A good Thing To Start In The Middle Of Lent: The Rosary

Padre Pio's Weapon of Choice: the Rosary.

 

I have read on another blog a suggestion to pray the Rosary every day during Lent for the end of the SSPX-Vatican controversy.

Brilliant idea, but I think I have an even better one: to pray the Rosary every day for the sake of your soul.

I have written about it here and will therefore not repeat myself. What I would like to point out today is that Lent seems to me an ideal moment to take that momentum which could carry one praying the rosary every day after the end of Lent.

As always, the most difficult phase is the start, and this is where we often need a special incentive, a kick of some sort, a special propeller. Whilst for many this can be a particular difficult period, for others it might simply be the desire to make a special effort during Lent.

You will soon notice that, as always in life, once the habit starts to kick in everything comes easier, and soon the Rosary will be part of your daily routine; a non entirely pleasant perhaps at the beginning, something lived like a penance rather than a joy; but in time, you will see this habit will become more and more dear to you, a daily companion in the midst of life’s troubles, and a welcome place of quiet serenity in the happier days.

I have starting praying the Rosary every day now several years ago, and have not skipped one single day since. As the years go by, I have a growing awareness that together with Mass attendance, the daily Rosary is the single biggest contribution I bring toward my (hoped for) salvation.

I do not suggest you start “light”, for example with two rosaries a week. In my simple opinion, th eonly effective way to form a habit is to do something every day, and to decide there will be no day without it. As I started this, I decided I had no right to sleep until I had finished praying a proper rosary. It is much easier to get the right mindset at the start than to try to stick to a half-formed resolution.

A good recited rosary will take anywhere between, say, 17 and 20 minutes. By sixteen waking hours a day, this is a maximum of 2% of your waking time. Even taking away work, this is still 4% of your non-working time.

A Rosary doesn’t have to be prayed all at once, which means you do not have to find a 20 minutes spot. You can pray it a decade at a time, and the introduction (the one with the Creed) is even shorter. The train, the walk to the train station, the walk to the office, the walk from the office, are all precious occasions for a rosary. You won’t  be run over by a car and if it truly has to happen, hey, then I prefer to be run over whilst praying the Rosary, please… 😉

But really, the key to your motivation should be the Rosary promises I have discussed in the blog post mentioned above.  Who would want to risk compromising his chances for the sake of 4% of his waking time?

Mundabor