Recently a reader sent me a note asking if I could speak a bit more on my daily rosary, particularly my habit of praying all fifteen decades of the rosary daily. Well, dear reader, I will do just that!
First, the title… That clever little rhyme has probably been spoken by more than one person over the centuries; but I first heard it spoken by Bishop Williamson in one of his many YouTube talks. Now, regardless of how one may feel about the good bishop, the truth of what he says here is undeniable. That is, if one has the time to pray a complete rosary every day, one probably should be doing that. As for the “watch and pray” part? It’s not just that he needed words to rhyme with “every day”. It’s a clear reference to the dangerous times in which we live and to Our Lord’s Gospel admonition regarding the return of the Son of Man as Judge.
I heard someone tell a funny story once about the Luminous Mysteries. Wow, I didn’t even write “so-called” before that. I must be mellowing out in my older years. Anyway, the story goes that a fellow asked his parish priest if he should pray the Luminous Mysteries. The priest replied, “There’s no harm in that. Just also make sure you pray the rosary.”
So on praying the original, thirteenth century, handed from Blessed Mother to St. Dominic rosary… Here’s how I do it. The first thing is to mentally commit to the task. When I was young and my father would announce – right after dinner and while I was trying to watch Jeopardy! – that it was time for our family rosary, I wasn’t always thrilled to say the least. I viewed this not as an act of devotion to the Blessed Mother so much as an interruption of my schedule. Isn’t that ridiculous? Obviously, even then I knew that I was being stupid and that, of course, the rosary needed to come first and yet I still hated having to stop what I was doing to pray. Clearly, decades later I have gotten over it. And this is why I believe a family rosary is so important. Even if the kids would rather watch TV and resent you for making them stop to get the beads out, it will eventually sink in. But it can’t sink in if it never happens in the first place.
So on to the fifteen decades… Traditionally, as we know, the rosary is divided into three groups of five mysteries – Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious. I find that praying any one of those groups takes me about fifteen minutes. Now, I’m from New Jersey. We all speak fast. I’m the guy at Mass who, during the Leonine prayers at the end, finishes up one full word ahead of everyone else in the church and I’m not even trying. Your fifteen decades may take a few minutes longer. Either way, someone pointed out to me once that fifteen minutes is roughly 1% of the total time in a day. I did the math. It’s true. Now think of it in those terms. Can you spare 1% of the time God gave you? Am I trying to use guilt here? Sure am. Seriously, that time is a free gift from God. You didn’t create it. You cannot stop it advancing. It is yours to use in His service. You can do it
As it turns out, it takes me about fifteen minutes to drive to my parish. Since I’m already going there for Mass every day, I use the opportunity a lot of days to pray five decades either going or coming or both. Plenty of times my kids are in the car with me and we all pray together. Trust me, there’s nothing of value on the radio anyway since Rush died.
That only leaves the final five decades. Typically, if I haven’t prayed those during one of the many other times I find myself behind the wheel during the day, I will finish them before bed. My son and I take a little drive around town just for that purpose. He’s very good at reminding me.
So that’s the how. As to the why? Why not. See above about the percentage of time in a day. That doesn’t even get into the centuries of spiritual writing on the rosary, the words of great saints, the admonition of the Blessed Mother herself at Fatima and other places. Are we in the end times? Things are certainly bad (some would rightly argue worse than they’ve ever been). Should that matter? Can you ever go wrong meditating on the life of Jesus and Mary?
I will continue this more in a future post as it is getting late.
Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary, pray for us!
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