The Rosary in a Year (with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames) - Day 16: Glorify Him (2026)

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

How often do we pray a prayer of purely praise and adoration to God? Fr. Mark-Mary explains how the Rosary and the Glory Be can be said as a prayer of praise, drawing from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Psalms, leading us to enter into adoration of God. Today’s focus is “Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end,” and we will be praying one Our Father, three Hail Marys, and one Glory Be. For the complete prayer plan, visit https://ascensionpress.com/riy.

Hi, I'm Father Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars of the renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast. We're through prayer and meditation, the rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in the Year is brought to you by Ascension. This is Day 16. To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a Year, visit ascensionpress.com forward slash rosary in a year or text, R-I-Y-Y-3-77. You'll get an outline of how we're going to pray each month, and it's a great way to track your progress. The best place to listen to the podcast is in the Ascension app. There are special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the full Rosary with myself and other friars.

No matter what app you're listening in, remember to tap follow or subscribe for your daily notifications. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be world without end. Amen. Let's go ahead and lead into this discussion with a brief reading from Psalm 145.

I will extol you my God and king and bless your name forever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. In preparation for today's episode, as I was reflecting on the glory be, The first question was this, like, what kind of prayer we're talking about? What is happening in the glory be? Or like, what am I supposed to be doing? What is this?

And I believe, you know, the glory be, it's a prayer of praise. And this is what the catacism says about the prayer of praise. Praise is the form of prayer, which recognizes most immediately that God is God. And going on, this is 2649. prayer of praise is entirely disinterested and rises to God. Allots him and gets him glory for his own sake, quite beyond what he has done, but simply because he is. And I think this disinterested part is really important.

So many of the types of prayer that we have are this mutual kind of giving and receiving. For example, in a prayer of contrition through the Holy Spirit, we're looking at ourselves. We're seeing, okay, here's where I'm struggling, here's where I'm failing. We give it to the Lord and ask for his mercy. in a prayer of petition, we recognize God's generosity and goodness, our dependence, our need, but that we are sons and daughters with confidence we bring to him our needs, trusting that above all he will give us a greater sharing his own divine life.

In a prayer of Thanksgiving, we look at the different things that God has done in our lives for our salvation in the world, and we give him thanks for that. In a prayer of praise, what we're doing is we just love. look at him. And with joy and with gratitude and with adoration and awe, like we bless him. We glorify him. We praise him. Not because of what we need or because what he has done.

We just look at him and rejoice in him and glorify him because of who he is. It's radically. It's totally disinterested. Our gaze, it's totally disinterested. it's totally removed from ourselves and we look at him and we rejoice in him and we praise him. Pope Benedict has this really beautiful line which can be summarized to be this like love is an exodus from me to you and praise is part of this exodus. It's not about me right now. It's just about you and kind of the external disposition is like hand raised eyes looking at him just

like, you are good. You are beautiful. You are God. You are holy. Holy is your name. And I think a beautiful way to kind of understand this is reflecting on this experience that a dad shared with me about his son. He shares the story about his wife was pregnant and she went to labor. And it was just this really, really, really long labor that took close to 48 hours the way everything went. And by the time they get home, his wife is just done, right? She's just totally done because everything she's gone through in a couple of operations. And so she just passes out. And this dad who, you know, was what the mom went through is way more than what he went through. But he was still up with her. He was still in it, you know, for like, for like two days. And so he gets home and he helps his wife get to bed.

And then he holds his son. And there's this overwhelming movement of love and of joy. And all night, he just stays up looking at his son, rejoicing in his son, loving his son. to this point, like his son hasn't done anything other than B. Just because of who the son is, there's this movement of love and affection and joy. You are so beautiful. You are so good. I love you so much. My brothers and sisters, I think this is when we're praying the glory B, I think this is where we're trying to get to.

And St. Francis has one of my very, very favorite prayers. It's called like the prayers of God. And it's this whole litany of God, like, you are good, you are holy, you are Father, you are Son, you are Holy Spirit, you are beauty, you are rest, you are joy, you are our sweetness, you are hope. So as we pray the glory be each time, we just stop, we just stop looking at ourselves, we just stop thinking about what we need, but stop thinking about our problems, we stop. And we radically in a disinterested way in a prayer of praise, we look at him and say, you are good, you are holy, holy, holy. is your name. We bless you. We adore you. We love you. So my brothers and sisters, with this disinterested love, prayer of praise, that is just and right, let us glorify him and let us praise him as we pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Father who art in heaven, howlo be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death, amen. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death, amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death, amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son.

and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right. Thanks for joining me and praying with me another day, and I look forward to continuing this journey with you tomorrow. Poca-Woco, Poca, friends. All right, see y'all.