Ring Around

Pastor’s Epistle—October AD 2023

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

—Luke 1:26-28

And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

—Luke 1:39-43

Ring Around

In Western Christendom, and especially Roman Catholicism, the month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary, due to the 7 October 1571 Battle of Lepanto, at which the naval powers of Europe soundly defeated the Ottoman Turks, thus definitively settling the question of which empire would dominate the Mediterranean.

The Holy League dedicated their victory to the Virgin Mary, whose intercession they had sought by praying the Rosary—though the presence of newly-developed Venetian galleasses surely didn’t hurt. When given the choice between devotion and firepower, Europe historically has opted for both. The resultant sinking of the Turkish fleet massively popularized the Rosary throughout Italy and Spain.

Humans have been using prayer beads for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Ba’hai, and neopagans all have their own variations. Indeed, the Old English “bede” means a bid, or a prayer.

Christians classically speak of three broad forms of prayer: (1) oration, or spoken prayer, which may be silent or aloud, impromptu or prepared; (2) meditation, which focuses on a simple phrase or idea repeated until it sinks into our bones; and (3) contemplation, the highest and rarest form, in which we sit in silent awareness of the presence of God. Contemplation, I suspect, explains most Minnesotans’ affinity for the deer stand and the fishing boat.

Christians have utilized knotted ropes for prayer since at least the third or fourth century. Versions of the Jesus Prayer—“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”—are the eldest and most traditional. The prayer would be repeated dozens of times, not that we might be wordy in our prayers (Matthew 6:7-8), for God surely hears us the first time around, but so that the prayer itself would suffuse our very being. We repeat the prayer that we might become the prayer, and thus the monotony of our petitions drown out the monotony of our sins.

Monasteries often memorized the entire Psalter, and prayed its 150 Psalms each and every day throughout the Liturgy of the Hours. Many a layperson came to join the monks in their supplications, yet had neither the time nor resources to commit such Scriptures to heart. Instead, they made cords of 150 knots or beads, and for every Psalm chanted by the monks they would recite an Our Father, the prayer that Jesus taught us. These were known as Paternoster cords.

Such strings evolved into the modern Dominican Rosary: “Dominican” because it was first taught and popularized by St Dominic, and “Rosary” meaning a bouquet or garland of roses. Dominic divided the prayers into decades—one Our Father followed by 10 Hail Marys—with each decade pertaining to one of 15 “Mysteries,” or episodes from the life of Christ and Mary. One would call to mind a story from Jesus’ life, His Nativity perhaps, and meditate on it for the time it took to pray a single decade.

The Hail Mary, mind you, was a popular prayer derived from two biblical verses: the greetings given to Mary by the angel Gabriel and by her kinswoman Elizabeth. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. / Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” Centuries later we amended the petition: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”

The Rosary remains the single most popular and widespread meditative devotion amongst Christians worldwide. In the modern form, additional prayers open and close the meditation, and most Rosaries contain enough decades for five Mysteries at a time. Note that the general practice predates the Reformation and thus has been claimed by Anglican and Lutheran Christians as well as by Roman Catholics. Liturgical Protestants have been known to substitute the Jesus Prayer for the Hail Marys on the decades, thus blending the meditative practices of East and West.

I pray a version of the Rosary every morning when I first awake, stretching my mind before I stretch my body. On days when I’m really on the ball, I’ll also pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, utilizing the same Rosary beads, around 3:00 p.m. All the details for these practices can be found easily online. Once you get used to it, a Rosary takes all of 15 minutes to pray, and Divine Mercy perhaps only seven. A neophyte might want to lead with the latter; it’s simpler and emphasizes God’s universal grace.

Christian meditation, to no-one’s surprise, focuses us on Christ. And should you ever feel as though the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, might be getting too much of her Son’s spotlight, keep in mind that she is a type of the Church. All of the promises given to her are given to us as well. As we are Christ, she is our Mother. As we are her, we bring Jesus to birth in our world. Besides—you’ll never love her more than He does.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.