The rosary has been with us know since the early Middle Ages. Its invention at that time was a stroke of genius because in those days there were no books, and when ordinary folks went to church on Sundays, they could not understand what the gospel was saying because it was proclaimed in Latin. Thus the common people did not have access to the Scripture. The rosary, based on repetition of the "Our Father," which Jesus gave us, and portions of the Scripture that make up the "Hail Mary," put these simple vocal prayers in a form that ordinary lay persons could easily recite. In effect, the rosary became the office of lay persons. It also gradually became for some a method leading to contemplative prayer, although it obviously is a concentrative method as distinguished from the receptive one we are familiar with in Centering Prayer.

Tradition, as I understand it, has always maintained that there are three ways of saying the rosary. We can unite two or all three, if we want to. The basic prayer of the rosary is the recitation of the vocal prayers, that is, just saying the Paters ("Our Father") and Aves ("Hail Mary") as they are grouped on the beads--a Pater on the large bead, followed by ten Aves on the smaller ones. Each of these groupings-- one Pater, ten Aves, and a concluding doxology--is known as a decade.

A significant advance in the development of the rosary devotion came when reflection on the great mysteries of the faith was added to the simple recitation of the vocal prayers. Each of the rosary's fifteen decades became associated with one of the great feasts of Jesus and Mary celebrated in the liturgy, such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, the loss of the boy Jesus in the temple--to cite the first five of the fifteen mysteries. (The term "mystery" refers to the grace of the event, the belief that God was somehow present in the particular event and uniquely revealed through it.) The rosary thus became a true compendium of the liturgy. Those reciting the fifteen decades of the rosary in the course of a day or a week were able to access whole areas of Scripture that would otherwise have been closed to them because of lack of education or a knowledge of the Latin language. This practice--the second way of saying the rosary--enabled people to deepen their faith by joining to the vocal prayers their own reflections on these great mysteries. The third way of saying the rosary was simply to rest in the presence of God, Mary, or one of the mysteries.

Suppose you practiced the recitation of a significant part of the rosary--say, five decades--as a daily devotion. Where would this lead you? Into a deepening friendship with Christ. In the moment you began to pray, you made an act of faith in God's presence and thus reconnected with the grace of your baptism. In baptism the divine Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, enters into our inmost being and dwells there unless we deliberately oppose this presence by some very serious and fully deliberate sin.

At some point in our life we have to ratify what was done in baptism and make it our own; otherwise its full fruition will be limited. The only way to make something our own is to take responsibility for it. That implies reflection and choice. In any case, through baptism we become a cell in the Mystical Body of Christ. The same Spirit that dwells in Jesus, the living and glorified Christ, also dwells in us, so we become living members of the body of Christ extended in time. The Mystical Body of Christ manifests itself in the Christian community through the proclamation of the gospel, the Eucharistic prayer, but especially in Holy Communion. Notice, the term is not "holy conversation," but "Holy Communion," which implies the intuitive sense of Christ's presence in which we do not have to say anything, but simply enjoy his presence as we consent to the truth and love that he imparts to us. Christ is always present within us in his divine nature as the Eternal Word of the Father. Holy Communion is meant to awaken us to the abiding presence of Christ begun in baptism, deepened in the sacrament of Confirmation, and deepened still more by our personal prayer and frequent reception of the Eucharist. Essential to Christianity is growth in relationship with Christ--a relationship that is constantly deepening and addressing itself to every level of our being. Not just our body, mind, or imagination, not just our heart, but our inmost being where the word resonates in silence and where divine union is effected. Once we have heard the word of God at that deep level, we have finally heard the full message of the gospel.

The rosary, it seems to me, is in the service of that project in much the same way as Lectio Divina, which we have already discussed at some length. The same principles are involved. The way we develop friendship with Christ is by means of reflecting on the mysteries of his life. The rosary is an organized way of helping people to reflect on the mysteries without having to read the whole of Scripture, which as we saw, was not available until relatively recently In a very simple way, day after day, people would recite and reflect on the fifteen mysteries. Thus they would immerse themselves in a biblical environment and be empowered to relate daily life to these fundamental sources of Christian inspiration. As they went to work or performed their chores at home, they often carried a rosary with them and said maybe a decade from time to time, much as people today sometimes say the rosary commuting or waiting for a bus.

The rosary, of course, does not have to be said at one sitting. There is no obligation to say a certain number of decades at a time. But it makes good sense to have a specific time, if we are going to say the rosary as a principal devotion, so that we can give it our full attention. We can then use it as the basis for our conversation with Christ. A regular if not daily interview is the essential discipline of getting acquainted with anybody, including God.

Just as in Lectio Divina, there is an inherent movement from reflection to simply resting in God. Suppose you give a half hour to the rosary each day. Suppose as you are reflecting on the mysteries, you feel an inward attraction to be still in the presence of Our Lady and just absorb the sweetness of her presence with your inner spirit. You may sense the closeness of the divine presence within you as well as the closeness of Our Lady. This is what is meant by the term "resting in God." Moving beyond vocal prayers and beyond reflection when you feel the attraction to be still is the path to contemplation. This is the moment you should feel free to stop saying the vocal prayers and to follow the attraction to be still, because vocal prayers and discursive meditation are both designed to lead one gradually to that secret and sacred place. That is their whole purpose. Many people do not understand this and think that they have to complete a certain number of decades or a certain number of prayers. This is not the purpose of the rosary.

When you are communing with a friend or loved one, the conversation has to be spontaneous, and when inclined to rest in each other's presence, you just remain quiet. When the other person speaks or when you want to say something, it breaks that particular level of communicating and you go back to conversation. When the sense of resting in God passes, you can go back to your recitation of the rosary where you left off. If you do not have time to go back, it does not matter. There is no obligation to finish anything. Indeed, the compulsion to complete a certain number of vocal prayers hinders the spontaneity of contemplative prayer. Inner freedom is needed to follow the movement of the Spirit both in our reflections and in our relating to silent communication. This freedom is refreshing.

I know many people who have spontaneously learned to pray the rosary that way But we must also teach people to pray it that way. Many come upon the attraction to be still in spite of themselves or by chance and feel guilty because they are not finishing the designated number of vocal prayers. The Spirit led them into that quiet space, but unwittingly they sometimes oppose the Spirit calling them into silence because of their preconceived ideas. In the old days one completed a certain number of decades to gain the indulgences. That practice has diminished now, and whatever its value it should never have been allowed to interfere with the movement of the Spirit leading us to contemplation. In that rest we hear the word of God at the deepest level, are assimilated to Jesus Christ, and begin to absorb what Paul calls the "mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2:16), which might be summed up as the experience of the fruits of the Spirit and the Beatitudes. When the fruits of the Spirit are overflowing into our daily life, we experience the real fullness of the Christian life. Then prayer is constantly feeding into our daily activity. Our apostolate or ministry--and I include family life and parenting among the greatest ministries of Christian life--is going to become more effective. The whole purpose of the rosary is to lead to this deep experience of Our Lady, who together with Jesus breathes the Spirit into us. It is not so much the quantity of prayer that is important, but its quality The development of faith and love is the fruit of reflecting on the mysteries of the rosary and especially of resting in them.

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Excerpted from Intimacy with God by Fr. Thomas Keating

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