Why I didn't always like the Rosary

Converts sometimes mention how blessed we lifelong Catholics are for having been raised in the faith. This is indeed the case; however, it doesn't always follow that we appreciate this great gift. In fact, the Catholic faith can seem very much like the turkey at Thanksgiving, or choosing to run a yearly marathon---something that is "your thing", that "works for you" but it might just as well be any other thing. Some may call this indifference but that's not always the case either.

I grew up with all the religious luxuries one can imagine: Sunday and daily Mass, frequentCconfession, icons and statues on mantels, evening rosaries, Baptisms, 1st Communions, Confirmations, Mass cards, etc. I took it all as matter of fact. Of course we say the rosary. Yes, that bread becomes God. Baptism removes original sin---Why shouldn't it? It was all so very common to me. I hadn't the least understanding of G.K. Chesterton's words, "Our perennial, spiritual, and psychological task is to look at things familiar until they become unfamiliar again."

My family was fun-living, humorous, and welcoming to any stranger (well, not any stranger, we watched Dateline, for heaven's sake). There were many family gatherings where nearly everyone was Catholic, and those who weren't didn't discuss it. In fact, no one ever discussed the faith at most of our family celebrations. It was like art on the wall---once chosen, now embraced but rather droll to bring up again. None-the-less, with all this acceptance, security, and sense of belonging, I grew up a strong child. I felt it was all me. I could take or leave my environment. I brought strength and decisiveness to situations; I was the source of strength. Though in reality, I was as unaware and ungrateful for the blessings I had received as the infamous T. E. Lawrence---too prideful and arrogant to recognize our need for and dependance on Christian society.

The area where this was particularly true for me was praying the Rosary. I just didn't get it. Repetitive prayers; kneeling for what seemed like ages; parents nagging children to cease distractions; 1950's devotional images of levitating "holy people"; crabby elderly couples crossly shooshing everyone before morning Mass while mouthing this "transformative" prayer; mothers describing the Virgin Mary's miraculous apparitions in the foam of their lattes, while completely unaware of their 8-year-old carving profanity into the underwood of a pew---not my thing, people, not my thing. These are the things we rarely want to talk about. The things that kinda scandalized us and we are afraid might scandalize others, too.

What some converts don't see, is the particular cross we lifelong Catholics carry of overcoming the haze of commonness which veils the miraculous around us. No matter who you are or what faith you've been raised with or without, at some point, we all have to have the Encounter. After many years of recognizing my own apparent weakness and need for God, my faith finally became my own. It was no longer a family-thing, but a universal-necessity. I wanted the faith not because I was scared or guilty or capitulating but because I believed. The Eucharist, it was Jesus, And I wanted Him.

However, I'm sorry to say that the rosary was the last thing that I "converted" to. I put it off for years, always too busy, too distracted, too much of a spontaneous-prayer-type-person to repeat those same words over and over again---drove me crazy. And yet, always, in the back of my mind, I knew that I should be praying it. I would see a Marian image, and my throat would tighten as I staved back tears of longing. I would see a dark blue and an image of Our Lady's mantel would appear before my mind. And the funny thing is, when I did join someone in praying it, I always felt peaceful afterwords. But it was just too hard, too dry, and too . . . well, boring.

But like all those who suffer from malnourishment, I started to show the lack of spiritual nutrition: difficulty concentrating, anxiety, virtuous inconsistency, mental fog, runaway thinking, doubting the faith, etc. All the things the apostles felt and manifested before the decent of the Holy Spirit. What's funny about that part of the Bible, is that we never recognize the harsh reality of the story: the reason the Holy Spirit was able to descend upon them was because they were with the Blessed Mother. She had primed them, humbled them, ordered them, and held them so that indeed God could work miracles in and through them. John took her into his home (Jn 19:27). His was the life thereafter of constant rosaries. The Blessed Mother is what defines us as belonging to God. She carries us in the womb of the Church so that the life of Christ can be born through us.

For a long time, I kept the rosary close to me, like those who want to lose weight keep diet books and exercise equipment near by but never really do the actual work of losing weight. I wanted the benefit of praying the rosary without the work of saying it, as if I could absorb it through osmosis. Well, Our Lady is patient and sometimes even an imperfect intention is really good enough for her. Eventually, after much prompting on her part, I began praying the beads again.

When I say the rosary now, I cover my face in the mantel of my Mother. I tell her how sorry I am for neglecting her for so many years. I rest in her beauty, her simplicity, her acceptance, her power before the world, the flesh, and the devil; I take comfort in her influence before the Living God. She knows me. She knows God. She's my Divine Diplomat. She can work this all out for me. I can dwell in her veil small, and little, and safe. Whew . . .

The rosary has been described as roses being gifted up to Mary (I was raised on that one, actually). Don't get me wrong, that image is beautiful and good but I fear it just doesn't do her enough credit. The rosary isn't some nice afterthought, if you have the time, and if Mary even cares anyway (which we doubt); it is so much more than that. It is the answer. Find an ailment, a suffering, and the rosary is the answer. For the neurotic fidget, fingering those beads calms while the constant movement soothes. For the mentally lazy, the meditations are strengthening and liberating. For the easily frightened, the Blessed Mother wraps us in her mantel and strokes our fears away. For the lonely and imprisoned (both spiritually and physically), she was the one solace God allowed His Son while dying on the cross. If He won't withhold His own Divine Son from us, surely He will not deny us the consolation of the Blessed Mother during our most trying hours? She is our armor against lust, our shield against gossip, our sword against doubt, our strength against temptation, and our pathway to Christ. Deny yourself the rosary, and you are denying yourself the purest spiritual fruit you can consume, second only to the sacraments.

I think if someone had told me the joy of the rosary, the consolation of the rosary, but also the hardness of shedding vice, the dryness of strengthening mental contemplation that comes from the healing power of those beads, I might perhaps have listened more. Maybe not. We each of us have to come to a place of recognizing our need for God, of our need for the Blessed Mother, and for the rosary. What happens to the soul that spends this intimate time with Our Blessed Mother is a softening, a ripening, an unfolding of grace which heals old injuries, dissolves vices, cures developed neurosis, orders disordered thinking, and simplifies hearts so that our very lives can begin to reflect her firm fiat to all that God asked of her. We become like Our Mother, because we are her children.