The intent of the 'mysteries' of the Rosary (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Wednesday, July 25, 2012, 23:51 (300 days ago) @ herbie

Thanks, Herbie ... and also the other responses especially from BobL (from someone still a "user" albeit sharing some of my scepticism also). It occurred to me reading these responses that part of the problem (in the drift away from the rosary) is the "cultural construct" in which the rosary is situated for a person. What I mean by that is that if your life experience had primarily seen it as a form of meditation and, in that sense the words themselves were not important, or not to be taken literally, you might see the whole experience in a particular way. My own family experience was more of it set in the "Fr Peyton overview" and, more especially, that slogan "the family that prays together stays together". My father believed that with a passion. He was a great devotee of the rosary his entire life and non-Catholic mum used to be enveigled in as his partner quite often to recite the rosary with him. She happily complied more out of her sense of loyalty to dad than for any belief she had in the efficacy of any prayer I am pretty sure from my conversations with her later in life. The reality is that our family became split and scattered to the four corners of the earth. That had a significant influence on my personal experience and attitudes towards the rosary I am sure in coming to view it more as propaganda and superstition rather than as something of value albeit that I can still discern the value of it as a meditative exercise (as long as you're not expecting some "magic from heaven" that will in fact "keep families together").

Of course there are some families that have "stayed together" for reasons that might have absolutely nothing to do with them reciting the rosary but they also recite the rosary and so they might come to very different conclusions to myself.

As you suggest, both herbie and bobl, there is another construct in which the rosary is situated as well and that is as a device for reflection on the central mysteries of the faith. I'm sure there are others besides the three mentioned here. Some of the Fatima, Lourdes and Medjugore stuff might fit into those other constructs that give this prayer its central meaning for others.

The bottom line for me, I suppose, is that all these "traditional" prayer and sacramental forms of Catholicism appear to have lost their "communication potency" right across the Western world except for a relatively small and identifiable subset of the Catholic demographic. I am as intrigued by that simply as a professional question about communications — the subject which happens to be the focus of my professional life. Here is this vast institution which literally did become for a time the largest institution — read that as "the best mass (as in numbers not the liturgy) communicator" — in human history that literally spanned all continents, almost all cultures, many, many different personal circumstances. Then suddenly, in the space of little under a century it goes into this spectacular decline. To me: what a fascinating question — why? What suddenly went wrong?

Of course I'm also intrigued at the personal level of wondering what I personally actually believe? What is the meaning of my personal life? What am I meant to do with it? I have similar intrigue, probably buried deeply at the lizard brain or genetic level, for the survival and welfare of my own offspring.

I do have a pretty keen appreciation also that I am weird compared to many others also! I'm sure my own children believe their old man is absolutely crackers to spend so much time thinking about these sort of questions rather than spending my time more productively — or actually earning some money so that I might leave them some financial legacy.

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]