Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: stabosz@sun.udel.edu (Rae Stabosz) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Rosary Message-ID: Date: 2 Sep 90 03:03:59 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Delaware Lines: 50 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu This is in answer to Cindy Smith's question of does anyone pray the rosary anymore. I do. I have several rosaries, one in fact I see hanging next to my Novell netware manuals off my bookcase at work. It's there with all the other clutter of my office so I don't have to worry about whether it's ostentatious or not. My two favorite rosaries (I realize I'm talking about the objects now, I'll get to the prayer in a moment) are the one my daughter brought me back from Montreal (I like it because my daughter is a religious cynic pretty much but she knows what I like) & my mother-in-law's rosary, which is nice thick heavy black glassy beads of some sort, it was probably expensive, she had it for years, & my husband asked his brothers & sisters if I could have it, after she died. So it is a link to her. I go on & off with my praying of the rosary. It's an excellent meditative prayer, & I have lots of books on how others have prayed it. Those are fun, esp. the ones with illustrations of the mysteries. I have some woodcuts that I often use as a meditative focus, from one of these books. I don't like praying it with others so much, for a couple of reasons. In my Roman Catholic parish, praying the rosary after Saturday morning Mass is a custom, but it has become somewhat politicized. The nuclear rosary group is also identified as the more conservative group, some of whom broke off from our religious education program to form their own more traditional program. There were bad feelings about that whole process, & I just can't get around the politicization of issues when the Saturday morning rosary begins, so I usually leave. Weird. I hate not being at peace when at prayer. CIndy, you have spoken of being consecrated (is that the right verb to describe it for you?) to Mary in some capacity. I have been consecrated to Mary via the St. Louis de Montfort "True Devotion" consecration for about 15 years. I go on & off with what this means, & who Mary is & how I am to live out my commitment to Christ in this manner. But the rosary is a part of this devotion, not as integral as in some other devotions. There is a "little crown of Mary" rosary chaplet which the Montfortians use also, which I have not used myself for awhile. I realize this is rambling. I'm feeling the "anti-Mary" sentiment that I see in this newsgroup sometimes, breathing down my neck. So it's hard to verbalize what I want to express. Mostly I wanted to let CIndy know that there are others out there for whom the rosary is important also. Also I have enjoyed all CIndy's postings about Anglican Catholicism. It was an eye-opener to me. I knew that Anglicans & Episcopalians were close to ROman Catholics in many ways, but I honestly had no idea that they did not refer to themselves as Protestants. When I read "a real live Catholic in Georgia" I assumed absolutely that you meant Roman Catholic, Cindy, so I have learned a lot from your postings. Rae