The Holy Rosary
“Pray the Rosary every day.” - Our Lady of Fatima
I wish I could convince everyone to pray the Holy Rosary. I have never “experienced” the ‘grace of prayer’ more in any other prayer, save thanksgiving after Holy Communion. Our Lady grants unimaginable graces and favors through the prayer of the Holy Rosary. It is the ladder to Heaven.
I once had a disagreement with a very good priest who told me that the Rosary does not constitute mental prayer. “Yes, indeed it does Father!” I told him. In fact, the Rosary is a very contemplative prayer, encompassing all the stages of prayer. Later, reading Garrigou-Lagrange, it seemed my intuitions were confirmed.
“These mysteries, which are those of the incarnation of the Word, of the redemption, of eternal life, the rosary daily places before our eyes by recalling to us the Savior’s childhood, his sorrowful passion, his resurrection and ascension. If the proficient is faithful, he goes beyond the sensible aspect of these mysteries, he attains all that is spiritual in them, the infinite value of the merits of Christ; then the rosary is no longer the mechanical recitation of the Hail Mary, but a living thing, a school of contemplation.” - Three Stages of the Interior Life, Vol. II, Chp. VI
Never allow anyone to discourage you from the prayers of the Holy Rosary - least of all yourself, especially when you are tempted to think that just sitting there in some sort of dark night of centering prayer, or navel gazing, is contemplative prayer. Let Our Lady direct your prayer - she will ’suspend your faculties’ and console you when she sees fit.
