The Contemplative Prayer Practice

Okay.

So first of all, a disclaimer: not Catholic.  Not considering being Catholic.  I don't pray to Mary, I don't venerate saints, none of that.  No statues or candles or anything in my house, right?  No holy water.  No icons.

Alright.  Glad we've got that clear.  But.  I have been praying a rosary lately, albeit with tweaks to make it more Protastant-ish.

I haven't been using an Anglican rosary, although that would be totally Protestant, because it doesn't include meditation on the Life of Christ.  (Although it could.  It would be easy to set up.)  To understand the tweaks I made to the standard Roman Catholic Rosary, you should understand how it's usually prayed.

I've been counting on my fingers.  Pretty much what I do is, replace the Hail Mary prayers on the decades with the Jesus Prayer, which is a famous Eastern Orthodox prayer that says: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner."  The value I've found in the repetitive prayer is in engaging my fingers (like doodling while you listen to a lecture, which has always helped me concentrate) and my lips, and making it so I can pray while I change diapers without losing my place.  (No, I'm not using it as vain repetition.  I promise.  I don't think the fact that I say things over and over again makes God hear me better--He's not hard of hearing.)  See, overall the rosary is a meditation on the Life of Christ, starting with the annuciation of His birth to Mary and ending with Him going up to Heaven.  Each event in the Life of Christ is called a "mystery".  I cut out the mysteries in the Catholic Culture article like "the Assumption of Mary" that have no Biblical basis, and put in something else instead to meditate on, like maybe a verse or another miracle Christ did, like feeding the five thousand.

This has, as a side note, clarified for me what a nurse's assistant said to me once when she cornered me at my first job: "Did you know the Pope added five new mysteries to the rosary?  So you should make sure to get a new one!"  To which I nodded and smiled.  It was easier than explaning I didn't have a rosary or keep track of Papal statements in the first place.

Again, just for clarity, praying the rosary doesn't mean that I'm converting to Catholicism.  But I've been finding the rosary very sweet and helpful as a way to keep Christ continually in my mind during the day, and since I'm praying it to honor the Lord and not His mother*, I think I'm ok.

Check it out.  You might like it.  Or you might find it really, really weird.  To each his own.

Cheers,

Breanna

*Mary was a very good woman, and worthy of all kinds of respect, but she isn't my mediatrix with Christ.  I don't need a mediatrix with Christ.  He is my Mediator.  I understand and respect the Catholic position, but there you are--this is what I find evidence for in Scripture.  Someday when we are all in Heaven together we can find the dear lady and ask her to clarify her position; until then I'll respect her without venerating her, and Catholics who have other convictions can live out what they believe they have to do.