2004 LAPSED CATHOLIC
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by Jim Holman.
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NOTES FROM A LAPSED CATHOLIC
January 2004

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THE ROSARY, PART II

I had been asked to write something about the rosary. It was, by necessity, to be something from the point of view of a lapsed Catholic. I was unfortunately qualified for this. Having written the short article, I felt the business was incomplete without actually saying the rosary myself, getting through the whole thing for the first time since the early Sixties (my guess). Certainly no one was requiring me to do this (if they had, it would have been unlikely that I should do it) but there seemed to be something unfinished about the assignment, a lack, of symmetry, if nothing else.

Father Louis Solcia at Our Lady of the Rosary had given me one of the things, a nice masculine brown one. It had certainly been since childhood that I had owned one, and I could not remember when it was I had seen one last. Could it have been my father's funeral in 1968? Memory supplied a tableau of Italian aunts, veiled in black like a row of arctic birds in their pew, rosaries dangling, clacking mutedly.

In the days that followed the article, I began seeing rosaries everywhere as if in reminder of matters unresolved. At a yard sale in South Park, I picked up a 50 cent paperback, The Secret of the Rosary by Saint Louis De Montfort. A real saint? My ignorance is vast. In the preface to the 1972 edition the editors had noted that the book had been written "two and a half centuries ago." It would be close to three hundred years of course now. I was to be assured in the preface that the text "has lost none of its freshness and timeliness."

I noticed that St. Dominic (my confirmation name) was a champion of the prayer and was called by the Church, "an extraordinary preacher of the Rosary." Dominic's teachings were later bolstered (or "restored") in the 15th century by Blessed Alan de la Roche who was visited on this matter by both the Blessed Mother and Her Son.

But reading De Montfort's book was not saying the rosary -- though a fine procrastination. First of all I needed a place. My choice of the bedroom jibed with Matthew 6:6, when Christ says, "When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."

Debating with myself as to whether it was necessary to kneel or not I decided to begin that way and if it became distractingly uncomfortable I would sit.

* * *

I have no trouble with the sign of the cross. I do it consciously and sincerely invite the Trinity to supervise. But the words to the Apostles Creed have long since joined grade school memorizations of Longfellow and Kipling in some damaged brain area. However, Father Grancini had given me a pamphlet which included the fugitive words. "I believe in God the Father Almighty...." I did not linger on the two words "Virgin" and "Mary" but moved on adding a sub prayer, "I believe Lord. Help me in my disbelief." I did the same for "on the third day he rose again." Desire to believe must count for something.

Finally the phrases "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," and "the resurrection of the body" give me pause. Again, I try the method of employing the faith I do have in service of the faith I lack.

Saying an Our Father is a familiar exercise. I do it often, more so in recent years. I try to be a little more present than usual.

This is followed by three Hail Marys and the only difficulty here is apportioning them equal weight.

It has been a long time since I spoke the Glory Be. It is familiar and satisfying. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be" -- nothing less makes any sense to me.

According to the pamphlet I announce the first Luminous Mystery to myself, the Baptism of Our Lord. The Our Father again then ten Hail Marys. It is impossible for the mind not to wander somewhat but I try to keep things close. When I contemplate the Second Luminous Mystery, the Wedding at Cana, I cannot help but think of something I read a year or two ago. It was Norman Mailer and certainly not scripture but in his novel The Gospel According to the Son which is the life of Christ from Christ's point of view. (I don't know what the Church thinks of this book. It must present problems). In the novel Christ gets slightly drunk at the wedding. Blasphemy? I don't know but it did give me an opportunity to consider drunkenness as sin. This is one of the larger questions in my life. Mailer's Christ sees his drunkeness as a mistake. This struck me as certainly human and a sober appraisal, and it struck me as divine as well in the largesse of it, the capacity for self-forgiveness. No melodrama. Whatever the traits of God, certainly hysteria is not among them.

Reflecting on the third Luminous Mystery, the Proclamation of the Kingdom, stirs my imagination and that is something that needs little encouragement, especially I thought, during prayer. Possibly I have been wrong here. It would hardly be the first time. "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without pay, give without pay." I am at a loss as to how I might practically apply this passage in my life, but I am fascinated. Death lepers and demons have always held a large measure of fascination, and I will gladly revisit these images in meditation and prayer as is the principle of the rosary. That this mystery might be a necessary point of focus for me is argued by the twinge of guilt inspired by the final line about giving without pay. If guilt is an indicator of something to be examined then there is something here. As for lepers I'm stumped. But demons, I find, are always provided when they're needed.

The Fourth Luminous Mystery, the Transfiguration of Christ, moves me in a way I do not understand and suggests to me that revisiting this mystery in just this way, might yield dividends.

Fifteen minutes expire more quickly than I would have guessed. The beads have passed through my right thumb and forefinger to the end. As I'm making the sign of the cross I feel the way an actor must feel when he wishes to redo a particular scene as if it might be done perfectly in one or two more attempts. It is the sense that elusive as it might seem, it is within one's grasp to perform an ideal version of this prayer.

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