The Greatest Marian Prayer

The prayers of the Rosary are likewise Christ-centered, with Jesus as the source of the Our Father and the ultimate object of praise of the Hail Mary. As Paul VI pointed out, the prayerful repetition of the Hail Marys makes up "an unceasing praise of Christ, who is the ultimate object of both the angel’s announcement and the greeting of the mother of John the Baptist."

Vocal and Meditative Prayer

A third principal quality of the Rosary is its harmonious blend of vocal prayer and meditation. In one of his numerous Rosary encyclicals, Pope Leo XIII explained:

The Rosary, again, is an incarnational prayer that encompasses both vocal prayer and mental prayer, both head and heart, both soul and body. The physical use of beads and formation of the words in vocal prayer are important in this body-soul complement of the Rosary. As we count the prayers by the physical use of beads, the soul is freed from the practical distraction of counting and able to focus upon the prayers and meditations.

Beyond fulfilling this practical need for counting, the physical involvement of the body, coupled with the physical formation of the words by the lips (even when sound is not possible), helps to keep the body at the disposition of the soul, to keep the body focused and subordinated to the soul’s higher soaring in prayer. St. Louis Marie de Montfort strongly emphasized the value of fingering the beads while in spiritual conversation with God during the praying of the Rosary prayer. (23)

Meditation can, therefore, be considered the "soul" of the Rosary, while vocal prayer (coupled with the physical use of beads) can be considered the "body" of the Rosary. As one author succinctly put it, "the beads are there for the sake of the prayers, and the prayers are there for the sake of the Mysteries." (24)

Christian Meditation

What exactly is meditation? Meditation is the prayerful pondering of the mind and heart on some supernatural truth or object. Generally, authentic Christian meditation has at least three basic elements: consideration, application and resolution. (25)

Consideration is when the mind intellectually but prayerfully considers the spiritual subject in question, for example, pondering prayerfully the event of the Annunciation.

Application is when the person in meditative prayer applies the truths of the spiritual subject, for example, a mystery of the Rosary, to one’s own spiritual life. It is to answer questions like, "What does the Annunciation have to do with me and my own spiritual life? How do I, like the Virgin of Nazareth in answer to the Angel Gabriel’s message, respond to God’s daily and oftentimes surprising manifest will?"

Resolution is to make some practical resolve in my own spiritual life based on the truth and application of the Gospel mystery. It is to say, for example, I resolve with the help of God’s grace to be more receptive to God’s daily will and to meet it with the "fiat" of Mary to the best of my ability.

Although generally there need not be an explicit step by step use of these elements of meditation as just described, the acts of consideration, application and resolution are nonetheless organic parts of authentic Christian meditation and, thereby, parts of the praying of the Rosary.

Some have perceived the Rosary as a monotonous, even boring prayer of repetition that incorporates nothing more than a rather redundant type of vocal prayer. Several popes have responded specifically to this objection to the Rosary. Pope Pius XI responded to the issue of monotony with these words:

In a similar voice, Pope Pius XII confirmed:

Even for those who find it challenging to meditate consistently during the praying of the Rosary, the prayerful repetition of vocal prayer is not a fruitless practice, since for vocal prayer to be considered prayer at all, as St. Teresa of Avila points out, it still must be coupled with some attention and devotion. (28) When meditational prayer is a consistent ingredient in praying the Rosary, this favored Marian prayer becomes a spiritual open door into the revealed Gospel mysteries of God, a means of prayer as unlimited in spiritual depth and efficacy as the mysteries are themselves.

John Paul II offers this description of this profound meditational dimension of the Rosary:

This is why the unlimited nature of Gospel meditation in the Rosary prayer can be a springboard even beyond meditation to authentic Christian contemplation. In this regard, Garrigou-LaGrange calls the Rosary:

The maxim is therefore true, if correctly understood, that to "grow bored" of praying the Rosary is to grow bored of meditating on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The combined effect of vocal prayer and meditation makes up a powerful and efficacious means of spiritual growth, but also an effective instrument of physical and emotional tranquility. One author describes both the spiritual and physical/emotional peace that comes from this vocal-mental prayer harmony of the Rosary:

Hence the emotional life as well greatly benefits from the holistic prayer of the Rosary.

Fruits of Praying the Rosary

The inestimable spiritual benefits of praying the Rosary daily are such that they can in no way be comprehensively treated or categorized. At best, we can see indications of the tremendous greatness of this Marian prayer by taking a glimpse of the responses to the Rosary by popes, saints, and even the Mother of God herself in her apparitions to the modern world.

The popes have been nothing short of superlative in their praises of the Rosary and its spiritual benefit. The vicars of Christ consistently place the Rosary second only to the Mass and the liturgical prayer of the Church as the most highly recommended prayer form. When one considers the ubiquitous forms of diverse prayer within the universal Church of Christ for the last two thousand years, the popes’ placing of the Rosary second only to the liturgy bespeaks its sublime spiritual value.

Many Roman pontiffs have exhorted the Christian faithful to pray daily and frequently the Rosary by embellishing the prayer with generous Church indulgences.

A Church indulgence is a partial or complete pardon for the remaining atonement needed for sin after the guilt and the eternal punishment for sin has been forgiven. If atonement is not made for sin in this life, "temporal punishment" for sin must be expiated in Purgatory (cf. 2 Mac 12:42-46; Mt 12:32; 1 Cor 3:15). (32)

Apart from the negative association that indulgences received in a time of disciplinary abuse during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Church indulgences remain an extremely valuable spiritual gift of the Church, and the popes have been particularly generous in endowing the praying of the Rosary with Church indulgences.