GARY JANSEN
Author of Station to Station
THE HEALING POWER OF PRAYING THE ROSARY
BACKSTORY
Twenty years ago, I wrote a short book on the Rosary, my very first book, now long out of print, in which I shared the following story:
I had been working out at a local gym. One evening, a jacked trainer with arms the size of small countries approached me as I finished a set of exercises and said, “You’re carrying too much weight.”
“Excuse me?” I replied.
“Too much weight,” he repeated. “You’re doing the exercise wrong. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
I stared at him for a moment as my ego processed what he was saying. The trainer pulled the pin out of the machine, reduced the weight by more than half, and showed me the proper form for the exercise.
“You try it,” he said.
I did. I could barely lift the lighter weight.
Walking home that evening, the trainer’s words kept running through my head, reminding me of a Beatles song, “Carry That Weight.” Later that night, as I prayed the Rosary, which had recently become my before-sleep ritual, and meditated on the Sorrowful Mysteries of Christ, it hit me.
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You’re carrying too much weight.
Words from the Bible I hadn’t thought of in some time flooded my mind: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
I asked myself then (and I ask myself now), Why had life become so burdensome? At that time, I was running on a spiritual high. I had returned to the faith of my youth, I was praying every day, and I experienced levels of peace that felt unimaginable for someone who grew up in a family that epitomized the word dysfunction. My career was progressing, my young family was happy, and I was living my dream as a writer and editor. And then that spiritual high just crashed. God seemed to have gone on vacation, leaving me alone in the dog days of summer. I didn’t mind the heat so much as the tedium of monotonously repetitive, lazy days; a long drought of the soul ensued. Like arid ground that becomes cracked and desiccated beneath a relentless sun, I felt broken, dry, and depleted.
Still, like a good farmer back in the nineteenth century, and with rosary in hand, I would pray for rain.
The rain never came. Some tumbleweed, yes, and dry lightning, and an occasional drop of water on my head when clouds teased the possibility of relief (come to think of it, those drops might not have been rain).
That night after the gym encounter, as I prayed the Rosary (with a special intention for my mom), I realized that maybe God wasn’t the problem. Maybe the problem was me. Maybe
I wasn’t listening to God. I came to the revelation that the Rosary isn’t a way of getting God’s attention; the Rosary is a way of getting me to pay attention.
That moment of revelation was a moment of grace. With that newfound awareness, I allowed myself to be healed by the presence of Jesus. This healing was not just emotional or mental. It was also deeply spiritual—a restoration of my soul’s balance in relation to life’s burdens. The Rosary, with its rhythmic prayers, became a channel for me to find holistic healing by connecting my mind, and body, and spirit, each part to the other. My life was never again the same. The desert of spiritual dryness gave way to a renewal of spirit, with the Rosary the oasis creating a cool island of lush vegetation. What’s my point? Simply, the Rosary can change your life by opening your eyes to seeing God, and opening your ears to hearing God.
This is a book about learning to pray to Jesus with Mary through the Rosary, which is both a devotion in honor of Mary and also a unique way of getting to know her Son. It’s true that there are many wonderful, poetic, practical, insightful books that have been written on the Rosary, and I will mention a few in the pages that follow. But this book, which is centered on the Rosary as a meditative experience, is different. This book includes a mini-exploration of some of the neuroscience behind the benefits we receive through spiritual practices like praying the Rosary.
We live in times of personal, national, and global anxiety. Times when more and more people are turning away from
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organized religion. One of the reasons for this rejection is a lack of “evidence” for God: Why believe in something when there is (seemingly) no evidence for its existence? This book doesn’t look to prove anything to anyone, and it certainly doesn’t look to science to prove that God is real. But what it does do is offer evidence about how a devotion like the Rosary can heal us spiritually and physically. Since our bodies and souls are integral to our existence, how we treat the soul affects the body, and how we treat the body affects the soul. Hurt one and you hurt the other. Heal one, and you heal the other.
Many of us attempt to do too much in our lives. We’re like busy Martha in the Bible, who needed the example of her sister, Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to his teachings to understand what is most essential in our lives. Jesus kindly explained to Martha that her sister had her priorities straight.
The Rosary allows us to get our priorities straight.
This is not a long book. As a writer, I believe in the get-inand-get-out method, and I live by the philosophy of never staying too long at a party. What follows are a series of reflections, insights, and practical techniques for praying the Rosary so that you might elevate your spiritual practice.
It is my prayer that this little book takes some of the weight—the “too much weight”—from your shoulders. And eases some of the pressure you’re feeling. And maybe even helps to heal wherever it is that you feel worn down or broken. My hope is that you see this beautiful devotion in a new light so that, like me, you too can spend time with Jesus, sit in his presence, and be open to the healing power of his love.
FULL OF GRACE
The Rosary has had a life-altering, healing impact on my life. This book explores the origins of that impact and how you can benefit from making this simple devotion that has been cherished by the faithful, the troubled, the inquisitive, and the weary for more than nine centuries a part of your daily life. Often viewed as a distinctly Catholic practice focusing on the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Rosary is a universal prayer that offers new levels of awareness of Christ by deepening our sensitivity to Jesus, which in turn brings about a richer understanding of ourselves. Through this growing awareness, we broaden our ability to live our lives anchored in love.
Or, as my grandmother Nana used to say, “When we get to know Jesus, we get to know why Jesus loves us so much.” I loved my Nana and heeded the blue-collar wisdom she shared with me as I was growing up. That being said, for much of my life I didn’t think Jesus liked me, let alone loved me. There are many reasons why I thought this, some of which I’ve covered in previous books, including Holy Ghosts and Station to Station. 1 The point here is that I endured seemingly endless dark nights of the soul.
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Case in point: In the Backstory of this book, I mentioned that on the night of the gym-inspired insight, I prayed the Rosary with the intention of my mother in mind. At that time, my mom had found herself in a rather precarious situation. Financial constraints and the complexities of the ordeal made the problems seem insurmountable. Her mental health and her very future were on the line, and I tried to help her as best I could.
At the same time, my wife and I were new parents, and my involvement in the dealings to extract my mom from her difficulties carried a weight so great that it threatened my marriage. I felt as if I were stuck between Scylla and Charybdis, with either option untenable, if not disastrous. I felt as if I had no firm footing. As if I were treading water. And that consoling presence? It was nowhere to be found.
I remember sitting in my mom’s living room sometime after the gym incident feeling overwhelmed with anxiety. I was worried about my mom, myself, my wife, and our child. Then, as if something within me was praying through me, I began praying the Hail Mary. Over and over, I prayed the Hail Mary. My thought, and, I suppose, my hope, was that maybe another mom could help us out here. Without consciously realizing I was doing it, my mind slipped easily into a practice I had learned as a kid in Catholic school. The practice of praying the Rosary.
That day, as I murmured, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” I prayed for a miracle. And do you know what happened?
Nothing. Not a darn thing.
There was no miraculous solution, no sudden resolution to our problems, not even a flash of insight as to how I could help my mom.
And yet . . .
And yet a sense of calm washed over me.
It reminded me of a time when I was a teenager, swimming at the beach on a particularly windy day. I had swum farther out than I should have; eventually, I started to panic that I wasn’t going to make it back. I began swimming parallel to the shore, trying to inch my way back to land, quickly growing ever more tired and frightened. Then a large wave came crashing over me. It thrust me down under the water, which was terrifying. But it also it moved me forward. When I surfaced, my feet were able to make contact with the sandy shore, and I realized that I was safe.
Immersing myself spontaneously in this prayer engendered a similar sense of safety. Peace. The welcome sensation of solid ground beneath my feet.
Had I been rescued? I don’t know, but that feeling of calm enabled me to banish the fear response, which in turn opened up my rational mind, and I was able to help my mom navigate her challenges with dignity and optimism. The struggles remained, but the burdens felt lighter. Something happened. Something full of grace. Mary wrapped her arms around me and took me to a place of love.
Since that fateful day, the Rosary has become part of the very fabric of my being.
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And I’ve come to see that healing through prayer is not always instantaneous or miraculous but, like many things, it is a process. Each time I pray, I feel another part of my wounded spirit, mind, or body being touched by divine grace. Just as a physical wound takes time to heal, so, too, do the hurts of our hearts and souls.
The Rosary is a prayer of devotion, of reverence. And like all prayer it is the gateway to a communion with Jesus. It is a meditative practice in which we focus on a unique aspect of the sacred, a practice that can transform our lives by attuning us to God’s voice. Devotion quiets the chatter so that we can hear and experience the divine in a deeply personal way. Of all the Catholic devotions, the Rosary is by far the one that can draw us to an elevated experience of Christ, by the sheer fact that it requires about fifteen to twenty minutes to pray, which is just enough time to enter into a contemplative state without necessarily feeling fatigued and falling asleep.
The Rosary is a Marian prayer, meaning it is a prayer of Mary, but most important it is a way for Mary to bring forth an experience of her Son. The mysteries and stories within the Rosary focus on Jesus. While Christ is at the center of the Rosary, it is Mary who guides us there. She brings us closer to God by amplifying his still, small voice in ways we can experience and comprehend, offering a uniquely human perspective in celebrating the life of Jesus. This is one of the glories of the Rosary.
In the Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise upon learning she would be the mother of Jesus, Mary says that her soul magnifies the Lord. She does just that in the Rosary. By drawing closer to Mary—Jesus’s mother, our mother—we find that God’s presence in our lives is magnified through our senses in sight, sound, touch, motion, and even smell. In other words, as we come to know Jesus better through our sensory experiences, we get better at knowing God in all things.
One of the best ways of engaging our senses in spiritual practice is through our imagination, which elevates our sensory experiences to something beyond the known world. Something that touches the soul. As we shall see in the pages to follow, one of the most effective ways to elevate the spiritual life is by engaging the imagination in praying the Rosary.
IMAGINE
I
magine that you’ve fallen deeply in love with the person of your dreams. Visualize this ideal partner—stunning to look at, intelligent, wise, loving, loyal, and a friend unlike any other. In their presence, you feel special. You are energized, inspired, amazed. You feel as if you are limitless.
This love surpasses any you’ve known. It’s mutual and it’s nurturing, and it makes you more utterly human. Perhaps your soul, long dormant, has been awakened by this person. You sense a transformation within yourself. The world, once obscured by diaphanous veils, brightens with every step you take toward your beloved. Colors intensify, sounds sharpen, and everyday noises morph into music. For the first time since childhood, you experience wonder.
As your relationship deepens, time seems to revolve around just the two of you—until the day your beloved invites you to meet their parents. Anxiety grips you. What will they think of you? Are you worthy? Though you’ve managed to keep some flaws from your beloved, parents, especially mothers, have a way of seeing through facades.
Despite your nerves, your beloved reassures you. On the day of the meeting, as you approach their parents’ home, the
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hand of your beloved tucked inside your sweaty palm steadies your nerves. You feel intimidated because your beloved is complete; by comparison, you feel less than whole. The door opens, and you meet Mom. She is beauty and kindness personified as she warmly welcomes you into the family. All your fears dissolve in her presence.
You look around. Although you don’t see the father, you sense his presence everywhere.
Now, let’s take a step back. You’ve never experienced a love like this, and while you feel open, your beloved remains a mystery. You have questions. It’s not that you don’t feel close, but you crave knowing absolutely everything about your beloved. You wonder, What were you like as a child? What were your parents doing before they had you? What were your friends like? Did you ever get lost? Were you ever lonely? Frightened? And why did you come into my life?
You’ve held off asking these questions of your beloved, but, strangely, in front of Mom, you feel comfortable enough to pose them. To find out more. She seems ready to embrace you by helping you understand everything. Who better to provide insight than the woman who carried your beloved for nine months?
You start asking your questions. She smiles and takes a scrapbook from a shelf, and you begin looking at pictures together. “This is me when I first found out I was going to have a baby,” she says. “Here’s one after I gave birth. So many people came to visit us. Here are pictures from a wedding we attended.”
You sit with her, paging through this treasure chest of memories. The pictures tell stories, revealing the happiness, sorrows, and joys of her family. Your worries, fears, and doubts melt away, and by the grace of God you are transformed by love.
Just as Mary’s motherly presence calms us in our fears, the Rosary itself can become a tool for healing our anxieties. This reparative influence happens as we get to know Jesus better. And Mary is the key to understanding Christ in our lives. It begins with the Annunciation, when she learns of God’s incarnation within her. Thus, the Christ story begins with the announcement that God is within each of us. Just as Mary carried Jesus, we are called to permit Jesus to grow in us, to carry Jesus within us every moment of the day. This spiritual gestation takes place over a lifetime. The more we nurture God within us, the more we become vessels of the divine for others; the more we care for this inner Christ child, the more we give life to the presence that gives life to us.
Nice words, but how do we accomplish this calling?
One way is to do what Jesus did. The Gospels, among other things, are the acts of Jesus, a prequel to the Acts of the Apostles, which is the adventures of Christ’s followers. The Gospels show us Christ in action—Christ preaching, listening, educating, healing. The Gospels also show us how
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Jesus dealt with suffering. Nothing in Scripture or tradition ever said there would be no suffering. Each generation beats their breasts and wails, Why does God allow suffering? but there is no simple answer that satisfies. Suffering exists. Predictably, Jesus showed us through his Passion how to act when life and the world seem to be closing in on us.
The other way is to just be. Be in the presence of Jesus. Focus on the present moment. Try as hard as you can not to think about the past or ruminate on the future. I love this piece of wisdom from St. Thérèse of Lisieux: “If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient, but I only look at the present, I forget the past, and I take good care not to forestall the future. When we yield to discouragement or despair, it is usually because we think too much about the past and the future.”2
In other words, be here now.
When we cultivate ways of being in God’s presence through prayer and meditation, we enter a space where these spiritual practices may not even be necessary. Like Martha in the Bible, we do a lot—we take care of our families, we go to work or school, we feed our families and houseguests—but, as we talked about earlier, Martha’s sister, Mary, demonstrates the better way to spend our time. As James notes in his letter in the New Testament, right action is good. But sometimes we just need to sit at Jesus’s feet and do nothing. Sometimes we just need to spend time with him and chill. When we do, we lay claim to a special grace, a form of spiritual osmosis where we absorb something of our Creator in a way that energizes and heals.
In my book Station to Station, I offer a new way of seeing the Stations of the Cross as a series of responses to difficulties in our lives rather than strictly as a journey of suffering. Of course, the Stations, which is literally a chronicle of Jesus walking to his death, is a journey in much the same way that the Rosary is a journey. To pray the Rosary is to walk through the life and times of Jesus and his mother. Over the years, however, the Rosary has become for me less a journey, more a way of spending time with family.
For some time now, I have referred to Jesus as my brother from another mother. This is meant as a term of endearment, a way of expressing closeness for a friend you hold dear. But I could also say that Jesus is a brother from my mother or, even better, our mother. As the mother of Jesus, Mary is our mother too, and as the mother of the universal Church she shares a special bond with us. She is someone who watches over us, someone who acts on our behalf. And we share with Mary the indwelling of Christ. Just as Mary carried Jesus physically, we also carry Jesus—spiritually—within us.
This makes us arks of the covenant. You may recall from the Bible that the ark was the case in which was enclosed the Word of God in the form of the Ten Commandments. We carry the Word within us, too; we carry within us Christ, “the Word,” as described by John in his Gospel. And just as Mary loved and cared for the baby she carried within, so, too, are we called to love and care for Christ by keeping his commandments.
This is to say that we are all family—at a spiritual level and at a physical level too. (Although this is not a book about our