The Rosary - A Spirituality

 The rosary is more than a meditative prayer.  The rosary is a spirituality. Authentic spirituality is rooted in the Gospel because it is patterned after the person and work of Jesus Christ. In this sense, the rosary should be perceived as a christocentric Spirituality.

But what is spirituality?  Spirituality is one of three fundamental expressions of religion.  Religion understood as act of worship given to God is primarily liturgy, but can also be-and should be- spirituality and devotion.  Liturgy highlights and celebrates the communal and ritual aspects of religion.  Liturgy is for and by the community.  It commemorates and represents the essential realities of our faith, namely the memorial of Christ passion, death and resurrection.  In order to bring together past and present, memory and present reality of Christ’s salvific action, liturgy follows set patterns (ritual), keeping alive and proactive God’s plan of salvation.  Devotion and devotions, on the other hand, give room to individual practice of religion.  Ultimately, always rooted in the liturgical foundations of our faith, devotion offers prayers marked by personal inspiration and preference.  Devotions have a private and gratuitous character allowing for individual freedom and punctual commitment.  This means, that devotions are actually prayers recited by individuals and groups at their leisure and for a special purpose.

Spirituality is situated between liturgy and devotion.  It suggests a life-style, an ongoing spiritual process which encompasses our whole life.  Spirituality is based on structure and direction, on spiritual values directing and structuring the various facets of our existence.  Liturgy is again the source from which spirituality springs, but, as for devotion, spirituality is based on personal choice, preference, and adaptation.  The rosary can be such a spirituality, provided it is understood as a truly contemplative prayer.  According to Paul VI, the rosary by its very nature calls “for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord” (Marialis Cultus 47).

The overall direction of this rosary spirituality is the ever greater affinity with, and development of, a personal christocentric profile.  Its structuring elements are presented in the encyclical on the rosary (Rosarium Virginis Mariae) in articles 13 through 17.  The rosary spirituality, though christocentric in purpose and organization, has a definite marian coloring.  It is a spiritual journey to Christ, or following of Christ, in the company of Mary. 

 Here are the various structural elements:

These five steps are a challenge to the whole person.  They begin with the simple representation of who Jesus Christ is, and they finish with the proclamation of his grandeur. The steps in- between (2-4) highlight the importance of a growing intimacy with Jesus and its expression in prayer and proclamation.

 1. Memory (VR 13)

We remember the phrase "Christ with Mary" as having the following meaning. We need to understand the word remember in the biblical sense of remembrance (zakar), as a making present of the works brought about by God in the history of salvation. The Bible is an account of saving events culminating in Christ himself. These events belong not only to “yesterday;” they are also part of the “today” of salvation.

 2. Assimilation (VR 14)

We learn about Christ with Mary. Christ is the supreme teacher, the revealer and the one revealed.  It is not just a question of learning what he taught, but of “learning him.” As we contemplate each mystery of her Son’s life, Mary invites us to do as she did at the Annunciation:  to ask humbly the questions which open us to the light, in order to end with the obedience of faith: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

 3. Conformity (VR 15)

Assimilation is not enough. It remains external:  it may be only knowledge we assimilate.  Our whole being needs to be conformed to Christ with Mary. In the spiritual journey of the rosary, based on the constant contemplation–in Mary’s company–of the face of Christ, this demanding ideal of being conformed to him is pursued through an association which could be described in terms of friendship. We are thereby enabled to enter naturally into Christ’s life and as it were to share his deepest feelings.  In this regard Blessed Bartolo Longo has written,  “Just as two friends, frequently in each other’s company, tend to develop similar habits, so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, by meditating on the mysteries of the rosary and by living the same life in Holy communion, we can become, to the extent of our lowliness, similar to them and can learn from these supreme models of life of humility, poverty, hiddenness, patience and perfection.”

 4. Prayer (VR 16)

Praying to Christ with Mary turns meditation into apostolic action. Jesus invited us to turn to God with insistence and the confidence that we will be heard:  “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). The basis for this power of prayer is the goodness of the Father, but also the mediation of Christ himself (cf. 1 John 23:1) and the working of the Holy Spirit who “intercedes for us” according to the will of God (cf. Romans 8:26-27).  For “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (cf. Romans 8:26), and at times we are not heard “because we ask wrongly” (cf. James 4:2-3).

 5. Proclamation (VR 17)

The litmus test of conformity with Christ is the practical commitment of proclaiming Christ with Mary.  The Rosary is also a path of proclamation and increasing knowledge, in which the mystery of Christ is presented again and again at the different levels of the Christian experience.  Its form is that of a prayerful and contemplative presentation, capable of forming Christians according to the heart of Christ.  When the recitation of the Rosary combines all the elements needed for an effective meditation, especially in its communal celebration in parishes and shrines, it can present a significant catechetical opportunity which pastors should use to advantage. In this way too, Our Lady of the Rosary continues her work of proclaiming Christ.