus more on the physical feeling than on the specific words, it takes on a similar sensation to the Ohms of eastern meditation.  I found praying the rosary a lot less proscribed than I expected and a lot more meditative.  After a little while, I found myself more cognizant of the vocal pattern created by the "Hail Mary"s than the words.

Don't get me wrong - the words are beautiful.  At first though, I had trouble understanding how I was supposed to both meditate on the mysteries I'd just read and say "Hail Mary"s at the same time.  By the time I got to the third mystery of five, it hit me - the "Hail Mary"s really are like Ohms - they are, in this context, a way of keeping the person praying alert to the things around her while immersing herself in the mysteries of the Bible.  In a sense, saying "Hail Mary"s, for someone of the Catholic faith, is significantly better because it doesn't just keep you alert to the prayer, but also to the central tenants of the faith.

I found myself surprised at the calming nature of the prayer once I was about halfway through it (and didn't have to look up at the instructions every two seconds).  I expected a pre-written recitation of a prayer to be less spiritual than simply talking directly to God, but that wasn't the case at all.  Knowing what words I was going to use next allowed me to focus on the connection itself.  It was a very different kind of prayer than I'm used to, but it was also a very familiar sensation - it was the sensation of connecting to God.