Many people who are devoted to the rosary like to pray it on the move. Whether the morning commute gives you time to get through a few decades (if not five), or if you’re out for a walk on a nice autumn day while holding onto your beads, the rosary lends itself to settling our minds and keeping us focused.
Yet it is not restricted to a church or a chapel. It can be prayed at home or in the car, in the morning or at night, alone or with a group. At its heart, the rosary is a prayer that is centered on Christ and the mysteries of His life, death and resurrection. Helping us grow in our love and devotion to Christ is His Mother Mary.
While the time, place and circumstances for praying the rosary might vary, it is also a prayer that is a pilgrimage of faith.
Catholics like to go on pilgrimages because it allows us to be in contact with the places where Jesus or the Apostles lived, such as the Holy Land or Rome, or for us to express our devotion in places where Our Lady appeared, such as Lourdes and Fatima.
A pilgrimage also reminds us of the journey of faith that we find ourselves on, as we go through the ups and downs of life, while keeping our eyes fixed on the glory that awaits in heaven.
The rosary allows us to do this through a set of beads and simple prayers. When we pray the rosary, we meditate on the mysteries of Christ, seeking to grow deeper in our knowledge and love of Him through these prayers.
Maybe we’ll never go to the great shrines and churches in the Holy Land that are built over the sites of these mysteries, such as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. But we can still enter into those mysteries when we meditate upon them in Our Lady’s rosary.
Christ is never distant from Our Lady, and through her rosary, He is not distant from us, either, as we come to meet Him in the crib, in the Upper Room, on the cross and at the empty tomb.
As we move the beads with our fingers, from one end to the other, we also glimpse how life passes by. We count our lives in decades (God willing, our lives will be longer than five), but as we pass each bead on our rosaries, we see how life passes from infancy, to our education, family life and careers, to our eventually decline and death.
Is that all that life is about? What comes next? As people of faith, we know that eternal life comes next – life with Christ in heaven, and at the end of time, the resurrection of our bodies.
The rosary is a pilgrimage in our hands, on our lips and in our hearts, to help us look to Jesus and Mary at whatever moment in life we might find ourselves. We go through this life, with our joys and sorrows, but it is not a journey that we follow in vain. Our eyes are fixed on Christ, Who also experienced joys and sorrows. Turning to Him, we see the glory that awaits us.
On Sept. 30, more than 3,000 people gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., for the first Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage. Several friars from the Dominican Province of St. Joseph organized the event, which drew individuals as well as parish and school groups from throughout the country.
It was an incredible event, with conferences, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the sacrament of penance, a rosary procession to the various side chapels of the basilica and a solemn closing Mass.
Obviously, these are things that can be done in one’s parish church. So why make the trip to Washington? People made the trip because we as Catholics are drawn to pilgrimages – we desire to see the holy sites, to pray at places that have been set aside in a special way for the Lord and to remember the journey that we are on.
The Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage did that for all those who participated. And for those who couldn’t make it, but who remain devoted to Our Lady’s rosary, there is a pilgrimage in our hands, one that takes decades – or perhaps 15 minutes of your day.
Father Paul Marich, O.P., is a parochial vicar at Columbus St. Patrick Church. He is also the Promoter of the Holy Rosary for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph.