Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary
Reflection:
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
-Luke 10:40-42
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.
Following Mary’s good example in the above scripture selection for today, I attend a meditation meeting every Tuesday evening at 6:00 pm. Having gone to the Passionists’ Prep in Warrenton Missouri for high school, meditation is nothing new. In fact, I think my experience with the Passionists is what originally drew me to this meeting. At the meeting we spend fifteen minutes in quiet, albeit often broken by the sirens and goings on outside on the street below, meditation. Then we share our experience for the next thirty to forty minutes. The meeting builds community and peace for me and I believe, for the others who attend regularly as well.
Again, following Mary’s example above, at the Prep we took time to pray the rosary after dinner each evening. As I sit and write this reflection, I find it hard to believe that we took the time to say a whole five decades each evening, but that is what I remember.
I still have the rosary one of my fellow students made for me and occasionally, I even take it out from the drawer in the table next to my bed and say the assigned mysteries for the day.
“A family that prays together, stays together” said Father Patrick Peyton in the 1950’s. Fr. Peyton dedicated his life to promoting the family rosary and spiritual unity within the family. He was known as “the Rosary priest”. He was a member of the Holy Cross Congregation and founded the Family Rosary Crusade. (Wikipedia) Thank you Father Peyton because I believe your exhortation is what led to my family saying the rosary after dinner most days. That started as I remember in the early 1950’s when my oldest brother Terry, was stricken with bulbar polio. My parents had just returned from leaving him at the “Contagious Disease Hospital” with the doctors telling them after putting Terry in an Iron Lung to help him breathe, that they had done all they could. They asked my parents if they believed in prayer. My parents said yes and so we began our saying the family rosary that night. Terry did get out of that iron lung and is still alive today. He is a grandpa and a great grandpa.
God, thank you for the gifts of family, education, the Marthas and Marys in my life but especially for the prayer families you have provided for me. Help me today, to find a daily prayer community, one that meets more than once a week.
