EWTN On Location - 2017-11-11 - Praying The Rosary Like Never Before: Encounter The Wonder Of Heaven

[Music] it is very exciting to be here with all of you and this year's Napa conference that's in the year of Our Lady of fátima we're remembering the hundred year anniversary here and I'm excited to share with you a little bit about the Rosary a little bit practically what difference it makes for lives but hearing so many of the presentations today about the cultural challenges we're facing in our world we know we need help as we just heard here and our help needs to come from above and the Rosary is an incredible gift that could help us with that but I want I want to think about Our Lady of Fatima the way a great hero of mine I think of many of yours a thought of Our Lady of fan of on that st. john paul ii he once said that Our Lady of Fatima summed up the entire 20th century from her foretelling the end of World War one to foretelling the rise of another Great War on the horizon if the world did not repent to her foretelling the rise of communism and Russia as a dominant power that would provoke even more Wars and more famines and an greater persecution of the Catholic Church and indeed in the 20th century we saw an era of of so much persecution more than the previous centuries had put together before she also foretold the sufferings that the church would go through particularly the Pope's from Pius the tenth all the way up to john paul ii and predict in particularly foretelling the great assassination attempt on his life but john paul ii was concerned especially about one central request that our lady made it's the one request that she made in all six of her apparitions and does anyone remember what that request was it was to pray the rosary and to pray the rosary every once in a while to pray a daily to pray a daily and john paul ii was concerned about that that the beautiful tradition the of the rosary it was concerned that it wasn't being passed on effectively and i want to i want to tell you a little personal story about how john paul ii concern about the Rosary impacted my life finally one day way back in 1999 I was invited to speak at a conference for catechist and school teachers in the Diocese of Pittsburgh a priest from Pittsburgh called me up he said could you give a talk on Something About Mary at our at our catechetical conference and I said oh sure I'd love to speak on Mary and I said well when was when is the conference and he said oh it's it's October 2002 I thought October 2002 that's three years from now so I said oh excuse me you mean next year right October 2000 right he said no no I mean October 2002 we plan in advance here and so I agreed to do that but little did I know way back then in 1999 that three years later 48 hours before I was gonna get on a plane to go to Pittsburgh D of a talk John Paul the second was going to do something to make me up to completely rewrite my talk does anyone know what he did do you remember and in October of 2002 he gave us those new mysteries of the rosary he came out with a whole letter on the rosary and he called for a year of the rotary a year dedicated to renewing our devotion to Our Lady in the rosary and I knew everyone was gonna be talking about this and they wanted to information aside to totally scrap what I was going to do get online get the document and try to teach on it but let's think about that for a moment why did john paul ii do that why did he give us these new mysteries and why did he call for a year of the Rosary well in his letter he gives three stated reasons he gives three stated reasons one is he said that we're facing a crisis of the rosary a crisis of the rosary said the Rosary is being disavow you'd today in the Catholic Church she said it's misunderstood by many of our own Catholics it's no longer being taught to the younger generation and I I can attest to that I remember when I was fresh out of college in my previous career long before the world the theology was working in the corporate world in Michigan and I remember I would stop by my local parish every once in a while and after work and I would pull out my beads and and and pray the rosary and one day I was there in the front row just all by myself in the church and I had my beads out there and praying and and the door opened up to the side and a woman walked in she's probably in her late 50s and she was just standing there at the door and I just continued to proceed praying my my rosary and a few beads go by and you've ever had that feeling someone's watching you I had that feeling that ain't sure enough I look over and she's staring at me and a few more beads go by and she's still staring at me and I'm feeling alone comfort what's she looking at finally she comes and she walks up to me right in front of my face she bends down and she says excuse me are you praying the rosary and I had my beads I'm like yes and she said wow you must be uneducated ouch I felt a little insulted I don't know what she meant by that I asked her well what do you mean and she said well let me tell you my story said I I grew up in a home where our family prayed the rosary every night after dinner we prayed the rosary and I Col I never went to college but I went off and lived on my own in all these years all my life I've always prayed the rosary but I was in a another parish just last week kneeling down in the front pew like you are praying the rosary and a priest walked in and he told me I shouldn't pray that prayer anymore he told me that this prayer is only for the uneducated people that now after Vatican 2 Vatican 2 taught us that we don't need the rosary anymore you know but this is only for for uneducated people and I thought you know well since I I didn't go to college I'm not educated I guess that's why I pray the rosary but you're here and you're in this business suit and did you go to college I said yeah I went to college well I was surprised to see you praying the rosary and I felt horrible for this this this woman who had been humiliated for praying the rosary I felt even worse for this poor misguided priest who's confused maybe it wasn't his fault maybe he had bad formation who knows what happened there but but I share that story because I think John Paul the seconds right to be concerned about the rosary being passed on I do a lot of work with college students from my work with focus and I've talked to them throughout the years and many of these young adults and college students many of them didn't grow up with the rosary they don't know much about it you ask them about the rosary rosary what's that I don't know what that's about oh wait oh yeah that's the prayer my grandma used to pray or the rose oh that's the funeral home prayer you know that's many people's impression of the Rosary and so I think John Paul the second with his great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima toward the end of his life in 2002 who he wanted to spark a renewed interest in the Rosary and that's why he drew attention to it one reason why with the new mysteries and the year of the Rosary but there's a second reason he said he also said there's not only a crisis of the Rosary there's also a crisis of peace and he wrote this in the wake of the attacks of September 11 2001 and in this beautiful letter he said only an intervention from on high can give us reason to hope for a brighter future he saw that the world is its teetering perhaps on another great disaster another Great War and in and he said the one thing we need to do is do what Our Lady of Fatima told us to do to pray the rosary and it's a beautiful fitting prayer for peace where we contemplate Jesus the Prince of Peace and Mary who gave birth to the Prince of Peace in the Rosary there was a third stated reason he said so crisis of the Rosary and crisis of peace but he also talked about the crisis of the family the crisis of the family talked about the breakdown in marriage and family life today many families having difficulty communicating with one another knowing each other's hearts looking in each other's eyes forgiving one another he talked about the the ideological movements that are trying to redefine what marriage and family is all about he says that there's ever a time that we need to pray for the family it's now and the rosary is a great prayer to turn to he noted in the letter how the few times families actually come together anymore it's when they're gathered around a screen watching some video or watching television and said wouldn't it be wonderful the families would fill their daily lives with very different images not just what's on YouTube not just what's on the television but the images of Jesus Mary and Joseph and the rosary now those were the three stated reasons the crisis the rosary crisis of peace crisis the family but but there's a fourth reason that he doesn't explicitly come out and say but I think is probably the most profound one see john paul ii announced these new mysteries in this year of the rosary on a date that was very important to him personally it was october 6 teams anyone know why that was important for john paul ii that was the anniversary of his pontificate and at the very beginning of his pontificate he talked about how his life was in the rhythm of the rosary in talk about how important the rosary was but then he also gave a very personal testimony i mean i've read so many documents of jp2 but this was the one I thought was perhaps the most personal the most intimate it was if he was opening up his soul to us about how much the rosary has made a difference in his life I'm gonna read you a quote from what he said here he said from my youthful years this prayer has held an important place in my life the Rosary has accompanied me in moments of joy and moments of difficulty to the rosary I have entrusted any number of concerns and in it I've always found comfort now he talks about facing moments of difficulty in trial and turning to Mary in the rosary these these are the words of a man who knew suffering we know his life and this a man who lost his mom when he was in the third grade he lost his brother who died of tuberculosis and then at the age of 20 he lost his dad and any sat by his dad's bedside and wept for like 18 hours as he wrote later on about how he how how lonely he felt he never felt so lonely before and losing his last immediate family member this is a man that knew suffering there's a man who under the Nazi occupation who was forced into slave like labor to work in a rock quarry he was hit by a German truck in the Gestapo searched his home looking for him this is a man who worked in the underground resistance he was in the underground seminary and then after the Nazis as a young priest and Bishop he had to fight the evils of communism this is a man that knew difficulties and challenges and suffering and then as Pope he had the to the world on his shoulders for all those years and toward the end of his pontificate toward the end of his life he exhorts us to turn to something that made such a difference at those crucial moments in his life the rosary these are not the words of some abstract theologian or out-of-touch pastor who's just exhorting us to cling to our beads for the sake of saving some pious devotion he's afraid is going out of style no that's not what's going on here these are words that flow from a man who experienced many trials and sufferings and found the rosary to be a tremendous source of strength and like a good spiritual father toward the end of his life he wanted to share that treasure with us as if he was giving the church one last gift turned back to the rosary now we're all hearing how important the rosary was for John Paul the second we're hearing about how Our Lady of Fatima was exhorting us to pray the rosary and then we hear that she said to pray it every day and for some of us we go all that's good that's affirming what I've been doing I'm in praying the rosary every day then there's other Veloz here going everyday that's hard I don't know if I can do that you know I let's think about that for a moment I want to go practical here you know the Rosary is it is not an easy prayer to pray is it I mean on one hand it's really easy right it's it's like the the ABCs of Catholic piety you know they say an our Father 10 Hail Marys and a glory be it's like the very basics on one hand it's easy but on the other hand do you ever find it can be difficult to pray the rosary do you find you're such a 'ln you know I know some people especially many many young people they describe the Rosary is very intimidating they call it it's like the marathon of all Catholic devotions but I don't know you all are really smart and devout Catholics so this might not relate to you but I just want to ask does your mind ever wander when you pray the rosary is that is that our happy no what I'm talking about like you polish your beads and you're praying you know and a few few beads go by and you're thinking about what you're gonna eat that night your thing about some problem at work or think about something someone said to you earlier in the day and you're thinking what did she mean by that oh wait I'm supposed to be thinking about the angel Gabriel coming to marrying the Annunciation and you kind of feel bad about that right but your mind wanders a lot or do you ever treat the rosary like a spiritual chore I get something like you just showed up at this event I got to do it you know and you know you show up at something and all of a sudden you see everybody pulling out their beads and you go oh I hope we only do a decade and you know I know I should like it more I know it's an important prayer but I my heart's not really into this and you're praying along it was like over only on the second sorrowful mystery and and every decade really feels like 10 years this is the real-life experience of many good holy people in praying the rosary or how about this one right you have a busy day and you finally sit down you're in a church pew back at home and you pull out those beads what happens you sit down and what happens you doze off in the middle of a Hail Mary you know I I've had I've been blessed to talk about the rosary with probably hundreds of times in different groups with good devout laypeople like yourself two priests two bishops two contemplative nuns and they all tell me how challenging the rosary is for them I remember one bishop in the Midwest many years ago he was in the audience I just said so Archbishop is this hard for you to go oh it's really hard I struggle all the time so even bishops with apostolic succession struggle with the rosary I want to offer some encouragement that is never walk away from the rosary feeling defeated feeling discouraged feeling like that was a waste of time never do that because the words themselves just simply saying those words they're they're from Scripture they're biblical they're holy we're giving something beautiful to God and it's the great doctor the saint st. Thomas Aquinas says the intention to pray is the foundation of all prayer and while I might lose my attention sometimes when I'm praying the rosary I show up at Mass or doing my holy hour and my mind might wander if I really come with the sincere intention I'm sincerely trying to give God my best and then it doesn't work out so well God my intention he saw my heart you know it rains me I remember my my daughter my oldest daughter when she was a little girl she like three years old she this is my firstborn she started drawing pictures and I would come home from work and she would go daddy daddy here's some pictures and she'd show me all these pictures that she was making for me and she wanted to give them to me as a gift and I'd look at him and they were just a bunch of scribbles I couldn't make out what they were and I go what is that honey and she goes that's you daddy like [Music] and what would you think of a father that took all those scribbles and ripped up those pages and said to the daughter don't you ever dare try to draw a picture for me again until you get it exactly right you know good father would do that as a dad I didn't care about the final product you know that it was a bunch of scribbles I saw her heart that she's thinking of me she's trying to draw a picture for me she wants to give me a gift and I think our Heavenly Father looks at us the same way when we come with a good intention we desire to give God our best and I got to be clear this is not an excuse to check messages in between decades of the Rosary or try to work in a few beads you know in between downs during your favorite football game that's not what I'm talking about but if we come with a good intention don't walk away feeling discouraged because who is it that plants those seeds in your mind saying you're not good at this prayer why bother praying this prayer you just fall asleep all the time your mind always wanders this is a waste of time you're too busy to pray this prayer who's putting those thoughts in your head I sought from God that's from the enemy and he'll use discouragement to keep us from this beautiful prayer that being said I think we all want to get better we want we want to really encounter Jesus encounter Mary more be strengthened more from this prayer and sometimes it can feel dry it can feel monotonous it can feel like it's sure John Paul the second in his letter on the rosary he he offered us a lot of practical insight into the meaning of the Rosary in practical ways to pray it so dipping can be more personal more meaningful you know I remember there's a friend of mine and he once said you know I was talking to him about the book I was writing on the rosary and he said you know Ted if you can you know make the rosary meaningful and easy for me to pray is it just an average Joe like me I would really appreciate that and I think that's where many people are at they know it's important they know it's beautiful but sometimes we don't feel like we're doing it that well I want to share with you a couple of insights from st. John Paul the second on this and the first two insights I want to look at deal with probably some of the two biggest questions people have about the Rosary what do you think you know are the big questions people have about the Rosary and why we should pray it especially maybe our Protestant brothers and sisters that aren't Catholic what questions might they say about the Rosary repetition why do you have all of this repetition in the rows you just keep repeating the same words over and over again in fact you know I've had some Protestant friends of mine have dear evangelical friends they'd say you know hey Ted you're you know if if you Catholics would just read the Bible you would see Jesus condemned vain repetition you know and why do you have all of this repetition and this is a dry mechanical way of speaking to God that prayer should come from the heart it should just be intimate it should be conversational like think about like what husband comes home from work and starts pulling out no cards and say hi honey how are you hi honey how are you hi honey how are you I'm fine we don't talk that way we want when we can we want to talk to someone we love we just talk from our heart why do you have all this repetition in the Rosary that's an excellent question I think it's a very good question that our Protestant brothers and sisters may have and even some of us Catholics may have and john paul ii has some great answers i'll gift that at the moment what's the other big question you think are the is Elton yeah why are you giving so much attention to Mary right now if somebody asks you the question hey why do you Catholics worship Mary I think we as Catholics are getting better at answering that question right if someone says to you why do you worship Mary what do you say we don't worship Mary we honor Mary or we venerate Mary and we missed we make that distinction between worship and honoring and that's a good move to make but I have to be honest with you with my dear Evangelical Protestant friends they say thank you for that distinction but I'm still concerned about the rosary because you spend so much time with Mary I mean think about what happens in every decade you've got one our Father followed by 10 Hail Marys and it's concluded by a glory beam so what's the score at the end of every decade one point for God the Father one point for the Holy Trinity and ten points from Mary that's a little bit of an imbalance you Catholics I mean imagine if there was a husband that on the weekend when his home he decides to spend one hour with his wife one hour with his kids and ten hours with some other woman that's not gonna go over well in a in a marriage and yet you Catholics say well we're just honoring Mary or not but you're spending so much time with her again I think that's that these are great honest sincere questions and John Paul the second has some great answers let's let's let's take repetition first in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew chapter 6 verses 7 and 8 it's true Jesus there says don't keep up empty phrases as the Gentiles do do not keep up empty phrases as the Gentiles do but what we have to see here is Jesus isn't condemning all forms of repetition in prayer he's criticizing the particular practice of the Gentiles the pagans they had a practice of repeating certain formulas or certain names of their of their gods in order to try to control their God to manipulate the God they get their God to come down and work for them or make their their crops flourish or defeat their enemies so they're trying to get God to come down and do something for them and Jesus says don't heap up phrase those empty phrases like the Gentiles do don't treat your heavenly father that way trust that your heavenly Father has a plan for you and it's for your good in your welfare trust his plan is better than what anything you could come up with don't try to make God come down and work for you try to have your will be entrusted to his and his plan for you that's what Jesus is going after we know that he's not condemning repetition itself because Jesus himself repeats his prayers do you remember the night before he died he go he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane Matthew 26 verse 44 what does the Bible tell us remember how he's on his knees and he's sweating and and he's saying you know not your will but my will be done remember it remember that in the garden and and the Bible tells us in Matthew 26 44 Jesus repeated that prayer three times he used repetition we know he's not condemning repetition itself because right after in the sermon ount when he says don't heap up empty phrases the Gentiles do he says when you pray instead pray like this and what does he do he gives us a formula prayer to pray the Lord's Prayer pray like this our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name a prayer he wants us to repeat the Bible is very comfortable with repetition we see this all over the place take for example in Daniel chapter 3 if you remember that story about the three men that were thrown in the fiery furnace those good Jewish men Shadrach Meshach and Abednego there they're thrown in the fiery furnace by the wicked King and but they trust their lives to God and they praise God and they continue to say sing praise to him and may he be highly exalted forever sing praised him and may he be highly exalted forever they repeat that prayer over 30 times and God is not in heaven saying oh don't do all that repetition O God comes down and rescues them the same thing in the New Testament in the book of Revelation chapter four verse verse eight Saint John has a vision of the four living creatures bowing down before God and never ceasing to say holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty so repetition is biblical it's a part of the heavenly liturgy now trying to manipulate God through vain repetition like the pagans did to get God to come down and just do what you want that that's what Jesus was condemning but prayerful repetition is biblical and pleasing to God another thing I think we could see and we think about that other question is are we giving too much attention to Mary here I want to just share something that really impacted me when I was reading this document from Saint John Paul the second I think this is one of the most beautiful nuggets about Mary I read in this document from from from jp2 and so if you don't remember anything else of this talk but you give me your best attention right now for like the next 5-7 minutes so a little intellectual caffeine shot right here if you could do that I think you'll come away with something beautiful from st. John Paul the second because it changed the way I thought about the Hail Mary and I was a theologian at the time when I read this you know before if someone asked me hey tell me about the Hail Mary why do you.why it is a focus on Mary so much I would have said well we don't worship Mary we honor her yeah I would have made that move and I would have said and we're not praying to Mary like we prayed to the Holy Trinity we're asking Mary to intercede for us like I may ask you to pray for me or we ask our friends to pray for each other I would have I would have done that those kinds of moves but John Paul the second would I'm sure he would have agreed with those points but but he did something even more profound he said this he said the Hail Mary is a christ-centered prayer the Hail Mary is a christ-centered prayer it's a prayer that's all about Jesus and and when he went on and to expound on this the insights he had completely revolutionized the way I thought about and to this day pray the Hail Mary and pray the rosary so so give me your best choice why do I want you to do is go is enter into what john paul ii is telling us about the Hail Mary he focuses on the two different halves of the Hail Mary in the first half he talks about those opening words hail full of grace the Lord is with thee and blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb so let's take the first half here so hail full of grace the Lord is with thee who spoke those words Gabriel Gabriel spoke those words let's think about what those words would have meant for Gabriel the Archangel so imagine you're Gabriel the Archangel and you you've existed longer than Mary right you've been around long before she has you've existed longer than Nazareth or the nation of Israel you've existed before planet Earth or even the physical universe was created so when God first created he created the invisible beings the spiritual beings the angels and so Gabriel from very early on is able to see and to love and to worship the Almighty God now to think about this there so here's Gabriel who loves adores worships the almighty all-powerful all holy infinite God in one day this God instructs Gabriel to go down to this little little tiny planet called Earth and go to this little tiny obscure village named Nazareth to talk to this little tiny creature this woman named Mary and announced to her that the almighty all-powerful infinite son of God that he's been worshiping and loving and adoring is about to become a baby in her womb in all over that mystery of God becoming a baby in Mary's womb the angel Gabriel says hail full of grace the Lord is with you the Lord is with you like he's never been with anyone else Gabriel is in awe over the mystery of Christ the mystery of the Incarnation that's what we enter into every time we pray the Hail Mary but then let's think about the next words the next words come from Luke 1:40 to the next scene the visitation right who spoke those words Elizabeth Mary's cousin Elizabeth says blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb now what's interesting when you read the story we see that a Mary comes to to greet Elizabeth and in and--and--and that Elizabeth comes rushing out and then says these words how does Elizabeth know that Mary's pregnant how does Elizabeth know that Mary's pregnant with the Lord how does she know all this did Mary send a text message on her way down did she change her status on Facebook ha ha how did I lose them both no do you know what the Bible says the Bible tells us that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit filled with the Holy Spirit that's like biblical code for she's being given the gift of prophecy many great heroes of the Old Testament like David and Samuel and others and the prophets when they're filled with the Holy Spirit they're able to utter prophecy and so she's given supernatural insight here and she knows before Mary says anything she knows that Mary's pregnant that she's pregnant with the Lord and that's why she says blessed are you among all women anyone boss like you for blessed is the fruit of your womb so Elizabeth like Gabriel is in awe over the mystery of God becoming man in Mary and here's what John Paul the second said every time we pray the Hail Mary we enter into the wonder of heaven and earth over the mystery of Jesus we enter into the wonder of heaven represented by Gabriel and earth represented by Elizabeth we participate in their ecstatic praise of the mystery of Jesus Christ praising God for becoming man in her womb is that pretty cray centered absolutely this is all about Jesus so this is this has changed the way I think about the route of the Rosary I think about the Hail Mary that sometimes I don't do this all the time but every once I start I pray the Hail Mary I just think about Gabriel and his all over this mystery that may think about Elizabeth and her over the mystery of Christ so we're entering their praise they're all and their wonder over Jesus and then in the second half we say Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen and in here we're also asking Mary to intercede for us we're asking her to pray for us she who was the first one to say yes to God in the New Covenant era with her Fiat at the Annunciation she who said yes all throughout her life from the Nativity to the presentation to Cana all the way to the cross and even after Jesus ascends that heaven she's still there praying with the disciples Pentecost and book of Revelation describes her as having a crown of glory in heaven the crown that all the saints wear so we asked her who said yes from the beginning to the end of her life totally saying yes to God we asked her to pray for us that we might say yes as well to Jesus to follow his will in our lives now and all the way up to the hour of our death but then saint john paul ii gives particular attention to the middle the middle of the Hail Mary the very center he calls it the center of gravity he also calls it the hinge of the Hail Mary you know what that is what's the center the name of Jesus blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus john paul ii called this the center of gravity the hinge of the Hail Mary and he said that when we particularly when we pray the rosary he said emphasis should be placed on Christ's name he was worried that sometimes we give a to hurry dressed citation of the rosary but we go too quickly and we don't focus on the very holy name of Jesus this is the name that the Bible says whenever two or three are gathered in Jesus's name he's there in our myths this is at the name of Jesus st. Paul says every knee shall bend in heaven and earth and under the earth this is a powerful name there's power in this name and john paul ii wants us to give a due reverence you know III once I once attended the fastest rosary on earth III really think it was the Guinness Book World Records recorded these things I'm sure this would be in it because it was like an under 9 minute rosary sub 9 rosary here and and and they sounded like auctioneers when they prayed the Rosary I was like hail Mary full of grace lawyers really but I was sold I mean it was like that fast I'm not exaggerating and God blessed them for praying the rosary before Mass every day went in at period when many people were throwing away their beads I'm sure God delighted that they had the good intention but I think john paul ii would invite them and all of us - maybe just slow down a little bit at least at the name of jesus we not to pray the rosary really slow but at least is the name of Jesus speak the name with love you know a friend of mine says you should treat the name of Jesus in the Hail Mary like a speed bump like a speed bump blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus - speak it with love you know john paul ii even suggested we don't have to do this he just offered this as one way that he's done the rosary a number of times and it's a it's a tradition in some european countries to add a clause after the name of jesus and every Hail Mary for those 10 Hail Marys of the decade that relate those Hail Marys - the one mystery that you're contemplating so for example if you're doing the first sorrowful mystery you could say blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus agonizing in the garden Jesus agonizing the God or Jesus sweating like drops of blood or Jesus doing the Father's will something that brings your minds attention back to the mystery and if you're someone like me that's very spiritually ADHD and your minds going all over here you know I you could you this can be really helpful I find like if I'm driving the car and I'm praying the rosary sometimes I'll pray it this way because I can bring me right back okay I'm supposed to be thinking about the the agony in the garden right now or if you're doing you know the fifth glorious mystery you can say blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus crowning his mother Mary or the first glorious mystery Jesus rising from the dead or Jesus being touched by Thomas or or Jesus with Mary mat you could just picture one of those scenes and it can help you to come back to it so in summary here I think John Paul the second wants us to view the repetition of all these Hail Marys in the Rosary is not some dry mechanical superficial exercise but he wants us he says he what he said he wants us to see the repetition of the Hail Mary in quote the dynamic of love the dynamic I love love I love that that imagery here the the the repetition of the Hail Mary should be seen in the context of a relationship of love now my wife and I just last week we celebrated our our 18th wedding anniversary and it was really great I tell you I took thank you I took my wife out for a very special date night it was it was wonderful we were driving across the country a one day trip from Denver Colorado all the way to Chicago and somewhere in the middle of Iowa we pulled over and I took her to a kid oba with all of our eight kids jumping up and down in hysterics and I and I let her get extra guacamole it was really special but you know even though we didn't get to celebrate the full date that'll come next week but you know that night I told her I love you and I've told my wife many times in our marriage hundreds thousands of times I love you sometimes I can be on a date night look her in the eye and say I love you sometimes I'm just running out the door going to work honey love you or I can whisper those words right before I fall asleep at night I love you Beth has heard those words thousands of times I got to tell you never once that she said you know I really can't stand all this vain repetition yeah can you come up with something more original here I mean you just keep saying the same thing I love you I'll learn oh no because repetition is part of the language of love in an intimate personal relationship to person may repeat certain terms of endearment expressions of love with heartfelt affection it's the same thing every time but repetition is part of the language of love and do we as Catholics do we have an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ amen yes we do of course and I think that's the context for understanding the repetition of the Hail Mary so in the Rosary what we're doing is we're repeating the words of the Hail Mary which are centered on Jesus himself repeating them over and over again we're participating in that all filled wonder of heaven and earth of Gabriel and Elizabeth over the mystery of Christ and bead after bead were asking our lady to intercede for us to help us to to say yes and to do the Father's will in our lives like she did and prayer after prayer were affectionately repeating the name of our beloved our beloved Savior that's at the center of every Hail Mary we say blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Jesus Jesus so so that the Holy Name of Jesus spoken with tender love really becomes the heartbeat of the Rosary the very heartbeat of the Rosary and so that I think these are just profound beautiful practical suggestions from Saint John Paul the second to help us in our praying of the Rosary but I want to conclude with a few other little practical points here because while there may be many avid devotees of the Rosary and this is already a part of their daily life there's others who may be used to pray it and they're not praying it as much anymore and there may be some people here saying you know I've not really ride that prayer that much wherever we are you know john paul ii in and the great saints are inviting us to bring this a little more into our lives and i want to give so just a few practical thoughts on how we could jump start a praying of the Rosary first big point very simple is know that you don't have to pray at all at once it's that's the ideal way to pray it sit down in a quiet place and you're praying it very reflectively but if you're saying you know I just I just want I gotta get into it it's okay just divide it up maybe just start by doing one decade a day that's two point five minutes of your life that you can just start praying this prayer just one decade but you know divide it up do a decade or two in the morning on the way to work to one decade you know right before you eat your lunch to another deck that when you go home on your way home and another ticket right before you go to bed that's fine do it in between meetings in between emails whenever you want to do it you don't have to do it all the ones that might be one way to make it easier you know there are many holy people I want to tell you one of them that was a fellow named I don't know if you know it heard of him his name's Joseph Roth singer mm-hmm Joseph Ratzinger was too hard for him to do a whole set of the mysteries at once and so sometimes he says I I just do a couple decades at a time that's okay if it's okay for Cardinal Ratzinger I think it's okay for us another thing is the great thing about the Rosary is you can pray it anywhere you could braid in when I think of the Rosary is like a portable chapel you can kind of keep in your pocket anytime you have like a certain need you can just pull it out you know you've got a big problem at work okay I'm gonna just pause for a woman and pray or you get a call from your wife and something's wrong with one of your kids and you can just pause right there and I'm just gonna pray a one decade right there you could you can pray it while you're going for a walk you can pray it on the exercise machine you could pray it in your car you can pray it when you're doing dishes it's it's just with you all the time it's a wonderful thing that you could do and another thing too is not to be so intimidated about it sometimes we as Catholic school but what am I supposed to do I'm supposed to contemplate the mysteries the rosary I get distracted this is hard there's so many different ways to pray it so you can pray it and focus on the mysteries of the rosary you can think about the wedding at Cana think about Jesus dying on the cross or whatever mysteries we're contemplating in that particular day that's one way to do it but sometimes you can just focus on the words themselves just focus on the words Hail Mary of grace the Lord is what they think about Gabriel just focus sometimes it's just the name of Jesus I find that the rosary you know we heard archbishop Chaput talk about the need for greater silence for quiet in our lives and the rosary can slow us down and bring us into that rhythm of Christ through the Rosary beautiful prayer even just to say Jesus Jesus Jesus that's a wonderful gift we can give to God so I pray that in this year of Fatima this year may inspire us to pray the rosary better if we've been praying it already to rekindle our devotion to the Rosary or try it on for size this year at least with one decade just for beginners so thank you so much for having us as a delight to be here I want to mention nope I said I mentioned I'll be at the Augusta Institute table which is right out here and they wanted me to mention that they have a number of free CDs from white house talks that are there from talks from people like dr. Tim gray or father Spitzer and the talk that I've given on the rosary they have actually as a CD there as well so thank you so much and God bless you all [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: EOL, EOL02218

Id: 44ju03cJRDs

Length: 41min 30sec (2490 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 11 2017