A new year, a new opportunity: PRAY THE ROSARY

As we enter a new Liturgical year we have a new opportunity. We have a fresh start in our prayer life. So please pray the Rosary every chance you can. Start out at once a week, then twice. Work your way up to once a day if you can. Carry a Rosary everywhere, and when desperate find themselves upon you, grab your Rosary and wield it like a sword. Burn a cd and put a copy of the Rosary on your iPod. Listen to it in the car, while you run, or as you fall to sleep.

In the past year I have found that the Rosary builds community, shields me against evil and sin, produces miracles, and comforts us in times of great sorrow. Most of all though, it brings us closer to God. Praying and meditating upon the mysteries we are placing our heart and mind with God and His mother, to whom He entrusted us to at the foot of the Cross, and also entrusted her to us in the same.

There is great power in Rosary. It is a weapon and its power is beyond what we can comprehend. So pray the Rosary, start today. It will bring you closer to God, and it will protect you like a sword.

Fr. Corapi: The Importance of the Tabernacle

Fr. Corapi was on EWTN tonight saying the Rosary, and it was a scriptural Rosary [which is really awe inspiring especially with someone like Fr. Corapi] so there was an aspect of "learning" involved. As always, he taught me a few things and lead me to "discover" things on my own.

The first thing Fr. Corapi said that got me thinking was that Mary carried within her the "Word." Christ, the Word of God, was carried within her, much as the way the the Ark of the Covenant carried within it the "word of God" when it held in it the 10 Commandments & manna from Heaven. She became the blessed vessel which held the Truth and the Bread of Life.

Fr. Corapi further explained, during one of the Mysteries, that Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, means "House of Bread" in Hebrew. A fact such as this clearly is not easily lost on anyone. It shocked me, mostly because I was not aware of this fact, but also because I didn't realize just how important the vessel of Christ is.

As I meditated [and did the rest of the Rosary with Fr. Corapi] it came over me how important and sacred the tabernacle of Christ is. While in Michgan, the church I attended - Our Lady of Good Counsel, didn't have a tabernacle at all when I first started attending. As the new Pastor Fr. John Ricardo established himself, one of the first outward acts he did was to bring the tabernacle into the church, into the sanctuary and behind the Altar. This created a very important visual and spiritual alignment of sanctuary, Altar, Tabernacle, and Crucifix.

When I got to Alaska, I have found that neither of the local churches have the tabernacle within the sanctuary. I know that the rubrics on Tabernacles are somewhat cumbersome and multiplicitous, not so much out of their own nature but more out of their implementation and practice, but there are definitely more reasoned and meaningful placements than others. Considering the purpose of the tabernacle in todays faith, the placement of the tabernacle I believe takes on a crucial role.

Once the tabernacle was a place to house Christ for the sick and infirm unable to come to Mass. During this period [essentially up and to the 1960's] the tabernacle was one of many, because there were multiple altars and tabernacles. The churches were more ornate and the focus of an entering person could be drawn in several directions, all of which holy. Nowadays though there is a sense of confusion or a sense of void when one enters some of the modern churches. Blank walls, the lack of statues & icons, and "misplaced" tabernacles. [I use misplaced because tabernacle placement is open to some interpretation and therefore I don't want to be imprecise in my critique.]

What do I mean by misplaced? Observe people entering pews on Sunday, especially in churches with tabernacles not behind the altar. Where do they genuflect? Toward the altar, 9 times out of 10. Why is this? I suggest two reasons: (1) Because they never learned why or to what they were genuflecting to & (2) when you don't know why you do something, it is done out of habit and not out of purpose. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think people are "bad" for genuflecting in this manner. At least they are making an attempt. Instead I blame those that have the tabernacle in a place which helps facilitate this confusion and practice.

For example, in the church I attend, we have a fully blank back wall in the sanctuary. No statutes, no tabernacle, "no anything." Instead, outside of the sanctuary, next to it in an alcove is the tabernacle. It is a nicely painted alcove, and it is in a semi prominent place, but when you enter and see the altar and crucifix hanging above it your attention is not drawn to the tabernacle... the vessel containing the TRUE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. Which in turn not only creates confusion, but also facilitates the lack of reverence for the True Presence which many parishes are experiencing.

I wish that we could get all churches to bring the tabernacle into the sanctuary, or at least create a grand place of prominence for it. It should be a place where we can worship Christ outside of the Mass, and in which constant attention is drawn to it. Until that happens though, I hope more of us will understand the importance of the tabernacle and remember to show it proper reverence.

New Pope John Paul the Great Book: About the Rosary

I saw this article posted on the CNS Blog:

Pope John Paul II “wanted so much for the family, the young, the sick and elderly, deacons and priests and bishops to learn and adopt his new method of praying the rosary so that the rosary would be come more of a contemplative prayer and therein have its true beauty and depth discovered,” author and educator Robert Feeney wrote in a recent note to CNS.

He wanted to make us aware of a new book he has written, “The Rosary: The John Paul II Method,” released by Aquinas Press and distributed by Ignatius Press. He covers the history of the rosary; writings about Mary by Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI; Our Lady of Fatima and the rosary; and the mysteries of the rosary. But the book’s centerpiece is how Pope John Paul recited the rosary, including his suggestion that after each mystery, a person used a picture or icon to “open up a scenario,” to visualize being part of that mystery.

The pope also suggested a person pray for a virtue with each mystery and pause briefly to meditate “on the word of God and the content of the mystery.”

“The pope always saw the young as the future and hope of the church and wanted to, in spirit, pass the rosary beads on to them,” said Feeney. He added that during the Year of the Rosary, declared by the late pope from October 2002 to October 2003, Feeney taught his own students how the pope prayed the rosary. “They were very impressed with the contemplative dimension and interjections of silence,” he said.

Feeney said he wrote the book because he wants to help the young to discover the rosary to help them “in their trials and tribulations,” like it did for him as a young man serving in the Vietnam War. He was seriously wounded and nearly died, he said, but he called on Mary, whom he credits for his recovery.

Feeney’s book on the pope and the rosary follows an earlier one he wrote titled “The Catholic Ideal: Exercise & Sports.” He has been told that it’s being used as a textbook in the PE department at some Catholic colleges and universities.

There is always room for books about John Paul II and his many talents and gifts. I look forward to adding this to my Amazon Wish list.

Prayer Challenge: Carry a Rosary with you!

A few years ago I was listening to a radio program on Catholic radio and heard a pries talking about how he ALWAYS carried a Rosary with him. I thought to myself, "Always?" He proceeded to explain, ALWAYS. Even while swimming one day at a local public pool, some of his students approached him and he pulled it out of his pocket, a plastic one he carried specifically for such situations, one capable of getting wet. So I thought, "What a great idea?" (I will save you the reasons behind my desire to do this, and my faith journey story... but if you'd like to know just ask).

This priest explained that he started doing it because he realized he wasn't praying enough. He also did it as his devotion to Mary began to grow. He decided one day to count the times he prayed each day, and did this for a week. He then carried a Rosary in his pocket for a whole week and counted the times he grabbed it and prayed, again doing this for a whole week. Im sure you can guess the results!

So I challenge you all to do the same! You don't even have to do a week each, try one day each way. SEE THE DIFFERENCE! Remember... you don't have to pray a WHOLE Rosary, or even a decade. Heck, don't even pray a Hail Mary every time (it would be nice :)) but just PRAY, ask for Prayers from Mary, and see the difference it makes! This will take NO time from your day, will not make it harder, and you can't "forget" to pray if you have it in your pocket :) Everytime you need a prayer or any time you put your hand in your pocket and feel your Rosary, say a quick prayer! (I put mine in the same pocket as my cell phone so that I am guaranteed to feel it :)

Let me know if you take the challenge and let me know how it goes! If you need a new Rosary check out "Aquinas and More's" Rosary Shop: Rosary Catalog

Marian Meditation - Question

I feel as though I have started posting too much random stuff to my blog. I definitely want to post about American Catholicism, politics, society, and other important topics that touch on our daily lives. But I also want to present questions and information ABOUT our faith as well. I know there are a ton of better and more informed blogs and sites out there for information, but I know that I find it helpful to read blogs that present things from the "students" point of view, so to speak. Sometimes the "minds that be" out there running the excellent blogs (see: Fr.Z: WDTPRS?; AmericanPapist, RorateCaeli).

So in that vein, I was saying a decade of the Rosary earlier, and I do that from time to time. I read a Holy Card, over at one of my favorite sites: Holy Cards There was recently a card that which quoted St. Therese.

"Sometimes

when I find myself spiritually in dryness so great

that I cannot produce a single good thought,

I recite very slowly an Our Father

or a Hail Mary.

These prayers alone console me.

They nourish my soul."

                                         -St. Therese of Lisieux

So after reading that, I have decided to take that up as as spiritual exercise. Each line of the Hail Mary, I ponder as to its meaning technically, as well as spiritually. This morning when I awoke I grabbed the Rosary I sleep with under my pillow and slowly began to recite the Hail Mary's slowly and began to think about something. 

Why did Jesus entrust us to Our Mother, and Her to us? Why is she so blessed? Why should we as Catholic's flee to her aid? 

I began to realize something new, that I have never read or thought about. I realized that Mary was the one human ever made who did not put Jesus on the Cross. You see, she was born free from the stain of original sin, and remained that way. (Reference to that) So then, she has no culpability for Jesus on the Cross. Now, there are other tangental questions to my inquiry, such as, "Did Mary have to be free from Sin?" "Why was she free from sin?" (in re: to the first question), etc... My inquiry/mediation goes more to the fact that she wasn't. She is said to be, "...full of Grace." God bestowed upon her a fullness of Grace, that kept her "stain free." I wonder though, is there teaching on the fact that she REMAINED as such when she said, "YES"? 

I wonder if you all have some commentary and thoughts on this? We appeal to a Mother, whom is guiltless in the death of Her Son, and yet so freely appeals to Him on our behalf. We are essentially His killers, and yet She is ever willing to come to our aid. It is a complete act of Motherly love. It is that type of love that worries not about transgressions of the past, and looks only forward to a time where we are truly happy and truly safe. It is also a humbling thing for us, to come to a person that we hurt so gravely by placing Her Son on the cross. Jesus knew perfectly, the mystery and the symbolic nature of such a Love, when he entrusted Her to us - as he surrendered Himself to Death.