In the heart of every person, there is a desire to be in union with God. Such a union is realized and deepened by a life of prayer. Such a summons to prayer is as necessary and essential to human flourishing as breathing and eating. If we neglect prayer, our souls suffocate and starve. If our souls are depleted, they cannot perform the functions for which they were made. These functions include showing faith, preserving in hope, and laboring to love others.
As Christians, we have a super-sized call to prayer since we know that God became a man and dwelt among us. He showed us what it means to be a person of prayer. He has offered us his Spirit to lead us in a life of prayer.
Saint Paul teaches us: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
In our openness to the workings of the Holy Spirit, we are directed to the spiritual treasury of the Church. Within this Church’s vast treasury, we find her cherished prayer methods. Such methods have made saints, mystics, and spiritual masters out of ordinary people just like us. The methods work when they’re used.
The prayer methods of the Church are countless, however, there are certain favored methods in the history of the Church. One of the favored prayer methods is the rosary. Of the principal prayer methods, it’s the only one that involves both mental and oral prayer.
The rosary involves the spiritual imagination in a way similar to the composition of place method. In most instances, the rosary is usually composing events from the Bible, which means the key distinction between the composition of place and the rosary is the rosary’s use of repetitive oral prayer. In a unique fashion, the rosary calls for the use of our voice and hearing as we pray its prayers out loud (as well as touch as we move through the beads of the rosary). The rosary, therefore, is a very interactive prayer method with all of our senses and with the world beyond our own souls.
The rosary is also one of the more structured prayer methods in the Church. For most of the prayer methods, a general template in given and souls navigates the method as needed or directed by the Holy Spirit. In comparison, the rosary is very systematic and calls for souls to follow its directive course of prayer. Both approaches are needed, and sometimes the formality of the rosary can be a great consolation and help to a tired or distracted soul. It is a cherished prayer from within the Church’s rich spiritual treasury.
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