Tiny reflections that will make your Rosary into a real meditation

There are countless aids from the saints for praying the Rosary; this might well be one of the best ones out there.Innumerable saints, scholars, and popes, as well as Our Lady herself, have urged us to pray the Rosary, but for many of us, it can be a difficult prayer more characterized by distraction than meditation.

The founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaria Escriva, however, can be a great help in our efforts to pray better.

A tiny little book called Holy Rosary, (available for less than $4 at Scepter Publishers), written by St. Josemaria, might well contain some of the most beautiful Rosary reflections written by anyone.

The meditations, first published in 1934, are framed as dialogues between the saint and the reader, and in a few short paragraphs for each mystery, he manages to engage both the mind and the heart.

For example, we are told at the end of the first joyful mystery, when we’ve considered that God has just become man a mere instant ago, “I still have time to tell God, before anyone else does, ‘Jesus, I love you.'”

The third joyful mystery (the birth of Jesus) places us with Joseph: “I am Joseph’s little servant. How good Joseph is! He treats me like a son. He even forgives me if I take the Child in my arms and spend hour after hour saying sweet and loving things to him.”

For the fourth sorrowful mystery (Jesus carries the cross), we read: “Little friend, we are sad, living the Passion of our Lord Jesus. See how lovingly he embraces the cross. Learn from him. Jesus carries the cross for you: You … carry it for Jesus.”

And at the third glorious mystery (the descent of the Holy Spirit), we reflect: “Each of us hears [Peter] in his own language — you and I in ours. He speaks to us of Christ Jesus and of the Holy Spirit and of the Father … You and I, after helping the apostles administer Baptism, bless God the Father for his Son Jesus, and we, too, feel drunk with the Holy Spirit.”

Though St. Josemaria died before St. John Paul II created the Luminous Mysteries, members of Opus Dei completed the book with selections of other writings of Josemaria that are appropriate to the Mysteries of Light.