This should have been yesterday’s post. But I had nothing to say about the topic. It all seemed so “yesterday”, so passé. In fact, I have some negativity to overcome.

As a kid, the Rosary was a big deal. It was prayed in church before Mass. An expensive set of prayer beads were a typical gift for First Communion to replace the cheap plastic rosary we fingered before we even knew the Hail Mary.

We’d pray the Rosary at the beginning of every family road trip — we knew we better have our beads readily at hand. While other kids ran outside to play after dinner we knew we had to pray the Rosary first — not just during Lent, throughout theyear! My Dad prayed the full 15-decade Rosary everyday well into his 80s.

Life moves on. Religious culture changes. Schedules impinge on time. We outgrow childhood practices. I had plenty of negative baggage to dump regarding the seeming dreary repetitious routine that impinged on my youthful spontaneity.  I quickly discarded the practice for what I thought would foster a more mature “contemporary” spirituality.

Yesterday, my solid Catholic upbringing reminded me that October 7 is the feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary (just like I remembered it was my sister’s 54th wedding anniversary).  But I had nothing to say. It seemed like a kindly artifact of yesteryear. Harmless enough. A bit quint. But, irrelevant.

Then a couple of things happened. A friend shared her delight with a prayer service she had attended the evening before at a local Catholic high school. The service was built around The Rosary with St. James, an innovative way of praying that combines the repetitive and contemplative aspects of the traditional ritual with the message that Christ’s disciple James preached—the message that “faith without works is dead.”

The rhythm, the structure of the five decades, and other aspects of the more traditional format are the same. This rosary uses contemporary composer and liturgist David Hass’s Mysteries of Discipleship:

• First Mystery: To Serve the Poor
• Second Mystery: To Serve Those Who Experience Discrimination and Hatred
• Third Mystery: To Serve the Cause of Peace
• Fourth Mystery: To Serve the Young and the Fearful
• Fifth Mystery: To Serve the Suffering and the Dying

Interspersed throughout are musical responses along with inspired passages from the “cloud of witnesses,” including Óscar Romero, Peter Maurin, Martin Luther King Jr., Harvey Milk, St. Francis of Assisi, St. John Paul II, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi, St. John XXIII, St. John Baptist de la Salle, Robert F. Kennedy, St. Teresa of Ávila, Adrienne Rich, Helen Keller, and Henri Nouwen.

Then, as if God were intent on putting an exclamation point on the enduring relevance of this ancient prayer form, I simply happened upon a blog post by an Anglican who extolled the Rosary’s spiritual benefits. This Protestant recommends it as a graced entrée for prayerfully inhabiting the mysteries of the Creed.

Yes, the Rosary is Marian in character.  This is because she is among all Christians the model disciple. Yet, at its heart the Rosary — the Mysteries on which we meditate — are thoroughly Christo-centic.

The Anglican bblogger confesses that as he prays the Hail Mary over each plain wooden bead, he is brought again and again into the mystery of the Incarnation – in joy, light, sorrow, glory.  God the Word fully assuming our humanity, that our humanity may fully share in the life of God.

I may be a day late with this reflection.  Nevertheless, it is time to take another look at this discarded, even disvalued, prayer.  Accordingly, I am brought back to profound gratitude for the conscientious efforts my parents made to pass on the faith they treasured, a conformity to Christ they personified.

I enthusiastically introduce you to The Rosary with St. James [here] and the perspectives of the Anglican blogger [here].