The Rosary in a Year (with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames) - Bonus: Introduction to Phase Three: “Meditating with the Mysteries”

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

How do we really dive into meditation while we pray the rosary? In this special bonus episode, Fr. Mark-Mary is joined by Fr. Gregory Pine to discuss Franciscan and Dominican prayer, accessing grace through the rosary, and the much debated question: “If you fall asleep in the middle of prayer, does your guardian angel finish the rosary?” For the complete prayer plan, visit https://ascensionpress.com/riy.

Hey, I'm Father Mark Murray with Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in the Year podcast. Today, we are beginning phase three, which is called Meditating on the Mysteries. And I'm very, very happy to be joined here by good friend, Father Gregory Pine, a Dominican friar of the province of St. Joseph. Father Gregory, welcome. Hey, thanks for having me. You got it. So I had a chance to be on your podcast, God's Plaining,

and I began there, how I'm gonna begin here, because I'm very self-conscious of this, by saying to you and you representing all Dominicans, who have lived in the last 800 years. The world over. Thank you. Thank you. Certainly the success of the Rosary in your podcast is the fruit of the popularity of the Rosary,

which is the fruit of centuries of work and preaching by the Dominicans. So, thank you. Hey, we're here for it. The Rosary. It's great. Our religious traditions and orders in general is to have a tendency of stealing people's stories and stealing people's, or the other order's successes. And so I'm trying to break the trend and be very clear that I'm not,

the Franciscans are not trying to steal the Rosary from the Dominicans. We learned in our preaching class, there's no real like plagiarism in preaching. So you know how sometimes people like over anxiously narrate their sources. And they're like, as I read, you know, four days ago while sitting in my Barca lounger

from ancient Christian commentaries, a collection of quotations, it's like, holy smokes, just say the thing, you know. So too with pious devotions, you don't have to attribute it, man. You can just send it. I think it's our ladies in so far as she's all of our mother. Our mothers, I don't actually know how possessives work in the plural, but once I figure it out, I'll say it. So she's your mother, my mother, your rosary, my rosary.

Party on. Over here, when I was in seminary, our homiletics professor was a Dominican, and he made a similar reference that the patron saint of preaching is Saint Dismas, the good thief. Nice. There's certainly some boundaries to it, but there's a part of that. But can you share a little bit with the history

of the Dominicans and the rosary? And even, I think what's interesting and very noteworthy is I don't know the exact title, but there's even a current friar or number of friars who have an assignment which is with promoting the rosary. Just as much as you'd like to get into it, a little bit of the history of the Dominicans and the rosary. Sure.

Yeah, I mean, you've probably covered cool historical points. So maybe just by way of picking out those things which are weirdest and funnest, that's the new adjectival form of, never mind, here we go. So, obviously, the Carthusians had a role and the Dominicans had a role. Kind of all medieval religious had a role in the coming together of the Rosary. So, you had the folks who were illiterate

praying the 150 Psalms, and often enough, the folks who were illiterate praying the 150 Our Fathers, which became the 150 Hail Marys, which were divided into decades, which had then mysteries assigned, etc. But then it was a thing where it was like, hey, this is great. It's not just for illiterate people, it's for all people. And the Dominicans really started preaching the Rosary in full force around about the 15th century. So, St. Dominic lived in the 13th century, but like the Secret of the Rosary by Saint Louis de Montfort, he cites Blessed

Allan de la Roche quite a bit, who lived in the 15th century, and it's to him that we attribute the second half of the Hail Mary. And so, you'll have in the Dominican Order various persons responsible for making sure that the friars know to promote the rosary. It kind of wells up within all the friars' bones, but you try to organize your efforts in so far as you can. And so there's a general promoter of the rosary for the whole order, and then there are provincial promoters of the rosary for all the different kind of regions of Dominican-dom. So one of the friars with whom I contribute to God's planning, Father Joseph Anthony Kress, is the provincial promoter of the Most Holy Rosary for our province,

the province of St. Joseph. And we've had that rosary pilgrimage now the past couple of years, which has been a way in which to bring people together to pray the Most Holy Rosary and just to kind of highlight the importance of Marian devotion in the life of the Church. So those are some things. Great. And to back up just for a second from the theme of the rosary itself to more of Dominicans, Franciscans, due to just kind of how media works, a large number of the listeners and listeners to this episode

may be non-Catholic or certainly may not be Catholic enough to have a real clear understanding of the difference between Dominicans, Franciscans. I don't know, in your own words, what would be, how about in your own words, what would be like the Charism, the heart of the Charism of Dominicans? And if you want to give a shot at the heart of the Charism for Franciscans, you can do that as well. Sure. Yeah, and if it's any consolation to folks who don't know the differences between or among religious orders, take heart. At various times in the church's history, like even the Holy Father felt overwhelmed by the number of religious orders, and he was like, this is just out of control. We need to simplify this. Let's just cook it down to a few different ones that I can actually remember.

So, if you feel overwhelmed, know that you have historical antecedents, slash you were in good company. But the basic idea is that we're all here to follow the Lord Jesus, you know, and we can refer to this as the apostolic life because the Lord called the apostles to be with Him, right, and then to preach for the salvation of souls, but this idea that like we're all called to be with Him. So we're seeking to cultivate an intense intimacy, an intense friendship with our Lord Jesus Christ. And throughout the history of the church, different men and women have been inspired to follow the Lord Jesus more closely in this way or in that way, in imitation of the apostles.

So some focus a lot on a kind of stability, a kind of fixity, a life of prayer and work. You know, that would be the monastic movement. So if you've heard of the Benedictines, or the Cluniac reform the Cistercians or the Trappists, etc., those would be monks. And then you have the canon movement or the movement of canons, and these would be guys that were in effect like parish priests, but they lived with their bishops, so they lived at the cathedral to have a kind of monastic life together. So it's a monastic life with pastoral service in a particular place. So, they're living together, they're praying together, a lot like monks, but then they're going out to their parishes

here and there to serve the needs of the people of God as part of their kind of inspiration. And then, in the 12th and 13th century, you have the Friars Movement, to which Dominicans and Franciscans both pertain. And the idea here is that you're really following the Lord who is poor, chaste, and obedient. So there's this kind of evangelical radicalism to the Friars Movement, where there's a certain simplicity, because like a lot of the monastic orders,

while very serious, you know, obviously, in their pursuit of holiness and their consecration, they had become kind of powerful and influential. And so there is the sense in the 12th and 13th century that we need to follow the naked the naked Christ and we need to dispossess ourselves of all those things which might kind of pose obstacles to our perfect embrace of this evangelical life and following of the Lord Jesus himself. So the Dominicans kind of grew up out of the Canons movement and the Franciscans kind of grew up out of the Penitential movement. So it was a movement of lay people who really wanted to live

this evangelical, radical, and kind of wild life. And so you see different trajectories in the two. So Dominicans tend to be more priestly and more liturgical, and then they tend to have more of an emphasis on the life of kind of doctrinal preaching, as it were, or doctrinal teaching. Whereas I think, and I told this to you the other day, I think that the Franciscans exist to kind of make the church feel ever so slightly uncomfortable in a good way. Because I think that here we are in a fallen world, and we're all just looking to get comfortable and avail ourselves of conveniences, but I think part of the power of the Witnesses of St. Francis of Assisi is to say like, the only comfort and convenience to be fine is, well, there isn't any, so just follow the Lord Jesus. So he's always kind of destabilizing us or calling into question the compromises that

we've made. And so I think that Franciscans are supposed to show up and be like, what kind of wild evangelical time are we about to have? And you're like, I wasn't planning on it, but I guess I am now. But you'll often hear Franciscans described as kind of taking very serious the spousal relationship to lady poverty. So this is like kind of radical dependence or radical entrustment to the Lord in His providence, which is born out in a certain simplicity of spirit. So that's my best go. I think that was a great go. Father Gregory and I were in college together at the same college at the same time. We had somewhat minimal interactions.

I was just there for a year. He was there, I think, for four years. But one of the reasons that we reconnected is I saw Father do some, a number of videos and things. I think it was particularly with Pint of the Aquinas. And I remember listening to you speak English and thought And I remember listening to you speak English and thought, that guy knows how to use words very beautifully. And I reached out to him to reconnect. So anyway, yeah, you know what you're talking about. And so it's great to be alongside somebody who knows what they're talking about.

It's good to be with you. Yeah, yeah. So just before again, we get into the sort of the general offering of the reflection on meditating on the mysteries, what we're gonna be doing through what we're calling the phase three of the Rosary in the Year podcast. Certainly you are coming to the Rosary, not just as a form of devotion in the church,

but as a personal sort of devotion in your own life since pretty young. Do you wanna just share a little bit of either maybe your own relationship with the Rosary or a favorite story anecdote about the Rosary and praying the Rosary in general? Either one. Sure. So, I was raised in a Catholic family. Both my parents, you know, loved the Lord. I mean, my dad's still with us, my mom has passed to a returnal reward, please God. But the life of prayer and of sacrament was very precious to them and so

to us. They also took us on pilgrimages, so we probably like made more pilgrimages than we took vacations. But a place that we would go off in was Medjugorje, which since 1981, it's alleged that there are apparitions in this small town in what is currently called Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the time Yugoslavia. And the church is given a kind of provisional approbation so that people can make pilgrimages there and cultivate a richer life of devotion, a richer life of Christian expression. And so we went there for the first time when I was three, and then my folks went back a billion times to lead people on trips. But the rosary is just kind of part and parcel of Medjugorje insofar as Our Lady counsels

different things, you know, like read the sacred scripture and assisted holy mass and go to the sacrament of confession, just kind of wheelhouse gospel stuff. But she encourages pilgrims to pray the Most Holy Rosary with the heart. So we pray the rosary together as a family, if not every night growing up, you know, like a lot of nights, uh, because, you know, sometimes folks have music practice or sports practice or whatever it is. Um, but my dad would transition from dinner table to the family room, a living room, prayer, rosary basically every night. And we were hilarious about it. Like not especially, we weren't your model prayer family.

Um, so my mom, I don't know that my mom really loved praying the rosary. So she would always ask us for like our intentions. She loved chatting. My mom loved chatting. So she'd always ask us for like our intentions. She loved chatting. My mom loved chatting. So she'd ask us for our intentions, which was a great way to like get your kids to share with you like their various anxieties or concerns or how folks were doing at school and stuff like that.

So that, that could, but that could last forever. So I was like a little brat about it because I basically just wanted to get my homework done and then like watch sports center for the 18th time that day. So my, I just had one petition every day and it was that we would start this rosary as soon as possible. But like we all had our cute and quiet ways of quote unquote rebelling. I don't know that my sister Kristen really ever made it to the end of a rosary because she would just find the perfect posture in which to fall asleep.

It was incredible. My brother, at like certain points, he'd just wander away from the rosary and just be about different tasks. But he got away with a lot, because he was the youngest and there's an eight year gap between him and me. Like at one point he got it from the dinner table and he like went to the sink

because he didn't like those little like fried onion things that you put on green beans. So he was just washing them off his beans. But like my mom was his advocate. He could do no wrong in her eyes. And I remember my dad being like, buddy, what are you doing? And my mom was like, he's just washing his beans. So he could do whatever he wanted during the rosary.

He's out of control. Yeah, so it was a little bit of a circus, but it was a circus that ran for the most part on time. So I was grateful for that. There's a painting we have in one of our friaries in Newark, New Jersey, where we have our novitiate where it used to be a convent for cloistered Dominican nuns. And there's a big painting there. And I think it's like Capuchin to Franciscans or some monks in the chapel. And they're all doing something weird or they're all doing something different. Like there's some praying

and some are like distracted and some are whatever. And there's a certain degree in which like the circus that was your family rosary growing up still actually feels pretty similar to some of what we experience as friars in a holy hour. You guys know how they're making rosary every day. Everyone is, everyone's there. Everyone's being themselves, you know,

but somehow us being there and being there together is actually a beautiful offering to our Lord and our lady, even though it can feel like a circus and maybe in fact be a circus. So what we're going to move into here is this third phase, which is called meditating on the mysteries. And if you will, like the curriculum, you could call it, of the Rosary in the Year, comes from something that I, like myself responding to my own experience and journey with the Rosary, and maybe some of how, sort of in an ideal situation,

I could have been introduced to prayer, to the Rosary in general. And so, essentially there's going to be three types of episodes. The first is going to be Lexiodevina with the scripture passages associated with each of the mysteries. And what this is going to... I'll just kind of go through the whole thing and then come back to it. The second is we're going to have, for each of the mysteries, we're going to have a different saint writing. And then lastly, we're going to have for each of the mysteries, we're going to have a different saint writing. And then lastly, we're going to have for each of the mysteries, or we're going to have two saint writings for each of the mysteries. And we're also going to have two images, two sacred pieces of sacred art, which are associated with each of the mysteries. And my rationale or my

mindset on this is that to sort of develop and to grow and to enrich our praying of the rosary and our meditating on the mysteries as much as possible, I do believe that this is going to be enriched by praying with the mysteries, studying the mysteries, reflecting on images of the mysteries, actually outside of simply and specifically praying the rosary, you know, whatever the five decades at a time, and really enhancing our prayer, enhancing our imagination, enhancing our theological understanding of what's happening. And so that's like kind of like just enriching this, this sort of the mental bank from which we can pull and bring to our meditation is kind of what we're going to be doing through phase three. And I do think this is that there's a certain way in which, um, I think that

there's in my own language, there's something particularly beautiful about praying the rosary and meditating on the mysteries, which is, is more, um, revisiting a place that we've already been a place that we've already visited and experienced we've already had, as opposed to sort of exploring a new area for the first time or being introduced to a new, to a new situation, a new event for the first time. You know, I think sometimes if we haven't prayed with these mysteries in a different context, and the only time we're reflecting on these events of the life of our Lord is in the context of the Rosary.

There's a certain part of which we are doing a lot of things at once. We're trying to pray. We're trying to sort of keep track of the life of our Lord is in the context of the Rosary. There's a certain part of which we are doing a lot of things at once. We're trying to pray. We're trying to sort of keep track of the mysteries. We're trying to keep track of the number of Hail Marys, but also we're trying to do some sort of meditation and it can feel like again, trying to explore a new area, um, kind of, and I think that just going to be, there's going to be an extra level of fruitfulness and efficaciousness of maybe even depth or sort of subjective experience of the prayer

if we've already been there and we're kind of revisiting these places like anew or again with our Lord, with our lady. So that's some of the rationale. And so it'd be interesting because certainly like one of the realities of different charisms and different spiritualities is there are certain different effaces or different approaches. Certainly as a Franciscan or a Franciscan friar of the renewal, there is a particular

emphasis on relational prayer. We're not big on litanies. We're not big on some of these devotions. We are sort of big on lex Devena, like a sharing of the heart. For the Dominicans, your own experience of praying the rosary, particularly like the role in which the mysteries play, can you just kind of share either your own personal experience of that, thoughts on that, or the Dominican approach in general? Yeah, I think as is the case with a lot of Dominican things, our theology is furnished by St. Thomas Aquinas. And in St. Thomas' estimation, the mysteries save us, you know, like, I mean, it sounds obvious enough, but sometimes we lose sight of it. So,

when you talk about salvation, like, what exactly are you talking about? Well, you're talking about God giving us His divine life, a new and a fresh, when we chose against it or when our first parents chose against it and when we came into this world kind of deprived of it, and even wounded in our nature. So there's a sense in which like all of the—I mean, it's not just a sense—but all of the deeds and sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ save us. So there's a—I don't know—there's a sense in which we can approach the life of our Lord and find in it grace. We can find in it salvation. And that in meditating upon the mysteries, we're accessing that, you know, with our minds and our hearts in effect. So, like, the Lord kind of curates His life with the intention

of giving it to us or offering it to us as a whole, and it mounts to his passion, death and resurrection. So obviously there's greater importance assigned to the end of his life, but even in the beginning of his life there's something precious there, because from start to finish he is saving, he is about a campaign of salvation, he intends to prosecute that campaign with the side purpose from the moment of his conception until his reigning in glory at the right of purpose from, you know, the moment of His conception until His reigning in glory at the right of the Father. And so, I think the Dominican disposition is like, how are we supposed to access those things?

It's by faith and by sacrament. You know, as you think about it, faith gives us a kind of spiritual access to the things of God, and sacrament gives us a kind of bodily access to the things of God. So there's, you know, spiritual and bodily elements to the things of God. So there's, you know, spiritual and bodily elements to our praying of the rosary, which, you know, you talk about it's kind of working your way through the beads as you think your way through the mysteries. But, yeah, I guess the Dominican emphasis would be on God's initiative and God's sovereignty. Like, He's saving us because He's good, because He loves us.

And so sometimes we get bent out of shape or we get super worried that we're not doing it right. It's all right. You know, like God's saving us because He loves us. So I think it's just important that we just put ourselves in the line of fire, we put ourselves in living communion with those mysteries, and that's the type of thing that scales. It scales to little children, it scales to old theologians, it works for all Christians by virtue of the fact that God's already at work in us through our baptism and confirmation, in certain cases by ordination, but that He is poised to bestow upon us generous things because that's why He made us. That's why He saved us. So I'm going to quote Pope St. Paul VI to you and ask you to sort of...

I sometimes lose track of which 20th century popes are saints, because a lot of them are, but not all of them are. It's like Pope St. Pius X... I'm not sure about the XII. Is he a saint yet? Pope Pius XII? Yeah. I think so. Okay. I'm off. John the 23rd is, right? I think so. Paul the 6th is? Yeah. John Paul the 1st. How about him? Yet? No? Maybe? I want to say yes. Incredible. I think a lot of them have recently been lifted up, but this is the question I'm supposed to be asking you. Pius XII, you know what?

I've rebooted my mind and not the Google document I have in front of me. He's not a saint. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. A salutary revision. Is he a blessed?

It's hard to say. Okay. But the point is that Pope St. Paul VI is a saint. And he said something. What is it? He said this, and he said without, and actually, Paul VI said this, John Paul II kind of echoed it, Pope Benedict as well. Without contemplation, the rosary is a body without a soul. So this, so now if you can help sort of like bring continuity between, you know,

just kind of by showing up and God, you know, we certainly know that the primary mover in prayer is God. The first mover in prayer is God. The one who makes it efficacious is God. We kind of, we show up, we're saved by the mysteries. To quote yourself, we are sort of watched, we have the mysteries washed over us. So then how do we reconcile sort of that kind of a passivity and a receptivity with also the idea that there is some engagement with contemplation, which is also like our response.

I don't know, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that a lot of people are tempted to think that they need to invent or make up their spiritual lives, so I just kind of want to head that off at the pass, just to address that at the outset. Nevertheless, you know, God gives us a mind with which to know and a heart with which to love, so we should exercise them. But know that you can exercise them progressively better and better over the course of your life,

and so if you're not yet perfect yesterday or today, it'll be alright. Like the Lord's good, He loves you, He's provident, He'll see you through. But that requires that you engage to some degree or extent. So, not rationalizing or justifying past silly behaviors, but repenting of the ways in which we have wandered away and then seeking to appropriate our Christian identity and mission with ever greater fervor and zeal. And I think that part of that is just approaching the Rosary and saying, all right, what's going on here? I think that like words that might appeal to people in a more kind of visceral or instinctual way

would be like curiosity and honesty. It's like, what's actually going on? And what does that mean? Because sometimes we have it in our minds as we look at 17th century statuary or 19th century memoirs that saints are wholly unlike us and that they have these wild thoughts and they love with this reckless abandon that is wholly, wholly unlike anything we have ever experienced or encountered in our days. Whereas I think that like what's the red thread or like what's connecting their experience in ours? I think the saints were honest, you know, like I mean they were curious about their own experience and honest about what they found, and they found that

it always provided an open kind of entryway, as it were, for the working of God. You know, like, God makes all things work to the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Some 20th century authors add the words, even sin. Like, there's no part of our experience which God can't use, which He can't say, which He can't redeem. And so, we bring that certainty, we bring that confidence to the mysteries and just say, like, what are you doing here? Like, what is this? Like, why are you being baptized?

You don't suffer the effects of original sin. You have never perpetuated a sin of any... I mean, like, you've never sinned., so you don't need to be washed of sin. Also you enjoy the life of grace and virtue and gifts of the Holy Spirit to an infinite extent, so you're not getting that either. You're not like becoming an adopted son of God because you're the natural son of God. Like why are you being baptized? And why are you being baptized for me?

So, you know, like we might not be crack philosophers or stud theologians, but you can always bring your questions to the sacred text, and then, you know, to the recitation of the Rosary, and then just ask God, like, what is the work of salvation that is kind of at stake or in process or at present being applied. Because it seems interesting, but I also, I can't comprehend it. So I think that's like what unites our experience, and I think that's what we can bring to it.

Mm-hmm. I guess I'll kind of add my own little thoughts here. Generally, I'm acting in a place of encouragement. And like very much a lot of my life is receiving people who are really doing their best, but really, really struggling. And just the whole even this whole like the phrase, like the whole Poco Poco idea, like that spirituality, the pilgrimage spirituality is like, hey, I'll just keep making the next best step.

But I am going to like step back from that just like a little bit in so far as this, because it's like with part of why I feel so strongly about spending the time and extended period of time really reflecting on praying with the mysteries of the Rosary, which are these fundamental foundational mysteries of our salvation. It's just like, if you're not spending the time in this life to like really receive and to get the nativity and the passion and our Lord's crucifixion and the assumption or in the resurrection, it's just like, but you're an expert in, you know,

I don't know, like NCAA Heisman Trophy winners or in news or politics. It's just like, like, what, what, what are we doing? Like, what, what are we doing when the, this, like the, the most beautiful and profound and salvific of gifts are being offered to us and presented us, which reveal us the fullness of the meaning of life, which give us proper vision and proper perspective for encountering the world. They teach us who we are, who our God is. Like, vision and proper perspective for encountering the world that teach us who we are, who our God is. Like if we're not spending the time to study this and contemplate it and receive this,

it's just like, what are we doing? What are we doing? And so that's, I don't know, that's just kind of, I feel very strongly about spending time with these scriptures, with these mysteries and just receive, actually doing the work of receiving the gift of our salvation and God's revelation. I don't know if there's a question attached to that. Do you feel any need to comment? I have thoughts. I mean, a need to comment, there's very little need for anything in this world,

but a prompting to comment, always. I think like, what I think is sweet is that that we're just surrounded by things that are objectively important, objectively salvific. And we're also cognizant of the fact that we're just like not really capable of that much. You know, like anyone who's ever had a stomach bug, like realizes seven hours in like, wow, I am

very, very fragile, you know, this is just a very fragile ecosystem. And what we, what we say of our body is true to a certain extent of our soul. Um, T.S. Eliot says humankind cannot bear very much reality. Like we just, I mean, we're just, you get it. Okay. So can we ascend to great heights by God's grace?

Absolutely. But that's also his work, a work with which we cooperate, but nevertheless it's His work. I think what's cool about the mysteries is that He surrounds us with this manifest testimony of His love, of His providence, you know, of His solicitousness for us, so that we would be surrounded, as it were, like just kind of compassed on every side with testimony of that. And so the idea is like, can you intend it?

Can you attend to it? And you might come back like, listen, I'm kind of fragile. You know, I can't bear very much reality. And the Christian response is then to say like, well, can you bear a little? You know, can you as Princess Anna of Arendelle once saying, do the next right thing? And I think that like the mysteries themselves

are curated in such a way that we can because they scale, right? And they conduct us further up and further into the divine life, which is sweet. So it's like you might be looking at your human life and thinking, this is very silly. This is a very silly life. It's also just kind of weak and wounded and ugly and sloppy and yada yada, that's and such. It's like true, but that is precisely the person to whom these mysteries are addressed. That is precisely the person for whom our Lord Jesus Christ suffered, died and rose from the grave. So why not? Let's go, you know? Yeah, and it's just, that's the, yeah. Life, as we know, is difficult and there's,

we call it a valley of tears and it's for a reason. And it's just, we're just not meant to go through the darkness of this life without the light of Christ, you know, without like, without the light of the resurrection, without like knowing like, like who the, who God the Father is, you know. And I do believe that in prayer in particular, it's where we receive, not just where we think about these things or study these things, but where we become saved by these realities, where we receive these graces, and we actually are transformed by the light and the truth of Christ and that He can more and more live within His, or live His life through us. So now kind of just a transition,

like a very, kind of a sharp transition, but I'm going to talk about basketball. If we could talk about basketball real quick and whether or not Steph Curry has ruined the game by his by the proliferation of three point shot attempts a tragedy in the wake of his uh his his his uh career. Um what I want to talk about is this, is like a pastoral response to, all right, so we're talking about meditating on the mysteries, but like we're saying these prayers, and I'm like doing it while I'm going through life, and I'm supposed to be meditating on these mysteries, and I get distracted a lot, and I think about a lot of other things, and I feel bad. What would be your just sort of pastoral response to those who like, who are maybe tempted to discourage me? Like, am I doing it wrong? Am I doing it bad?

Like, what would you offer to them? Yeah. I'd say first thing is I'm a big proponent of the theological category of the optional. Just know that like, you don't have to say the Rosary. You can say the rosary. So like if you're giving it a go, you're doing all right. Next thing is I like to think about it in these terms, intention and attention. And by I like to think about it in these terms, I mean St. Thomas Aquinas described it in these terms, and I don't have original thoughts, so let's go. So when you say, I'm going to say a rosary, that's good. It's meritorious.

All right? It merits for you a reward of a richer relationship with the Most High God, which he then doles out as he sees fit to dole out. All right, so how do you make good on that intention? You could start a rosary and then fall asleep. It's still meritorious. Now, if you know that you're going to start a rosary and fall asleep and do that unto ages of ages, well, maybe it's not as meritorious because in case in point, you're actually using it as, oh, do I get to say the word soporific on a podcast? I sure hope so.

As a soporific. You're using it as a way to put yourself out, a sleep inducer. Okay, so that's not really so much a rosary as it is a kind of like meditation technique. Okay, but provided that you're intending to say a rosary, it merits as such. Okay, how do you make good on that intention? Well, you pay attention. You attend first to the words, then to the sense of the words, and then to the God present in the sense of those words. So I think ultimately like like, we shouldn't get too terribly worried about what conducts us to the goal if that proves a stumbling block or if it proves a complicating part of the story.

We're just thinking about God. Like, so you can meditate on the words and on the mysteries, that is to say the sense of the words, insofar as that's helpful as meditating upon God. But if like you're praying the second Luminous Mystery, do we pray the Luminous Mysteries on this podcast? Oh, I guess we do. Let's go. Okay, here we go. Twenty-two years old, twenty-three years old and thriving.

So you're praying the second Luminous Mystery, the miracle of the wedding feast of Cana, which for whatever reason I have it emblazoned in my mind for my time living in Bogota, Columbia as the auto manifestation of the Lord at the bodas of Cana. I love that man. The auto manifestation. It's like, what were you doing there the other day? You were kind of like coming outside of the house to like wave to people. Oh, it was an auto manifestation on Michigan Avenue. to like wave to people, oh, it was an auto manifestation on Michigan Avenue. Um, yeah. So like you're praying about that, but then you get caught up thinking about God and thinking about the fact that he could not have created, but he did create, you know, like you were thinking about him changing water to wine, but miracles,

creation, things got wild, like should you then rein it in on account of the fact that it is drifted from the express mystery upon which you're supposed to be meditating right now? I think you're all right. I think you're going to be all right, provided you're thinking about God. But like the words and the mysteries are tools whereby to help you think about God, right? Because the words narrate salvation history and then effectively the mysteries illustrate who God is in human flesh, in human time and space, but at the end of the day,

it's about God. So those are just some basic things. Yeah, so I'm going to give a response to that, and then I'm going to have a last two questions, one more substantial than the other. But, yeah, I certainly think, we come to prayer, particularly in the area of devotion, kind of like where we're at, And we, you know, I think it's kind of this language can't get hijacked, but I think it's okay. Like you kind of do the best you can with where you're at and trust that like if you're doing the best you can, this is like a pleasing offering to the Lord. Your intention is there, you're trying. Like, but at the same time, I do think so. So we don't have to beat ourselves up and we want to

be patient with ourselves and just kind of keep showing up, keep persevering and hopefully keep growing in our lives of prayer. I also do think that an attentive, a pious, a sort of like a leisurely, a well-formed praying of the Rosary does bring us in touch with such a profound grace and such a profound wealth of encounter with God, that there is also reason to do a little bit of work of sort of, again, the lexio divina, the reading, the saint writings, the meditating on sacred art, the study of these mysteries of scripture. Like all of this, I do think, right, like is just going to really enhance and make,

again, maybe subjectively, but just even more profound and the praying of the rosary. But it's so, but like, so don't beat yourself up, be patient, but also I think there's a reason to continue to grow in this. So the more serious question is this is, I was with you the other day and you used this language about, I don't know if it was like obligation or exhortation

in regards to the Most Holy Rosary and looking to whatever the book was with like the, the, what's it called? The Endulgences. The Endulgences, yeah, exactly. So could you share a little bit of that and how that influences your understanding of the rosary and the place it plays in kind of common devotion?

Yeah, so I think that like, basically we're trying to live a Christian life, and then the question is what do we need to do in order to live a Christian life? And you can look first at what's obligatory, right? You got to go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, you got to receive Holy Communion once a year, obviously encouraged to receive more than once a year. You got to go to the Sacrament of Confession if conscious of grave sin, at least once a year, obviously encouraged to go more than once a year. You've got to go to the sacrament of confession if conscious of grave sin at least once a year. Obviously, encouraged to go more than once a year. You've got to observe the church's fasts and abstinences, and you've got to support the church and her temporal needs. Those are the five precepts. That's what's obligatory. You know, we can

elaborate other things, but that's the baseline. So then, what next? Some people will say, well, like, you be you. Just do what feels right. Which, okay, maybe there's something to that, but I think we can discipline the discourse a little bit because there are certain things that the church says, hey, these are really darn good ways to be a Christian. And so, I made reference to the Inchoridion of Indulgences, or just like the Handbook of Indulgences. And if you've heard of an indulgence, it's a way to deal with the punishment associated with sin, either for yourself or somebody who's passed from this life. And we make a distinction between like a partial and a plenary indulgence. A plenary indulgence

deals with all the punishment associated with sin. There are certain things that you need to do in order to fulfill or in order to like obtain a plenary indulgence. So you have to perform an indulgence act, receive Holy Communion on the day itself, go to the sacrament of confession within a week in either sense, like before or after, and then pray for the Pope like an Our Father Hail Mary, and then distance yourself from sin, so like kind of renounce any attachments of sin. But when it comes to those indulgence acts, there are four indulgence acts which you can perform any day of the year. They always work. And those would be 30 minutes of prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, making

the Stations of the Cross into public church or oratory, reading sacred Scripture for 30 minutes, and then reciting the Most Holy Rosary in common. So when you're like looking to conceive of and implement a life of devotion, a life of piety, I think that's a good place to look because the church obliges you to certain things, she exhorts you to certain things, and then she like, you know, commends certain other things and allows certain other things, so it's good to take note of those. But like for instance, the church seems more motivated that you pray the Most Holy Rosary than that you pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I don't say that to be like stirring up controversy.

F.G. prefers the rosary to the DMC. It's like, okay, I'm just saying the things, you know, I'm just saying the things. So I think that the reason for which we are kind of exhorted to, you know, positively encouraged to pick up the Most Holy Rosary is because it's proven efficacious in the life of the church, because it has a kind of heritage of sanctification. And so, yeah, like I think in the 21st century we were all really nervous about making strident recommendations like you have to do this or you have to do this or, because all of our contemporaries are making them, so a lot of us are inclined to back away from them.

But here's a case where the church says like, listen, the Rosary makes saints. So, you might pick it up, you might pray it. I think that's the basic disposition. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I don't want to open up another sort of thing, but I was just thinking today, it's like, we certainly have a history of saints, canonized saints who did not have a devotion to the rosary in particular, just because it wasn't as popular or it wasn't really around. But I'd be curious, like with the future canonization of like more contemporary modern saints in the last,

you know, saints born in the last century, it'll be interesting to see how many of them are canonized that do not have a devotion like to the rosary. Certainly a lot of the big saints that I'm aware of, that would be the more contemporary saints, are pretty well renowned for also having a great devotion to the Rosary, John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Pope, or Padre Pio, et cetera.

You know. Future Saint Pierre George, your Society. There you go. So the last question is this, this is the most edgy, controversial question is gonna put you on the hot seat. Love it. Potentially make you the bad guy.

This is a question which for pious Catholics could be like coming after the Easter bunny or Santa Claus. I'm ready. Now, if a Catholic is, with good intention, is trying to pray the rosary and they fall asleep, does their guardian angel finish the rosary for them? That's a great question. So I don't know.

I will tell a little story and then I'll wrap it up. I promise this story will only take 75 minutes. Just kidding. Okay. So my sister...I think it was like second or third grade. My sister, Kristin, whom I mentioned sometimes falls asleep when praying the rosary. Although I haven't checked in with her on her rosary praying practice in like 15 years, so she might be a vigilant rosary warrior, so I don't mean to besmirch her name.

But she had a friend in grade school who was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo an aggressive course of treatment during which this friend lost her hair. Uh, so she and her other friends were like sweet, just like awesome squad in solidarity. They all cut their hair real short. Uh, but at one point she was praying an Ovena for her friend and, um, you know, it was, like day two,

day three, I don't recall. She was praying in bed before she went to sleep and she fell asleep before completing the prayers of the novena. And she came downstairs the next morning, obviously distressed because it's like, what's the point of a novena that you interrupt? And she was greeted by my mother and my mom said, so I noticed, you know, like when I went upstairs to tuck you in, that you hadn't finished. So I held your hand and I finished it for you, which I think is precious. My mom, cute lady.

But it gets better because later that day, that is to say that night, my sister Kristin came back to my mom and was like, Mom, feeling a little tired. Could you hold my hand and finish my prayers? So I think, I mean, apropos of the category of the optional, um, you know, like what, what would be the reason for which we'd be upset at the prospect of falling asleep when praying the Rosary? It might be like, you know, we're in the middle of a middle of a, in the middle of a, yeah, in the middle of a 54 Rosary Dave Rosarya. I can't speak right now. Wowza. Okay. Maybe we are in the middle of a 54-day Rosary Novena to find our spouse. By we, I don't mean you or me. I mean

other people. So it's like, and you miss a day and you're like, Holy smokes, maybe I'm not going to find my... I would just say it's okay. Whether or not your guardian angel finished your Rosary, I personally don't care that much. What I do care about is whether you want the Lord. You know, like whether you want the...because the rosary is an expression of that desire, and the Lord is enough, regardless of whether or not you get married. He'll always be enough. And in heaven, you'll only have Him. You know, you'll never be married nor given in marriage because there's no sacraments in heaven. There's just realities. That is to say the reality. That is to say God. I mean, you get each other, but you get each other in Him. So, I think that whenever we find ourselves in such a

situation, it's an opportunity to ask the Lord if He's enough for us, and then let Him respond, and maybe just, you know, ask consultation of our guardian angel if He has some sweet insights too. Beautiful. All right, great answer, Father.. I think we ended, ended very well there. So thanks Father Gregory of Pond for making time for being with me and thanks everybody for joining us today. And I look forward to praying with you on today's episode as well. And yeah, really grateful to be making the journey with all y'all. Poco a poco. God bless y'all.