October is known as the month of the rosary.
I've wanted to write about it all month,
but
when I actually sit down to write it,
I just can't do it justice.
I have it all in my head,
I've prayed about it.
Bear with me, I'm not that good with words.
Here goes:
First of all, I've never had a problem with Mary.
She is the Mother of God.
Period.
I'm going to quote from the above book:
A Catholic boy from a parochial school was telling a university professor who lived next door
about the Blessed Mother. The professor scoffed at the boy, saying: "But there is no difference between her and my mother." The boy answered: "That's what you say, but there's a heck of a lot of difference between the sons."
(I love Bishop Fulton J. Sheen!)
It is because Our Lord is so different from other sons that we set His Mother apart from all mothers.
We did not make her different; we found her different. We did not choose Mary;
He did.
He goes on to say:
It may be objected: "Our Lord is enough for me. I have no need of her."
But He needed her, whether we do or not. And what is more important, Our Blessed Lord gave us His Mother as our Mother. On that Friday men call Good, when He was unfurled upon the Cross as the banner of salvation, He looked down to the two most precious creatures He had on earth:
His Mother and His beloved disciple John.
The night before, at the Last Supper, He had made His last Will and Testament, giving us that which on dying no man was ever able to give, namely, Himself in the Holy Eucharist.
Thus He would be with us, as He said, "all days unto the consummation of the world".
Now in the darkening shadows of Calvary, He adds a codicil to His will. There beneath
the Cross, not prostrate, as the Gospel notes, "stood" His Mother.
As a Son, He thought of His mother; as a Savior, He thought of us.
So He gave to us His Mother:
"Behold thy mother".
I believe that the closer we are to His Mother, the closer we are to her Son.
I believe she only magnifies our love for her Son.
She points to Him.
As I pray the rosary, my favorite prayer of all prayers,
I meditate on the life of Jesus.
Even the "Hail Mary" is all about Jesus.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou among women
and Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
Only 3 lines are even about Mary,
and those lines are taken directly from the bible.
The other lines are about Jesus
and US!
I didn't grow up praying the rosary.
My dad tried during lent to get us to kneel down after supper to pray,
but, I only remember it happening a few times.
He always led.
(I was a lukewarm Catholic and only did what I was "supposed" to do, not knowing the "why?" we do what we do)
When I went through my conversion
and figured out why we Catholics do the things we do,
and how important praying the rosary actually was,
I had to teach myself how to do it.
NOW, I must say, there is no correct way to pray, the only way to learn how to pray
is to DO IT!
and prayed along and learned the mysteries.
I have rosaries everywhere,
not because I worship Mary,
they are to remind me to pray,
they remind me of Jesus.
Mary is purifying my prayers, as any mother would.
I always picture her in an old story I heard a long time ago, it goes something like this:
There was once a peasant man who had to go to the King to ask for something.
He had nothing to bring him, except some moldy fruit and an old basket to put it in.
He brought what he had.
When he knocked on the Palace door, the King's mother answered,
listened to his pleas, took his fruit, and told him to wait.
Now, the mother of the King knew him very well, she was his mother!
She knew what he liked and what he didn't.
She replaced the old basket with a shiny silver plate and put all his favorite fresh fruits on the plate,
she presented it to the King.
The peasant man is us
The King is Jesus
The mother is Mary
The old fruit and basket is our prayers before Mary
The fresh fruit on the shiny platter is our prayers purified by Mary for her Son,
FOR US.
The beauty of the rosary, for me, is that it always leads me to her
SON.
When I picture God, the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and
God the Son in Heaven,
I picture Mary the Mother of God there with Him.
Not His equal,
His Mother.
Isn't Mary the next closest person who would be there?
Why is she so hard for people to understand?
This post is waaaaaaayyyyyy tooo long and I've probably already lost everyone,
but, I just can't do the Rosary and what it means and it's beauty in a short fluff post,
like most of my posts are.
(OK, my Thankful Thursday posts are long, but come on everyone, they are fluffy)
If you've never prayed a rosary, or it's been a really long time,
I challenge you to order a
free CD and try it.
See how it goes.
It can only lead you closer to her son.
