Monday, January 18, 2010

The Rosary

My first post of the new year!!--
My resolution... to post more often. :)

One of my New Year's resolutions (for real) is that I want to pray the rosary with my children on a regular basis. My goal, for now, is to pray just one mystery each week. That means that we have 7 days to complete 5 decades. We have successfully completed the Joyful Mysteries, and are on to the Sorrowful mysteries. That puts us a bit behind in our goal, but at least moving in the right direction.

I realize that praying just one decade an evening may seem like a wimpy goal to some, but I figure we can start small and work our way up. ;)

We are using the book "Pray the Rosary with Scripture Readings" published by Catholic Book Publishing Corp. It is a bit meatier that praying just a decade of the rosary (not that "just a decade" is a bad thing!). Each Hail Mary is preceded by a short scripture reading. For the "Agony in the Garden" the first Hail Mary is preceded by the verse "then they went a place that was called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to His disciples, "Sit here while I pray.".
So, I read the scripture before each Hail Mary (dad would, but he is always losing his glasses!), one of the kids or dad follows that by leading the Hail Mary-- we do the beginning rosary prayers only on the day of the 1st decade of each mystery and the ending prayers on the day of the last.

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"To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ."

Rosarium Virginius Mariae, Pope John Paul II, Oct. 16, 2002

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