Praying and Running

Luke 23 13-16 Pilate then summoned the chief priests, the rulers, and the people and said to them, "You brought this man to me and accused him of inciting the people to revolt. I have conducted my investigation in your presence and have not found this man guilty of the charges you have brought against him, nor did Herod, for he sent him back to us. So no capital crime has been committed by him. Therefore I shall have him flogged and then release him." In the 2nd Sorrowful mystery we pray to bear our earthly pain and suffering with Christian fortitude. One the thing that struck me while contemplating this mystery is the question, how often to I act like Pilate. What I mean by that is that Pilate knew that our Lord was innocent. He knew that jealousy drove the chief priest and elders to bring Christ before him with the outrageous charges they were making. But, he feared their disapproval of him more than he feared accusing and punishing an innocent person. While co...

The Rosary is a powerful prayer which offers a great deal in the way of spiritual growth. However, as with anything that is worth doing, committing to pray the Rosary on a daily basis is not without its difficulties. The Rosary is a long prayer of contemplation. To pray a full Rosary takes about an hour. For this reason many of people pray just one chaplet a day.Still, this is a 15 to 20 minute commitment. Most of us are very busy with work and school to attend to and kids and houses to care for. Finding a solid hour for prayer is very difficult. Even finding 20 minutes may take some creativity and/or sacrifice. Whatever it takes, you will be rewarded with the spiritual growth and closeness to God that we all seek as is our nature. So, what are some ways that we can find the time we need to pray the Rosary on a daily basis? I am a morning person so the first thing that comes to mind for me is getting up 20 minutes early. I have been doing this for a while and it works very well f...

John 19:16-17 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and carrying the cross himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. In the 4th Sorrowful Mystery we pray for the grace to bear our trials with patients. The 4th Sorrowful Mystery has, as I find many times, obliterated what I thought was just a cliche and through the contemplation of this mystery I have seen the truth in the old saying "everyone has their cross to bear". First of all I am brought back to Mark 8:34 where our LORD says "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." As a Christian my only goal in life should be to be a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. In order to do that I don't need a bunch of stuff. My goal shouldn't be a better job, a bigger house, a "picture perfect" family. If I somehow end up with these things, then so be it. But my purpose should be to be a di...

I would very much like to encourage Protestants to take up the practice of praying the Holy Rosary and also to strengthen Catholics in the prayer. The Rosary is a very rich prayer that can be prayed by the Christian who is very young in the faith as a way to growing in the prayer traditions of Orthodox Christianity. The Rosary can also be prayed by those who have already developed a deep prayer life as a way of nurturing the life of faith. I know, however, that there are some major obstacles for Protestants to begin this prayer. I believe that these obstacles are the result of a gross misrepresentation of the prayer and/or simple misunderstanding. First and foremost, I know that most Protestants have an aversion to the Hail Mary. I have covered that in a separate post . Following that, the three most common objections to the Rosary that I know of are that it is mistaken as a form of worship of Mary. Second is that it is a direct violation of our LORD'S command to not "babb...

Matthew 27:27-31 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus inside the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped off his clothes and threw a scarlet military cloak about him. Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They spat upon him and took the reed and kept striking him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him off to crucify him. The 3rd Sorrowful Mystery is the "Crowning with Thorns". This Mystery recalls the time after Christ was scourged at the pillar. The roman soldiers mock Jesus by calling Him "King of the Jews" and then treating Him badly. The soldiers give Him all of the symbols of a King in a way that hurts Him. In other words they are just making sport of Him. The soldiers call Christ King and then go on to ...

There are several obstacles that someone who has committed to pray the Rosary will face. Since the Rosary is a long prayer one of the biggest challenges I face is staying focused. If you have read my other posts or if you are just familiar with the prayer, you know that the mental contemplation of the Mysteries is the main focus of the prayer. So getting distracted really detracts from the prayer. Even if I am only praying 1 chaplet of the Rosary, it still takes about 20 minutes. In that amount of time your mind is bound to wander some. I have found several different things to help me when my mind begins to drift off to the worries of everyday life. The first is to understand that this is going to happen and be watching for it. If I am not vigilant I can get through a whole decade and realize I have not thought one single time about the Mystery that I should have been contemplating. So before I begin the prayer I make a conscious determination to be watchful of my wandering mind. O...

I want very badly for my protestant friends to take up the practice of the Rosary because when we pray the Rosary it is like we are at the wedding at Cana. We petition Mary and she points to her Son and says "Do whatever HE tells you". You don't have to be Catholic to pray the Rosary. But there are a few things that prevent protestants, by and large, from the practice of praying the Holy Rosary. Chief among them I would say is an aversion to the Hail Mary, the central prayer of the Rosary. Now, one thing most protestants have in common is a profound belief in the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. In other words, most protestants would argue that the Bible alone is the sole source of GOD's word. With that in mind, I will point out in this post where the Hail Mary comes from and why it is a treasured prayer of Catholics. We will go verse by verse and explore the biblical roots. Our prayer begins "Hail Mary full of Grace the LORD is with you". In Luke 1:28(NAB)...