I have been praying daily for 30+ years now. It began at St. Josephs hospital waiting to take my mom home. As they were getting her ready to leave I was wandering the hospital corridors and bumped into Fr. Cassidy the Chaplin. I said “Hi father just killing time while they get my mom ready to go home”. Fr. Cassidy said, “Go in the chapel and pray the beads”. So I did and that was how my daily rosary began.
I thought about this after I read an Ann Barnhardt story this morning. The story was called Litmus test and simply read, “I have no better way of knowing if a man is for God than if he likes to say the Hail Mary and the Rosary.” This is so true, too many Catholics do not appreciate the power of the rosary. That got me to reflect on my personal journey.
I have been praying my daily rosary for almost 30 years now I pray it during my daily morning walks (2 1/2 miles, health of body and health of soul). I know it has touched many people souls. Most memorable was in walking past a local assisted living home, one of my neighbors was gathered with his family waiting for Grampa to die. Hospitals do that, you are allowed to spend time with loved ones while they go thru their last hours on earth. My sisters and I did that with both parents. I have a very large para-cord rosary for my outdoor use. The corpus is about 3″ x 2″. In short you can see me coming a mile down the street. (the bigger beads make it easier to pray with gloves on in the winter). Bill was with Grampa when he saw me thru the homes window walking with my huge rosary. That gave them an idea, they decided to pray the rosary as a family with Grampa included. Bill told me Grampa got to the last decade, the last prayer before he breathed his last. I am thinking what a wonderful way to leave this earth. Armed and ready!
I have also found that out of nowhere answers to problems will suddenly appear in the middle of a decade. These could be problems weeks, months in the past but out of nowhere the answer is loud and clear.
The rosary is much like exercise. When you first start its a chore, its hard, you struggle to get thru the long arduous ordeal. Then all of a sudden something clicks you can not start your day without it. Mediation on the mysteries get clearer. I recently saw a video with Father Isaac Mary Relyea, a traditional Franciscan. He is promoting a full daily 15 decade rosary. He says that our lady said a rosary which he interprets as a 15 decade job. At first I thought it might be a bit overwhelming but I tried it. My walk is now a little longer but its not that bad so been doing it daily for the last 2 weeks, well almost two weeks.
There was a cheers episode where Sam asked Carla who she talked to when she had a problem. She told him her priest. Only Sams “problem” was his usual immoral dilemma. Sam goes to the priest, gives him the sorted details. The camera cuts to the priest with his jaw dropped down to the desk as sam asks what do I do Father? Next scene Sam is holding a rosary asking Carla, “Do you mean I have to say all that stuff on each of these little beads?”. Carla replies, “What kind of whimp religion do you think this is?”. Bingo Carla gets it, real Catholicism (unlike that thing Leo is pushing) has no whimps.
One other thing, if your hanging your rosary from your rearview mirror, please make sure you take it down and use it once in a while