Praying the Rosary
Distractions become petals of prayer
When I was a boy I could not pray the rosary. Within a few Hail Marys my mind was off - cricket, rugby, home, looking forward and looking back. Occasionally I would return to the church and the family and the people around us, and then I would be off again. "Distractions" I heard this called in school and by the priest in church, and I need not worry about them unless they were wilful. They weren't, but there was no joy in them. I should have been praying, and I was merely repeating Hail Marys at Catholic speed - like trying to run at a sprint over a mile.
It meant I would never pray the rosary alone. Too difficult. Yet I would say it as part of the devotions in our lovely Catholic parish and hoped the others were praying better than I was.
When I grew up I still could not pray the rosary. I might have been a little better at saying it, but not at praying it. Even as a priest, and knowing the fascinating story of its development to a prayer of the Church, I would stumble distractedly through its lovely meditations, and hope the people were compensating in their warm prayer for the poor offering I was making to Mary.
Yet now I understood rosary as "rose", a lovely flower of many petals, each Hail Mary a petal and each different from the others. I knew the prayer had come from the praying of the Our Father on the Paternoster beads, a pattern of prayer developed from the lovely Book of Psalms in the Old Testament, the basis of prayer for monks and hermits in the Early Church. The people took on that rich pattern and said the Our Father instead of the 150 psalms they could not read, counting the Our Fathers on the Paternoster beads in a union of prayer with the silence and peace of the monasteries. From these patterns came the rose for Mary - 150 petals of prayer, a beautiful flower. I knew the meditations were vivid - Joyful and Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries, a path through the Gospel touching moments o life shared with Jesus, and I wanted to meditate and pray, but distractions spoiled. There was no joy in reciting the rosary.
Then, the gift of a beautiful rosary, threaded by the daughter of Red Indian friends of mine, changed everything.
I had taught at a mission school in far west Canada during a wonderful time of Church vision and lay apostolate. An inspiring Bishop had sensed the people's generosity and their waiting to be invited into its full place in the Church's Mission. Lay apostles came from all walks of life to serve in the diocese in a variety of ways. I taught at the college and shared the apostolate.
Some years later Mabel wrote to tell me Jim had died. She knew I would say mass for him. Of course. But more - I would be seeing her later that year. I had been invited to the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the 'Lay Apostolate' of the Canadian diocese and families I had known had collected to pay my fare. I would be able to see her and the family, pray with her for Jim . . .
The afternoon came. So many years since we had met. We talked. And then, the rosary. The daughter skilled in Indian beadwork, made necklaces and headbands. Jim had admired the work and commented she could make rosaries. As a birthday surprise she made one for him - and now, she had made one for me. It was beautiful. Each bead was made of 40 tiny beads threaded around a central small stone. I could see so many hours of work had gone into that rosary, woven with the love of friendship. It would always be precious, I told them.
That night I knelt to say the rosary. I longed to pray the gift within it. I prayed to Jim, asking his help. Suddenly, an idea suggested itself that I had never read or heard or thought: I might say each Hail Mary for a different person! I would set the meditation scene and then imagine at my side someone I loved, cared about. In union of prayer with Mary the loved one would be in my heart.
The Joyful mysteries were the chosen decades. The Our Father was for Jim, the First Hail Mary for Mabel, the second for the daughter, the third for the boys - and suddenly I was home in Wales. The fourth Hail Mary was for my lovely parents, the fifth for my sisters, and I was immersed in loving memories and awareness. I never knew for whom the next Hail Mary would be, and I was thrilled to become aware of people, and moments and needs and memories to bring to my prayer. No distractions here, but rather the fertile mind and imagination God has given me were shaping a wonderfully rich rosary of love.
As I finished, I was exhausted but happy. For the first time in my life I had prayed the rosary. Fifty loved ones had been with me, and I had thanked God for bringing them into my prayer.
Now it is always like that . . . Cardinal Hume, Bridget and Jim, Amnesty International's Prisoner of the Month, CAFOD, the Bridgewater Three (four) and so many others . . . God brings them into my mind and heart, and I pray for them in union with Mary. There is no limit to the shaping of each rose, and every petal is different and special.
Fr John Daley IC (1998)
