Transcript of Bonus: Preparing for the Rosary in a Year

Hey, I'm Father Marc-Mary with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast. Welcome, everybody. For those of you meeting me for the very first time, it's very nice to meet you. I look forward to meeting you as well as we continue this journey together, and together get to know and to grow in love with our Lord and our Lady and the mysteries of our faith. But first, before we get started, I'd invite you to visit ascensionpress. Com forward/rosaryinayear, where you can get the Rosary in a Year prayer guide, which you can give the layout of the journey that we're about to undertake. I am joined by Father Mike Smith.

Father Mike Smith. Jinks.

Hey, Father. Good to finally collab with you and something like this.

It's funny. That's the term. That's what the kids are saying these days. This is our collab, our first one.

Our first one. And so, yeah, I'm grateful to be with you. What we're doing today is essentially introducing the next In A Year series with Ascension, building upon what you did with Ascension, with the Bible in the Year podcast and the Catechism in the Year podcast. It feels to me like a very organic movement and development. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. The two images that come to mind for me are, the first one is of a garden and the second one is of a basilica. In a lot of ways, what we did with Bible in the Year podcast first is, if you will, found the land, got the land, tilled it, created the garden, planted some seeds, et cetera. And That catechism in the year, essentially, as future gardeners, we were educated in how to take care of this garden, in the different seeds we have, the different plants, the different vegetables, what they need. Then the rosary in the year is this ongoing, certainly maintaining cultivating of this garden, but also the enjoyment of its fruits. That's the envision. It seems like there's an actual natural progression to it. Does that resonate with you?

Yeah, it makes so much sense. Yeah, it does. When people say, I finish this, or I finish the Bible in the air, I finished the catechism in a year. I always say, we'll go back and go through it again because there's so much depth there. But really, ultimately, there's a piece of prayer being so essential. Whenever we have our students on campus who are then going off into the world and I think about, what is it that I really want them to be able to do? One of the things is I want them to be able to be the people who can pray in any season because we have no idea what seasons we're going to experience in our lives. To become the person who can pray in any season of life is, okay, you're going to be set. I mean, yes, the storms will come, the winds will blow, the rains will buffer the house. But if you're on rock, that ability to pray. So this is, yeah, actually that image you have of, here's the garden, here's how to do this. But now you have to actually let that relationship be the relationship you have.

That's a brilliant image.

I appreciate that. I'm not a church historian, but I feel like what you did with the team of extension with Bible in the Year and Catechism in the Year, in the format it took, I don't know of it happening in the past. With the rosary in the Year, maybe it felt like we were creating something new, but actually this is something that has been part of our tradition and preaching for centuries and centuries and centuries of people, including some great saints, really calling people to prayer, particularly through the rosary. The rosary, as part of our Catholic spirituality and patrimony, has been this tried and true and tested way in which people of all different states of life are learning and actually praying in season and out of season in the church, in the chapel, in the NYC subway, right? You see Catholic going to the rosary.

Yeah, and that's a good point. We do have great saints for the whole history of the church, pointing back to a scripture reading, and pointing back to staying faithful to the church's teachings. But as you say, there have been movements in the church, basically these renewals in the church's life that have surrounded the praying of rosary. I mean, really, really critical moments in the life of the church, seasons and epochs in life of the church that have been shaped by that powerful renewal of the discovery or rediscovery of the rosary.

As I've had some conversations with folks about the Rosary in the Year podcast, their first response is a little bit quizzical. It's like, okay, wait, what does that mean? You're just going to pray the rosary really slowly. I had some friends did the math for me, and they're like, if you just are going to spend the whole year to pray the rosary, that's going to 36 words a day. I was like, well, okay. To use maybe another image is I love the idea of, think of building a basilica. We'll think of building St Peter's Basilica. With the Bible in the Year and going back to scripture, it's laying the foundation, it's building the dome, it's creating this building that in an intellectual sense and prayerful sense with the catechism in the Year, and there's this unpacking or to use the image, this beautifying, this filling the space, filling it with art, with statues, all of the beautiful things that filled the basilica. Then the rosary in the year is just going to be this prayerful movement through this basilica. There's a very beginning, clear beginning and end, if you will, to building the structure, to beautifying it.

It's not like a linear movement. It's just this ongoing movement of visiting again and praying, and if you will, enjoying the fruits of what has been passed down.

Yeah, like living in it. I mean, that sense of once the basilica is built and it's decked out, it's here for a purpose. That purpose is to return to this place again and again to live out the relationship you have with the Lord, to act in the way that this building was built for. It was oriented so you could have a relationship, a living relationship with the Lord. That makes sense that the rosary in a year would be that exact thing, that next step of saying, Okay, this is not just a thing like, Oh, I did that one thing once. Which, again, I go back to the Bible or the catechism and say, I think it's good to have done it once. I think it's the thing that a person, I should live there. But as you're describing this, the rosary is the prayer that we should live in on a regular basis. It's not like, Oh, I did that once. That's where I go. Just like Mass on a Sunday or on a daily Mass, No, that's where I go. That's where I go because this is where I live out the relationship. There's something about, Here's the scripture and tradition that have been given to us.

Now, how do I embody that? I think one of these ways is this rosary in a year.

I guess to go maybe more concrete, I think probably the basilica image, hopefully it makes a little bit of sense, but even to go more concrete with it, you're making a pilgrimage to Rome. They're like, okay, you have 15 minutes to take it all in, and then we're going to the next spot. Certainly, you can prayerfully go through the basilica, go through St. Peter's in 15 minutes. It's going to be a beautiful, powerful experience. But if you are trying to take in all of it every time, I think at a certain point, there's going to be this natural desire to like, okay, actually, I don't want to see the whole basilica today. I'm just going to spend 15 minutes with the pieta. I'm just going to go to this place. That's a little bit of the format of the rosary in the year because I feel like sometimes praying the rosary because there's this start, there's finish. It's like we have 15 minutes, but there's so much. It's obviously super fruitful, but there's also a benefit to like, hey, let's actually just slow down a little bit and be a little bit focused. Just today, we're just going to be at one place, and we're really going to take it in.

Actually, we're going to go back again and to this place and keep coming deeper with it. Does that resonate with your own experience of praying the rosary?

Yes, actually, I had never thought of it like that, but that is exactly when it comes to pilgrimages. So, yeah, I have been able to go on a number of pilgrimages, particularly to the Holy Land. That's a place where it's like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant to try to take it all in. I remember my very first time ever in Israel. I remember thinking, I can't possibly really truly appreciate or take take it all in. It was when I resolved, maybe halfway through the pilgrimage, Okay, this is not going to be my last time here. This is only my first time here. Then I was able to relax and just, Okay, take in what I can, and I don't have to worry about what I can't take in. Now when I go back every morning when I'm in Jerusalem, I'll always get up early and lead a group of people down to the Church of the Holy Suppulchre, where there's Golgotha and the tomb. Just like you said, I'll go back to this same spot. I'll go up the stairs to Golgotha, and that's where I'll make my holy hour. And virtually every morning that I'm in Jerusalem, that's exactly.

And I could walk around, I could take in all the whole church. But just like you said, there's something about like, no, I'm just going to park here knowing that there's something about mining the depths and not worrying about the crumbs I'm missing because like, no, I'm coming back here. And I think there's something powerful about the rosary, too. Like in the Bible, trying to drink from a fire hydrant, but I'm coming back. No worries. Same with the catechism. And I think here with the rosary, these mysteries of Jesus's in life, I don't have to panic. No, it's okay. I'm going to return. This is going to be a place where I know what the cracks in the ground look like. I know what it smells like. I know what it is to be back here at the mystery of the ascension. I know what it's like to be back here at the nativity. There's something about what you describe that just really actually strikes me as it resonates a lot with what you just described.

I love that. I think that we can come back to it, but I think that's the goal is I want to know what the cracks in the ground look like at the nativity. I want to know what animals are there. I want this to be something that I have actually owned and assimilated because I've been there and spent so much time there. I get it. I get it from within. Here's what the phases look like. Here's what you can come to expect. The first phase is called forming the Relationship. Here we'll really be focused on praying with and entering into the relationships with the Most Holy Trinity, with Jesus, and then with Our Lady. What you'll see with each phase, there's going to be building up with the prayers, the prayers that are foundational and typical to the rosary. In this first phase, we're going to say, One, our Father, three, Hell, Maries, and the glory be. The second phase is called the biblical roots of the mysteries and of the prayers. That is what it sounds like. We're really going to be focusing on the scripture verses that are associated with each of the mysteries, but also the ways in which the different prayers that we say, the Hale Mary, the Our Father, the Creed, even the Salve Regina, the Hale Holy Queen, the in which we can find them also rooted in scripture.

At this point, we're going to be continuing with the same prayers that we were saying in phase one. I still will be at One Our Father, three Hale Marys, and then a Glory be. The third phase, which is the longest of the phases, is called imitating on the mysteries. Here we're going to begin with some lexio divina. We're just going to quietly sit with and pray with the scripture verses that are associated with the mysteries. Next, we're going to introduce a number of reflections or essays, writings of different saints, the great experts in prayer, both theological and as men and women of prayer. We're going to have two sets of reading from saints on each of the mysteries. Then finally, we're going to have what we call like visio divina. We're going to have some sacred artwork, some really classical, beautiful sacred artwork, by which these artists, in their own way, are able to emphasize and bring out some of the beauty and the depths of these different mysteries. At phase three, we're going to be increasing to praying one decade. The fourth phase is called finding focus. In the fourth phase, it can be an opportunity for the listener to really put into practice what they have received.

This is going to be 10 minutes of just praying with the mystery. At this point, we're all going to be praying together one decade. Again, it's just building up the muscle of prayer and really having some focused time of prayer and meditation just on one mystery at a time. The fifth phase is called building up the We're going to start to increase from what we've been doing of one decade at a time to now praying together two decades. We'll go ahead and work that muscle and really focus on doing two decades well. Then three, four. Then ultimately, phase five is going to end with us praying five decades altogether. The sixth in the final phase is called praying together. Here we're going to be praying the whole rosary together each day for this final phase. This is how we're going to bring the Rosary in a Year podcast in for beginning, praying the entire rosary together, again, pulling from all of the graces, all of the points of meditation, the reflection that we have received throughout the year.

Yeah. I mean, even that very first phase that people will start with at the beginning is, it sounds a lot like when I went on an Ignatian retreat, a silent 30-day retreat, and the first phase of that was just meditating on the love of God for me. It was one of those situations where I'm like, Okay, that's one day. It's supposed to be one day in the 30-day silent retreat. Ultimately, the retreat director had me there for a week because I was like, No, you need to stay here. Even what you're describing is like, these are basics, these are fundamentals. But even someone who's been praying for a really, really long time, we have to go through those fundamentals of the practice of the presence of God and just what is it to enter into God's presence? Because I know for myself as a prayer, I reread about a year ago a book. It was like an introduction to prayer book. And I was like, Okay, just pick it up again. It's good to have. I realized how often I failed to do the most fundamental thing of what you're doing in phase one, which is, Okay, how conscious am I of entering into God's presence?

Okay, Lord, I don't know how to pray. Help me to pray as I ought. I'm just, yeah, this is incredible that I imagine anyone, like you said, the professional rosary prayers to the person who's like, Okay, I'll try it. We all need that. That's fantastic. Building over the course of the year sounds like such a It was a great idea.

I think we can get into this in a later conversation. Maybe there's a lot of, Hey, you need to pray the rosary. And there's not a lot of like, What do I do? How do I do it? Certainly, I had the experience of being 18 years old and really trying to take seriously, I want to pray a daily rosary, but maybe focusing too much on getting it done and not doing it well. One of the difficulties of that is it became like a burden, a task. And the hope and one of the desires of rosary in the year is that people fall in love. First and foremost, that they fall in love again and again and again with our Lord, with the most Holy Trinity, with our lady. And they experience their love reciprocated, but also that we're able to fall in love for the first time or again with the rosary. It's that beautiful doorway that opens us up into relationship with our Lord and our lady in a beautiful way. And so, again, the goal is not just to say as many rosaries as possible. The goal is to fall in love.

Yeah, it's so good. It goes back to the heart of what prayer ultimately is, is that relationship. I think probably most of us have experienced what it feels like to say, okay, I'm just going to get it done. That's one of the reasons I think that most all of us could really benefit from this rosary in the ear because of the fact that I think we all have the same temptations and we all have the same need. I keep going back to the Book of Revelation, where Jesus is talking to the church at Ephesians, They're doing all the right things, but they've lost their first love. There's something about if you've been praying the rosary for years and years, maybe this would be that thing that the Lord is presenting to you, inviting a person to do, not because you've never done it, not because you don't know how to pray the rosary, but because maybe it's just become the... Yeah, it's the thing I do when I go for a walk or it's the thing I do when I'm driving my car. It's the thing that I do as part of my whatever, my prayer practice.

To really fall in love, that's a great goal.

Amen. Amen. I can just attest to, again, as you know in your own work with Bible, New York, Cadets in the Year, I'm a little bit ahead. I've already been doing this a little bit, and it's been, again, extremely fruitful for me. I'm grateful for my own growth to be a part of it. Father Mike, it looks like one clap up, one clap down. We did all right.

One up, one down. There it is.

All right. Thank you so much to all of our listeners for joining us, and I look forward to praying with you with the rosary in the year. Father Mike, thanks so much for joining me today.

Absolutely. God bless..