Are you going to pray the Rosary every week?

“Are you going to pray the rosary every week?”

It was a simple question, but the hallway at Century III Mall was an odd place to hear it. This question from a woman I knew only from seeing in the last pew at church, came two weeks after the September 11 ^th attacks. I didn’t know the answer.  

On the week of the attacks I was the lector for the Saturday evening Vigil Mass,  and I didn’t know if I could get through the readings without the enormity of the evil that took over our country taking over my emotions. The comfort of fingering the beads and saying familiar prayers seemed the best way to prepare. Since then, my love of the rosary has grown in ways and for reasons beyond what I knew that memorable September.

Now, I have bracelet rosaries; rosaries with wooden beads; several crystal bead rosaries; a rosary with different color beads representing the continents, created by Archbishop Fulton Sheen; one to honor Our Lady of Fatima; several from Lourdes; and one with a bouquet of roses on the crucifix in honor of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. You get the picture: I could supply each student in my faith formation class with a rosary of their choice and have some left!

In Matthew 6:7, Jesus says: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.” Despite my love for saying the familiar prayers over and over again, these words often trouble me. But then I remember that the chain connecting all the beads links me to centuries of saints who have prayed these prayers before me. St. Bernadette, Saints Francisco and Jacinta, and St. Teresa of Kolkata are all good prayer companions. As I recite the rosary, I join them in petitioning the Blessed Mother to intercede for the world.

The crucifixes of gold, wood, silver and even the one with the rose bouquet remind me that I, like St. Faustina, St. Maximillian Kolbe and St. John Paul II, must take up my cross and follow the Lord. Through a flood of tears after the death of loved ones and during sleepless nights of worry and fear of what comes next for me, my family, for our world and especially for the Church, I hold the rosary cross and try desperately to embrace my own cross.

Then there’s the medal that joins the decade beads to the crucifix. Most often, the medal is an image of the Blessed Mother asking me to contemplate the mysteries that are the life of her Son, Jesus. Quietly, serenely and sorrowfully but courageously, she walks me through His life from her “yes” at the Annunciation, through three years of teaching and the painful walk to Calvary. Then what seemed impossible happened. The tomb is empty, the light of Christ breaks through the darkness and the gates of heaven are open. The reason for my hope and the story of my salvation, the salvation of all people, comes to life as I contemplate the mysteries.

Will I pray the rosary every week? The answer is no; I will pray the rosary every day, and on most days, more than once. With each fingered bead, I’ll recall Jesus’ promise to be with me always. He will be there in times of joy and through the daily monotony of my life. He is there on those days when all I can do is ask “why?” and He is always there waiting for me when the light breaks through the darkness.