Introduction
When I was a small child and would have difficulty going to sleep, I inevitably reached for my white rosary, given to me by my parents for my first Communion. Fingering the beads and reciting the repetitious prayers was soothing and calmed the thoughts that always seemed to swirl in my head at that time of night. When I contemplate the questions “Why the Rosary, why now?” I think of those moments that call out to us to reach to Mary for comfort, peace, and consolation. When we turn to her, she quiets our minds, calms our hearts, and focuses our thoughts where they should be more often: on her son.
Even as adults, there is much to be intimidated by in today’s world: growing secularism and the disappearance of faith from the public square; the spread of evil and terrorism; war and violence; broken families; abounding distractions; a general lack of drive for holiness. But we know how to get to overcome these challenges today, just as people did one hundred years ago when Mary spoke to three shepherd children in Fátima, Portugal. In a series of apparitions, the Blessed Mother warned Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia of trials to come, and she strongly encouraged praying the Rosary for peace to reign in the world and in our hearts. This is not because the Rosary possesses magical powers, or because it is a talisman against evil. Rather, as the late Cardinal Francis E. George said at the conclusion of the Year of the Rosary in October 2003, the Rosary “brings us to the heart of the Gospel,” to Jesus who is peace.
It’s hard to believe that this one prayer can be the key to so many problems of such great magnitude. But indeed it is. The Rosary is our most secret of secret weapons, ready to be wielded against any challenge we face. Unfortunately, many Catholics take the Rosary for granted. We tend to purchase the strings of beads as souvenirs, stashing them here and there. Sometimes, when it is fashionable, we even wear them. Not nearly enough do we pray with them! But when we do, we discover that the Rosary is both the sword and the shield that helps us through the trials of everyday life.
Receiving the gifts of the Rosary to the fullest requires great perseverance and patience. We must enter into praying the Rosary with the same commitment and attention as we would enter into a conversation with a loved one. As Cardinal George said, “Relationships grow with familiarity, and praying the Rosary makes us familiar with the various dimensions of Christ’s life.” In order to get as much as possible from it, we must put as much as we can into it. Otherwise, our commitment will waver, indifference can take root, and our best efforts and intentions eventually will fade.
To that end, we must develop a strategy. Praying the Rosary daily should be planned, not left to chance. Make a routine out of it, whether undertaken while commuting, during a daily walk or run, or kneeling every night before bedtime. If you’re feeling particularly motivated, make time to visit your parish’s Blessed Sacrament chapel once a day to pray your Rosary in the presence of Jesus. Where you pray doesn’t matter as much as consistency does. A routine will help trigger your brain, making you less likely to forget your commitment. The most important thing is to simply pray.
A commitment to praying a daily Rosary will put you in good company. The texts in this book were composed by men and women who experienced the power and many benefits of the Rosary in their own lifetimes. It is my hope that by reading the words of such wise and holy people, the reasons for praying the Rosary every day become not only undeniable but compelling.
World events may change, but one thing never does: the great grace available to us when we reach for our rosary beads and give our hearts to our Blessed Mother in prayer. So, Why the Rosary? Why Now? Because the Rosary is a pathway that leads us to the truth of Jesus Christ—a path that, as we will see in the following pages, has been trod steadily and faithfully by so many men and women of faith over the centuries.
Chapter one
To Break Through the Noise
I have a thing for audiobooks. Maybe it’s the accents of the narrators, or the way I can enter into a story while convincing myself I am productively multitasking, or how they seem to calm and focus my overactive and seemingly ever-swirling thoughts. Whatever the reason, I own dozens of them, and I love to listen, and re-listen, to the stories. The more engrossed I am in them, however, the more I find that I tune out the world around me. Today’s technology has made it possible to hop from activity to activity, all while being absorbed simultaneously by other things.
I’m not alone. For some of us, it’s the lure of the Face-book or Twitter feed; for others, it’s binge-watching television shows; for still more it’s the never-ending texting conversation or Snapchat messaging. The noise is all around us, and it seems to never, ever end.
According to a Nielson report issued in June 2016, Americans spend more than ten hours a day looking at some type of screen, with smartphone usage alone up 60 percent from just a year prior. We tell ourselves we are being productive. We’re using the tools at hand to stay connected with the world so we can better do our jobs or improve our knowledge. We’re staying connected with loved ones. And those things are all partially true. But here’s the real truth: When we are surrounded by constant noise, it becomes much more difficult to nurture relationships, including, and especially, our relationship with God.
This truth was expressed thoughtfully in a 1973 homily by Cardinal Albino Luciani, then archbishop of Venice, who would go on to be elected pontiff in 1978 and would take the name Pope John Paul I. The focus of Cardinal Luciani’s homily was the Rosary and how it increasingly was being considered outdated, arcane, boring, and repetitious—in short, a thing of the past. But before he expanded on that theme, the cardinal first identified what he called a “crisis of prayer in general” facing the Church. “People are completely caught up in material interests; they think very little about their souls,” he said. “And noise has invaded our existence.”
If “Papa Luciani” identified the invasion of noise as a threat in 1973 Italy, what would he think of early twenty-first-century America? Indeed, in the early twenty-first century, Pope John Paul II wrote in his apostolic letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, that “one drawback of a society dominated by technology and the mass media is the fact that silence becomes increasingly difficult to achieve.” And it’s this lack of silence that helps lead to an atmosphere in which prayer, including the Rosary, is discarded.
Praying the Rosary, however, can help reverse this trend, even as it is threatened by it. By their very meditative nature, the prayers of the Rosary naturally enable one to break through the noise of everyday life and find silence. As Pope John Paul II wrote in his apostolic letter: “After the announcement of the mystery and the proclamation of the word, it is fitting to pause and focus one’s attention for a suitable period of time on the mystery concerned, before moving into vocal prayer. A discovery of the importance of silence is one of the secrets of practicing contemplation and meditation” (31). In short, the Rosary not only benefits from silence, it helps foster it, and this is a lesson just as applicable today as it was 50 years ago.
When we speak of breaking through the noise, however, we must acknowledge the existence of internal noises that can be just as powerful as those that are external. These interior barriers to prayer often manifest themselves in the form of pride and self-centeredness. Here again we can look to the example of Cardinal Luciani and his episcopal motto: humility. On September 6, 1978, at one of the few General Audiences of his thirty-three-day pontificate, Pope John Paul I said: “I run the risk of making a blunder, but I will say it: The Lord loves humility so much that, sometimes, he permits serious sins. Why? In order that those who committed these sins may, after repenting, remain humble. One does not feel inclined to think oneself half a saint, half an angel, when one knows that one has committed serious faults. The Lord recommended it so much: be