Pray the Rosary!

To help you to be better armed against their onslaught I am going to tell you some of the things these people are always saying and thinking. This is to put you on your guard against them all, but not so much in the case of heretics and out-and-out licentious people, but particularly those who are "respectable" in the eyes of the world, and those who are devout (strange as it may seem) but have no use for the Holy Rosary.

"What is it that this word sower would say" (Acts 17:18). "Come, let us oppress him, for he is against us." That is to say: "What is he doing saying so many Rosaries? What is it he is always mumbling? Such laziness! And what a waste of time to keep sliding those old beads along—he would do much better to work and not be bothered with this foolishness. I know what I'm talking about..."

"All you have to do, I suppose, is to say your Rosary, and a fortune will fall from heaven into your lap! The Rosary gives you everything you need without your lifting a finger! But hasn't it been said: "God helps those who help themselves?" There's no need then of getting mixed up with so many prayers. 'A brief prayer is heard in heaven,' one Our Father and Hail Mary will do provided they are well said."

"God has never told us to say the Rosary—of course it's all right, it's not a bad devotion when you've got the time. But don't think for one minute that people who say the Rosary are any more sure of heaven than we are. Just look at the saints who never said it! Far too many people want to make everybody see through their own eyes: folk who carry everything to extremes, scrupulous people who see sin almost everywhere, making sweeping statements and saying that all those who don't say the Rosary will go to hell."

"Oh yes, the Rosary is all right for old women who can't read. But surely the Little Office of Our Lady is much more worthwhile than the Rosary? Or the Seven Penitential Psalms? And how could anything be more beautiful than the Psalms which are inspired by the Holy Spirit? You say you have agreed to say the Rosary every day; this is nothing but a fire of straw—you know very well it won't last! Wouldn't it be better to undertake less and to be more faithful about it?"

"Come on, my friend, take my word for it, say your morning and night prayers, work hard during the day and offer it up—God doesn't ask any more of you than this. Of course you've got your living to earn; if you were a man of leisure I shouldn't say anything—you could say as many Rosaries as you like then. But as for now, say your Rosary on Sundays and Holy Days when you have lots of time, if you really must say it"

"But really and truly—what are you doing with an enormous pair of beads? You look like an old woman instead of a man! I've seen a little Rosary of only one decade—it's just as good as one of fifteen decades. What on earth are you wearing it on your belt for, fanatic that you are? Why don't you go the whole way and wear it around your neck like the Spaniards? They carry an enormous Rosary in one hand—and a dagger in the other."

"For goodness sake drop those external devotions; real devotion is in the heart . . . etc. etc. . . ."

Similarly, not a few clever people and learned scholars may occasionally try to dissuade you from saying the Rosary (but they are, of course, proud and self willed). They would rather encourage you to say the Seven Penitential Psalms or some other prayers. If a good confessor has given you a Rosary for your penance and has told you to say it every day for a fortnight or a month, all you have to do to get your penance changed to prayers, fasts, Masses or alms, is to go to confession to one of these others.

If you consult certain people in the world who lead lives of prayer, but who have never tried the Rosary, they will not only not encourage it but will turn people a way from it to get them to learn contemplation—just as though the Holy Rosary and contemplation were incompatible, just as if all the saints who have been devoted to the Rosary had not enjoyed the heights of sublime contemplation.

Your nearest enemies will attack you all the more cruelly because you are so close to them. I am speaking of the powers of your soul and your bodily senses—these are distractions of the mind, distress and uncertainty of the will, dryness of the heart, exhaustion and illnesses of the body—all these will combine with the devil to say to you: "Stop saying your Rosary; that is what is giving you such a headache! Give it up; there is no obligation under pain of sin. If you must say it, say only part of it; the difficulties that you are having over it are a sign that Almighty God does not want you to say it. You can finish it tomorrow when you are more in the mood, etc... etc...."

Finally, my dear Brother, the Daily Rosary has so many enemies that I look upon the grace of persevering in it until death as one of the greatest favors Almighty God can give us.

Persevere in it and if you are faithful you will eventually have the wonderful crown which is waiting for you in heaven: "Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life. (Rev. 2:10)

This article was excerpted from The Secret of the Rosary, Montfort Publications, 1992