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Why Catholics Pray the Rosary
Marian devotion brings faithful closer to Christ
By J.D. Long-García, The Catholic Sun
October 18, 2007
GLENDALE — Inspired by Our Lady of Fatima, Catholics at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish pray the rosary every Tuesday morning before the Blessed Sacrament.
The hour-long rosary incorporates prayers the Blessed Mother gave to the three Fatima children 90 years ago this month. The Church gives particular focus to the rosary during October.
The Blue Army prayer cell in Glendale, a local division of the World Apostolate of Fatima, prays for vocations, the sanctity of life and greater devotion to the Eucharist.
“There’s so much sin in the world, but the Lord will hear our prayers,” Ann Hei said after the Oct. 2 rosary.
Hei grew up in the Philippines and was born into the Catholic faith. She learned more about the Church as an adult and started praying the rosary every day after God healed a loved one.
Catholics have been praying the rosary for more than 800 years with confidence God will hear their prayers, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said.
“With Mary His Mother, we gaze on the face of Christ, contemplating the mysteries of His life, those mysteries by which the world is redeemed,” he said.
“Such contemplative prayer helps us, like Mary, to love her Son,” the bishop said. “It deepens our desire to serve Him and to pray for the needs of His Body, the Church.”
While traditionally Catholics have believed the Blessed Mother gave the rosary to St. Dominic in the 13th century, Dominican Father James Thompson said the actual historical source isn’t clear.
What is clear is that the 150 Hail Marys of the 15-decade rosary correspond to the 150 psalms prayed by the Church, he said.
“It’s a lay person’s way of participating in the prayer of the Church,” Fr. Thompson said. “You can look at it as a ready-made prayer service. You don’t even need to be literate, much less ordained or religious to do it.”
The Dominican friar noted that the rosary is a form of intercessory prayer that is scriptural.
“The Hail Mary itself is derived from the first chapter of Luke,” he said, “and then the Glory Be, which is a Trinitarian doxology.”
Marian devotion
While the rosary has been an official prayer of the Church and the preferred devotion of many saints, “We cannot use anything we do not understand, especially when it comes to prayer,” Bishop Olmsted said.
“Those who discover the contemplative, Christ-centered nature of the rosary will find it to be a great help in nurturing a lively friendship with Jesus,” he said.
“They will also discover, if they persevere for a week or more, that the repetitiveness of the rosary’s Hail Marys is a real help in dealing with distractions,” the bishop said. “Repetition is the language of love: we never get tired of hearing ‘I love you.’”
This language of the rosary has transformed many Catholics in the Phoenix Diocese, lay and religious alike.
Mary Fierros, a parishioner at St. Louis the King in Glendale and a member of the Legion of Mary, started praying the rosary 40 years ago.
“I had breathing difficulties, so I promised Our Lady that if I were healed I’d pray the rosary every day,” she said. “I haven’t had trouble breathing since.”
Incarnate Word Father Humberto Villa, pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, prays the rosary just about every day. In addition to taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, Incarnate Word priests vow to minister with, for and in Mary.
“It really helps because the role Mary plays in the plan of salvation is to get us to grow closer to Jesus,” he said. “Through Mary, we can get closer to God.”
Fr. Villa said that there are many different devotions, but the rosary is the most universal. Through the rosary, Catholics meditate on the mysteries of Christ’s life.
“God doesn’t need anything to save us. But He chooses to do it through Mary to show us how He loves us, to have our weakness, but not our sin,” he said, referring to the Incarnation.
A group prays the rosary in Spanish six days a week at Fr. Villa’s parish.
“When one prays the rosary, one remembers the promises God made through his Angel Gabriel,” said Levi Vazquez, who heads up the rosary group with his wife Guillermina.
Before the crucifixion, Mary was mother to Jesus, Vazquez said. After Jesus told John, “Behold your mother,” Mary was mother to all humanity.
“As her children, we must ask her for what we need,” Vazquez said. As with our biological mothers, he said Catholics could have an intimate relationship with Mary.
“You have to have that personal encounter with her. She’ll give you little proofs, and you’ll come to know her more and more — though you’ll never know her completely,” Vazquez said.
“There are things that she has done that we still don’t know about,” he said. “If humanity knew all that she has done, every church would be packed with people giving thanks.”
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