Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Getting Closer to Jesus: Silence, Our Father, and Glory Be

The prayers that make up the Rosary are simple and easy to memorize (though I will admit I haven't really got the Apostles' Creed down yet). You can go here for instructions on which prayers are said when.

Before beginning each decade it is customary to announce the mystery and read the scripture associated with it, sometimes along with a short meditation. I tend to do most of my meditation while I am saying the prayers rather than before but I like to take a moment before each decade to center my mind on what I will think about, as you can range far wider in the Gospel than merely the announced mystery. This is usually when I "dedicate" each decade to an intention. Oftentimes the entire rosary will be dedicated as well but different mysteries will be applicable to different needs on your heart at the time.
Listening and meditation are nourished by silence. After the announcement of the mystery and the proclamation of the word, it is fitting to pause and focus one's attention for a suitable period of time on the mystery concerned, before moving into vocal prayer. A discovery of the importance of silence is one of the secrets of practicing contemplation and meditation. One drawback of a society dominated by technology and the mass media is the fact that silence becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. Just as moments of silence are recommended in the Liturgy, so too in the recitation of the Rosary it is fitting to pause briefly after listening to the word of God, while the mind focuses on the content of a particular mystery.
The thing that I really noticed when I started saying the rosary was that the decades of Hail Mary prayers were always begun with an "Our Father" (aka The Lord's Prayer) and ended with a "Glory Be" (Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.). In my mind they "cradle" the other prayers, surrounding the entire proceedings with God to whom all our thoughts and prayers should be offered during that time. Quite often when I am saying them, I also am thinking of how perfectly planned but yet unexpected God's plan of salvation is.
The “Our Father”
After listening to the word and focusing on the mystery, it is natural for the mind to be lifted up towards the Father. In each of his mysteries, Jesus always leads us to the Father, for as he rests in the Father's bosom (cf. Jn 1:18) he is continually turned towards him. He wants us to share in his intimacy with the Father, so that we can say with him: “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). By virtue of his relationship to the Father he makes us brothers and sisters of himself and of one another, communicating to us the Spirit which is both his and the Father's. Acting as a kind of foundation for the Christological and Marian meditation which unfolds in the repetition of the Hail Mary, the Our Father makes meditation upon the mystery, even when carried out in solitude, an ecclesial experience.
When I was learning the "Glory Be" I was struck by its perfection as well. It was a long, long time before I could get past thinking about the sheer mystery contained in "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." How do so few words communicate so much about God's nature and glory and what he has done for us?
The “Gloria”
Trinitarian doxology is the goal of all Christian contemplation. For Christ is the way that leads us to the Father in the Spirit. If we travel this way to the end, we repeatedly encounter the mystery of the three divine Persons, to whom all praise, worship and thanksgiving are due. It is important that the Gloria, the high-point of contemplation, be given due prominence in the Rosary. In public recitation it could be sung, as a way of giving proper emphasis to the essentially Trinitarian structure of all Christian prayer.

To the extent that meditation on the mystery is attentive and profound, and to the extent that it is enlivened – from one Hail Mary to another – by love for Christ and for Mary, the glorification of the Trinity at the end of each decade, far from being a perfunctory conclusion, takes on its proper contemplative tone, raising the mind as it were to the heights of heaven and enabling us in some way to relive the experience of Tabor, a foretaste of the contemplation yet to come: “It is good for us to be here!” (Lk 9:33).
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