rosary Archives - Amazing Catechists

We Call This Friday Good

I have a friend who moved to the United States some twenty years ago. Although she speaks the language fluently, she hasn’t quite lost her accent, and a colloquialism will occasionally still mystify her. That’s how I am with the Catholic church. Twelve years ago I came into the Church as a young woman. Though I feel at home here, I still stumble upon meditations that strike me as so strange that I realize I am a foreigner.

This was the first Lent since I started praying a daily Rosary, and somewhere along the way it was suggested to me that I pray only the sorrowful mysteries in Lent (except Sundays). So day after day I have meditated on the Agony, the Scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion.

What has jumped out at me is the juxtaposition of these mysteries with the phrase of the Hail Mary: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

Blessed are thou among women….said again and again as I contemplated His agony, His body slick with bloody sweat, His face in the dirt he made.

Blessed art thou among women…as I contemplated the whips tearing at his flesh, furious lashes that end only when his executioners have worn themselves out from the effort.

Blessed art thou among women…as I saw her Son humiliated, scorned, spat upon, and struck repeatedly so that the thorns of the grotesque crown impale his head.

Blessed art thou among women…as I watched Our Lady watch her son’s battered, mutilated body stumble under the weight of the cross, a spectacle to the indifferent and an abomination to the contemptuous.

Blessed art thou among women…as she stands by Him crucified, witness to His struggle to breathe, His enduring of the unfathomable torture.

Blessed is she? Blessed? What mom dreams of the day when she will stand beside her son while he is tortured? On the face of it, it seems like a mockery to repeat this over fifty times in the face of His Passion. At any rate, it is a jarring enough paradox that it gave me pause. I knew then that I am still not a native to the church.

Forty days’ meditation gave me time to reflect. That she is blessed, I believe. So, as in so many teachings of the church that I didn’t immediately grasp, it was time to dig deeper.

How can it be that Our Lady is blessed in these days of Holy Week?

We see the world upside down, so writes Father Michael Scanlan in his book Let the Fire Fall. I believe that Mary’s blessedness in the face of the Passion is the right-side-up way to view it. I need to adjust my vision.

As in so many things, I was looking at the Passion in primarily the physical sense. Material being that I am, this body is so present to me that it usually constitutes my first consideration. But what if I were to look at the Passion in primarily spiritual terms? What if I thought about it as Fr John Riccardo presents it in his meditation on the Rosary (found here)–as the world’s greatest athlete gearing up for the single most important competition in history? What if I saw the spiritual implications of the Passion first–Jesus about to save the world from the rule of Satan?

Here, Jesus, though he looks like the defeated, is actually victorious, for he, as a priest said in a meditation I once went to, had enticed the devil to do the one thing the devil could not do–kill God Himself. It was a chess match, and while it looked as though the King had been taken, he had actually set a trap that would end in checkmate against his opponent. It was a daring, heroic, stupendous, awe-some, all-in kind of plan.

Did Our Lady understand the Passion on the spiritual level–as a supernatural match for which the prize was the human soul? Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the woman who will crush the serpent under her heel, the mother of God, I imagine she herself very well may have undergone severe temptations and wrestling with the devil in her own hidden life. She must have been clued into the spiritual realm of the Passion, even if she did not fully know what would happen three days hence.

Blessed indeed was she! She saw her son undergo bodily torture, yes, but through that, she saw him win the war. She saw him, fully human as well as fully God, not recoil from the agony of body and soul but instead stand victorious in the redemption of our human nature.

That one there is my son. The one who is wrestling all of the powers of hell but who stands–bloody, yes–but triumphant. That’s my boy–the one who whose suffering gives historic and eternal witness to the profound love of God. That one hanging there is mine, the one who is willingly giving his very life to save the eternal souls of the human race. Jesus is my son. I am blessed.

Forgiveness Beyond the Grave

By Amanda Woodiel

My father died last week. It was unexpected. He had had health issues the last couple of years and had never seemed particularly robust, but he was never near death, either.

My mom passed away eight years prior. Here I am, in my 30s (barely!) with five small children and no parents. It’s not a common status among my circle of friends, but it could be far worse.

I mention this simply to show that I have a frame of reference when I talk about grieving deceased parents. This isn’t my first rodeo. What is different this time, however, is that my father was, well, a different man than what he seemed to be. Over the last few years we had uncovered surprising details about his life–details that I will spare you, dear reader.

So the grief I feel is an alloyed grief. There is sadness that the opportunity has passed for our relationship to transform coupled with confusion over details that keep popping up (such as the bewildering claim he apparently made that he had been sent on a secret mission for the Department of Defense) commingled with utter dismay that his last note to us–intentionally placed in a spot where we would find it–was as efficient as a corporate memo and as warm as a ransom note.

The question I am left with–aside from the question of what is true regarding his life–is the question of forgiveness. How do you forgive someone who lies in his grave and whose lies extend beyond the grave? (The last sentence of his last note to us was, in fact, untrue.) How do you forgive someone who betrayed his family but who genuinely believed he could fool everyone–and who maybe, in the end, fooled himself?

As I have pondered these questions, a specific path to forgiveness and healing keeps coming to mind. Think back to Cana, the site of Jesus’ first public miracle. The hosts had run out of wine, and Mary, with the compassion of a mother’s heart, knew the embarrassment they would face. Her son is at the same wedding feast, so she hurries to him and tells him the problem. At first, Jesus seems to resist her urging. But she–great Jewish mama that she is–brushes aside his response and turns to the servants. “Do whatever he tells you,” she says with complete confidence in him. Jesus is moved by his mother’s urging and by her faith. Jesus acts, in this instance, because of his mother’s intercession.

This intercessor was given to us from the cross when Jesus gave her to John. John stands there in history as the faithful disciple but also stands in for us when Jesus gives Mary to his care: “behold your mother.” She is our mother as well, our dear compassionate mother, who is also, in evangelical parlance, a “prayer warrior.” Mary, just as she was at Cana, is a compassionate intercessor for those of us who face complicated situations.

Mary is known by many names. One such name comes from a meditation by St Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in the last quarter of the second century and a Church Father. Drawing out a comparison between Eve and Mary, he noted:

“And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary” (Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 22).

Man’s fall from grace due to original sin–what knot could be more complicated than that? Original sin, endured since our first parents, was loosed by the obedience of Mary to the will of God when she gave her fiat to become the mother of the Holy God. And so she is known as “Mary, Undoer of Knots.” Mary, undoer of the knot of original sin. Mary, undoer of whatever knot is in your life and the big knot that is in mine.

I once had a lovely little card that had printed on it “The best way out is always through.” The best way out of the pain is to walk through it. And so I have been given the answer to my question of how do I forgive: pray a daily Rosary alongside Mary, Undoer of Knots, for my father’s departed soul and for my wounded one.

What does this prayer do? Two things. When we pray in good faith for someone who has hurt us we cannot help but love that person more. It is hard for us to love the person whom we do not know. I have only done this prayer for the last week, and already I am looking at my father through more compassionate eyes than ever before; somehow, it is giving me more knowledge of him.

Secondly, praying the Rosary has a way of showing us who we are. Contemplating the mysteries of the God-Man being scourged or crowned with thorns gives me pause to think about the ways in which I have unleashed my own contempt for my Savior. The prayer becomes, then, less about offender (dad) and victim (me) and instead becomes two sinners contemplating God’s passion and his love and mercy.

And then, of course, the prayer is the outpouring of hope that God will and does redeem all things. Everything else in my life–my mother’s terminal brain disease, for example–has shown itself to be a gift. Perhaps the gift is a severe mercy, but there is always mercy. There is always the great Divine Act of turning evil on its head to bless–witness the crucifixion itself.

Praying a daily Rosary for those who have wounded us alongside our great mother and intercessor is ultimately an act of hope, an act of humility, and an act of love. By focusing daily and for a sustained time on the life of Jesus in the company of Mary, Undoer of Knots, I have confidence that I will find healing and peace.

What Our Catholic Ancestors Can Teach Us About the Faith

By Ellen Gable Hrkach

Wikimedia

When a great uncle of mine passed away years ago, his closest family members went through his belongings, as per his wishes, and took mementos. A box was left over, I was told, of “religious items,” and I was asked if I’d like to have the box. As one of the few practicing Catholics in our extended family, I gratefully accepted the box.

I was delighted to find three Latin/English Missals from the 1940’s and 50’s, religious statues, rosaries, holy cards, a scapular and other Catholic sacramentals.

When my mother died eight years ago, my siblings and I went through her jewelry box. I was surprised to find a beautiful cameo miraculous medal and a card enrolling my mother (then a young teenager) in the “Miraculous Medal Society.” I now wear my mother’s miraculous medal.

My father, who died when I was a teenager, frequently recited the rosary. One image I recall from his wake is of my father, peaceful in death, his hands clutching his rosary.

Rosaries, scapulars, religious images, medals, holy water are all sacramentals, or visual reminders of our Catholic faith.

Catholic sacramentals have somehow lost popularity. While many Catholics still wear medals, the displaying of religious statues, icons and other sacramentals in Catholic homes is not as common anymore. Strictly speaking, it is not obligatory to use sacramentals. However, since they are reminders, they do help us in our journey towards heaven.

Our Catholic ancestors did not shy away from the faith. With few exceptions, they went to Mass every Sunday (with their Latin/English missal) and attended Mass often during the week, they abstained from meat on Fridays, recited the rosary, wore medals, proudly displayed crucifixes in their homes and religious statues in their gardens. Most had holy water fonts in their homes. They proudly proclaimed their faith and were not ashamed.

Recently, my scapular was hanging out in front of my shirt. A fellow parishioner asked me what it was. “It’s a scapular, a sacramental,” I replied. This fellow parishioner was around the same age and yet had never seen a scapular “up close” and didn’t know what a “sacramental” was.

When my parents attended grade school and high school in the 1940’s, catechism was memorized and learned from an early age. Young Catholics knew and understood when sin was sin; there was no watering down of the faith. There was no “subjective truth.” Pre-marital sex and contraception were sins and even if they fell into temptation and took part in these acts, they knew it was sinful and headed to confession immediately.

Now? Well, it’s a different story. Although some Catholics do know the teachings of the faith, many do not. In fact, I’ve spoken to Catholics who are under the mistaken impression that the Catholic faith is a democracy or opinion-based church. I’ve talked to Catholics who had no idea Sunday Mass was an obligation and missing it was a sin. I’ve spoken to Catholics who had no idea that living together before marriage was a sin or that birth control was a sin.

Sacramentals remind us of our faith. They remind us that our life here on earth is temporary and that heaven is our goal.

We have a lot to learn from our ancestors. Our Mass going, rosary reciting, scapular and medal-wearing ancestors understood the importance of sacramentals and the importance of knowing–-and practicing–-their faith.

To find out more information on the importance of sacramentals, check out this helpful link:
http://www.fisheaters.com/sacramentalsintro.html

To Fast or Not To Fast

By Maureen Smith

Last Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, I sat in the back of the Chapel after work. I was asking Jesus if it was all right that I ate that extra protein bar at lunch. I thought I should have gone without it.

You see, I am not allowed to fast. Why? Because for over half my life I have struggled with an eating disorder, and since I have been in recovery I have been told not to fast. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not that disappointed that I don’t have to be perpetually hungry, but there is a part of me that feels guilty alongside those who fast. So I sat in the pew trying to sort out which thoughts were of God and which were of the evil one.

The next morning, as I went for a swim before work, I was praying my Rosary to help me meditate on the Life of Jesus. It was Thursday, so I prayed with the Luminous Mysteries, the first being the Baptism in the Jordan. I thought about Jesus, how he willingly took on our humanity and our sins. I am not alone in my Lenten journey, in my eating disorder, in my recovery, in anything at all! This frames Lent as well as anything I do – I am not alone and neither are any of you!

The second mystery, the Wedding Feast of Cana. The Lord doesn’t ask us to make up for our failings on our own. Following the example of Mary, we come to Jesus as beggars, and ask for His help and His mercy, in whatever way He sees fit. I am not doing this Lent thing by myself or for myself, nor am I trying to overcome an addiction by myself or for myself. It is all through Him, in Him, with Him, and for Him. He makes all things new. By my own strength I could never change water into wine or perform any miracle, let alone heal my own addiction, but I can do all things with Christ.

The third mystery, the Proclamation of the Kingdom. The words that came to me as I was swimming back and forth were, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” I worry constantly that I don’t do “enough.” What is this “enough” stuff? I am comparing myself to others, to where I thought I should be, to where I was before, etc. etc. But what does Jesus ask of me? Is it the same as what I am asking of myself?

A few years ago I spent two years as a sister in Religious Life. In my second year, it became clear that I was struggling with eating, and so my Superior forbid me to fast during Lent. My Lenten “fast” was to eat snacks between meals, which were prepared by another sister so that I wouldn’t cheat. This was the greatest poverty I had ever experienced. I saw sisters fasting intensely as I was angrily smothering butter on my toast. And I felt nothing but shame when it was time for my mid-morning snack, which was hidden in the pantry. Hot tears rolled down my face when another confused sister found my hidden snack one day.

My point is not to make you feel bad for me, but to proclaim the truth that this “fast” is what Jesus asked of me. I wanted to choose my own Cross and fast like everyone else was doing, but that wouldn’t have helped me grow closer to Him–which is the point of Lent, right? If I had fasted as most did, I would have gained pride and a feeling of power. I would not have felt that poverty, that truth that I was totally dependent on the Lord and His Love and Mercy. I knew then the humiliation He felt during His Passion, and by knowing Him, He knew me.

As I was finishing my last few laps I prayed with the Transfiguration. I often ask Jesus if He’s sure He still loves me this way, wounded and far from perfect. Sometimes I delay in coming to Him because I want to be perfect first. But wait…perfectionism…that’s what got me into this mess! Jesus takes fallen humanity and glorifies it. He even gives us glimpses of this light and glory in our own lives, in order to give us strength for the times when we can see only darkness. Foreshadowing the Resurrection, Jesus shows us that in our humanity, in our woundedness, even in our sin He comes to us and gives us Himself so that we can be transformed by His mercy and forgiveness. This is the goal of the Lenten pilgrimage – to be transformed. To experience greater intimacy with Him, as did Peter, James, and John on the mountain, and to let His light penetrate our fearful hearts.

As I got out of the pool and got ready for work I thought of the last mystery, the Institution of the Eucharist. Hmmm…probably the Lord wants me to think about this whole fasting thing. I thought back to my time in the Chapel last evening. The soft flickering of the sanctuary candle made the shadow of the Cross bob up and down. Even though the light was coming from the right side of the Chapel where the Tabernacle kept vigil in silence, it seemed to cast its rays onto the center of the sanctuary where the Jesus hung on the Cross on the back wall. This was the answer to my question last night. Jesus already suffered for my sins. Was I trying to do it on my own? Was I denying that Jesus’ Passion and Death was enough for me? Was I telling Jesus that I had to suffer in a prescribed manner in order to be worthy?

This morning I welcomed again the graces I received yesterday, when He spoke truth to my heart. I was angry at myself for not suffering enough, especially compared to others. Underneath that was another question: am I enough Lord?…am I doing enough and suffering enough for you? If I had given up that power bar, it would have made me feel a little better about myself, as if I had “done” something for Him, and maybe even prevented the body image thoughts that were penetrating my time of prayer. But this was not of God! Jesus was asking me to sacrifice in another way; I was poor in spirit by obediently following my doctor’s orders and by nourishing my body that I have in the past denied–not out of a call to fast but out of fear of not being enough. This gave me the peace my heart desired; I knew this thought was from the Lord.

I begin this Lent with another kind of fasting. Yes, I am fasting, but not in the way most people are fasting. I am fasting from my will, from my passions, from my securities. I am becoming poor in spirit and accepting the Will of God. Yes, I will probably face feelings of guilt and shame about my body, especially around others who are fasting “more.” But what a perfect time to bring these lies to the Lord. I journey with Him in the desert this Lent and I choose Him over the lies and temptations of the evil one. I am not alone. He is with me, He is in my poverty, He comes to me in my brokenness, and He suffered and died for me.

My prayer is that all of you who read this are able to pray about your Lenten journey, that despite what others are doing for Lent, you recognize the places where the Lord is and is not calling you to focus. May our Lenten pilgrimage lead us to the Pierced Heart of Christ, the source of our salvation.

6 Ways to Pray Your Way Through #Lent

By Karee Santos

With Ash Wednesday right around the corner, many of us are already pondering what Lenten resolutions we’ll choose or what resolutions we’ll suggest to our students. No resolution can succeed without prayer, however, so here’s six ways to improve your prayer life this Lent.

1. Make a daily prayer date with God. Best friends talk every day, so use the days of Lent to renew and deepen your friendship with God. If you don’t pray every day, pick a specific time and commit to spending just five minutes telling God what’s in your heart. If you already have a habit of daily prayer, add five more minutes to your regular time. For example, if you normally pray ten minutes a day, make it fifteen minutes a day for Lent. Scheduling prayer for the same time every day will help you keep your commitment. You wouldn’t break a standing date with your husband, or your mom, or your best friend, unless you absolutely had to. So try to make and keep that daily prayer date with God.

2. Add a rosary to your day. St. Louis de Montfort said that praying the rosary was like giving a bouquet of roses to the Blessed Virgin Mary. So, make your mother happy this Lent. Saying an entire set of mysteries takes 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how fast you recite the prayers. If that’s too much time, just say the fifth Sorrowful Mystery — one Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, and one Glory Be while meditating on Our Lord’s crucifixion. Say it with your spouse and your kids, and include your whole family in this beautiful tradition of prayer.

3. Make a morning offering. Offer your entire day to God, and he will bless you for it. First thing in the morning, connect with him and ask for his support and consolation throughout the day. You can recite this exquisite formal prayer, penned by St. Ignatius of Loyola: Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me: I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more. But you can also go a simpler route and create your own morning offering. Our family likes to say, “God please help me to do what you want today.” It takes just a few moments and can bring so much peace to your day.

4. Ask for God’s help more than usual. Sometimes when we feel stressed or overwhelmed, we forget to call on God’s strength. Mini-crises hit us more than once a day, on average, and they give us ample opportunity to request divine assistance. Even if your schedule is too harried to carve out specific times for prayer, you can choose a one-sentence prayer (also called an aspiration) to reach out to God throughout the day. Many people use the Jesus prayer, which is “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.” Other possibilities are “God, make haste to help me” or “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

5. Keep a prayer journal. If you decide to make Lenten resolutions, it’s a good idea to keep track of how well you’re doing. Writing down your success (or your failure!) is a great way to ensure accountability. So at the end of the day, you can note down in a journal whether you kept your resolutions that day or not. It will give you extra impetus to stay on track through the whole 40 days of the season.

6. Go to weekly confession. The Church encourages us to go to confession especially during Lent. Many people go at least once, but you don’t have to stop there. Going to weekly confession during Lent will bring you an avalanche of graces. Telling the priest about your progress with your Lenten resolutions will enhance your ability to persevere. Take the whole family with you on Saturday afternoons, and everyone can benefit from this powerful sacrament.

May God bless you during this holy season of Lent! And if you have other ideas for improving prayer life during Lent, please let us know in the comments!

Copyr. Karee Santos, 2014. Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Our Life, Our Sweetness and Our Hope: Amazing Catechists Offers New Rosary Series for 2014

By Elizabeth Tichvon

When we recite the Holy Rosary, we are reflecting deeply on the lives of Jesus and Mary as written in the Gospels. Therefore, we must clear our minds of all things temporal to hear what God is saying to us as we meditate on His life, His death and His glory.

It’s not always easy to set aside twenty minutes to pray the Rosary, but when we do, God amazes us with His grace; He rewards us for offering our time and energy as sacrifice for Him. If we find it impossible to pray five Mysteries after a tiring day, we may discover that praying with others can be encouraging and uplifting; peaceful and comforting, like a mother singing softly to her child. We’re never alone. Jesus’ Mother is ours; He gave her to us as she stood at the foot of the Cross and watched Him suffer and die. Now, through her historical messages to the world, she has taught us how to know Her Son through the events of His life and honor Him by imitating His virtues found in each of the Mysteries she asks us to pray daily.

Reciting the Rosary not only teaches, it gives us a sweet taste of Heaven as we begin to fall in love with our Savior and grow in grace and holiness. The more wisdom and understanding we receive, the more joyful we become and the brighter our lights shine.

I invite you to add a new method of prayer to yours by giving your weariness to Our Lady and consider praying the Rosary along with me. In no time you’ll discover how much you are loved by God, who is Love and Truth itself. Here’s the link to the videos on my Facebook page, Catechist Daily.

We at Amazing Catechists hope you’ll join us as our 2014 Rosary Series unfolds, and we wish you and your families the constant friendship of our Lord and protection of His Mother as we enter into a New Year of deeper spiritual reflection. Blessings!