Through meditation I've gotten the impression that some kind of regular, fairly structured prayer might be a helpful part of my spiritual development. I was raised a rather lukewarm protestant, went through a phase of materialist atheism, and have found my way into a religious practice with the Germanic Gods that so far seems to be working rather well for me. As such, I have almost zero knowledge of the rosary or other Catholic prayers, besides what I've seen in movies.
With the very little research I've done so far, the following points have struck me: 1) Like the Lord's Prayer, the rosary in English was composed by folks with a good ear for poetics but also for maintaining the spiritual significance of the translation 2) The Rosary has a very solid and deep structure: it begins with two prayers re-affirming the overall religious view of the universe of the church (Apostle's Creed and Our Father/Lord's Prayer), moves into three Hail Marys on the broad Marian themes of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and then proceeds into the mysteries being contemplated in this session, which collectively cover the whole Catholic liturgical calendar, and then closing prayers. 3) The actual length of saying the Hail Marys spaces out how long to spend on each aspect of the mysteries being contemplated. The very fact of getting the prayer to the point where you can recite it while also actively thinking about something else strikes me as likely a pretty powerful technique 4) The very nuanced interplay of repetition and novelty strikes me as very likely spiritually robust (for example, you're saying the same Hail Mary over and over again, but thinking about different aspects of the mysteries, and different mysteries on different days of the week, but you come back to them every week, and so forth)
All of which is to say that I think studying the rosary will do me some good in coming up with prayers to my own Gods, but I'm so new to all of this that I would very much appreciate if anyone can point me to "oh, St. So-and-So did a thorough analysis of the Rosary" or "Such-and-such academic looked at the Rosary and Buddhist bead-prayers and found the common structural elements". If not that, then any experience with what the rosary/other contemplative prayer has done for folks, what has worked for them, and so forth, would be most welcome.
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branchandroot
Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources
Date: 2022-07-18 05:22 am (UTC)With the very little research I've done so far, the following points have struck me:
1) Like the Lord's Prayer, the rosary in English was composed by folks with a good ear for poetics but also for maintaining the spiritual significance of the translation
2) The Rosary has a very solid and deep structure: it begins with two prayers re-affirming the overall religious view of the universe of the church (Apostle's Creed and Our Father/Lord's Prayer), moves into three Hail Marys on the broad Marian themes of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and then proceeds into the mysteries being contemplated in this session, which collectively cover the whole Catholic liturgical calendar, and then closing prayers.
3) The actual length of saying the Hail Marys spaces out how long to spend on each aspect of the mysteries being contemplated. The very fact of getting the prayer to the point where you can recite it while also actively thinking about something else strikes me as likely a pretty powerful technique
4) The very nuanced interplay of repetition and novelty strikes me as very likely spiritually robust (for example, you're saying the same Hail Mary over and over again, but thinking about different aspects of the mysteries, and different mysteries on different days of the week, but you come back to them every week, and so forth)
All of which is to say that I think studying the rosary will do me some good in coming up with prayers to my own Gods, but I'm so new to all of this that I would very much appreciate if anyone can point me to "oh, St. So-and-So did a thorough analysis of the Rosary" or "Such-and-such academic looked at the Rosary and Buddhist bead-prayers and found the common structural elements". If not that, then any experience with what the rosary/other contemplative prayer has done for folks, what has worked for them, and so forth, would be most welcome.
Thanks much!
Jeff