The Rosary as Mental Prayer
- Fr. Cassian Sama, OP
- Mar 22, 2020
- 1 min read
According to Fr. Procter, “the Rosary, to be the Rosary, must be a mental prayer. If it ceases to be a mental prayer, it fails to be the Rosary” (Fr. Procter).
St. Thomas Aquinas defines prayer as “the lifting up of the mind and heart to God.” Prayer then is essentially a spiritual effort, the uplifting of the intellect and will, the outpouring of the soul to God.
St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort in his classic “The Secret of the Rosary” stresses that “the Rosary is made up of two things: mental prayer and vocal prayer. In the Holy rosary mental prayer is none other than meditation of the chief mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother.”
The Mission of the Rosary is to make us know Christ, to make us think of Him, to make us meditate upon His life, His ways, His virtues. From knowing Christ, the Rosary teaches us to love Him. “In meditation a fire breaks out” (Ps. 38.4). Then from loving Him, we are brought in the expressive word of St. Paul, “to put on Christ,” to lead Christ-like lives. (Fr. Procter )
The Rosary is not only a prayer; it is a sermon. It instructs the mind and inflames the heart. It keeps alive in the soul the knowledge and love of God. It prevents men and women from forgetting the great truths of redemption, and it hinders the fire of charity from being extinguished. (Fr. Procter)
Almost since my conversation in 1996 I have been puzzling over how best to pray the Rosary. It began as a question as to whether I should concentrate on the words I was vocalizing or on the Mysteries.
I began to try to recocile this by by chanting the Rosary in Latin. I still pray largely in Latin, but at the name of Jesus I pause to contemplate the mystery and especially to love Our Lord.