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The Rosary Must Include Mental Prayer
Otherwise you’re “babbling like the pagans” (Matthew 6:7).
During the month of May, I planned to write an article about our Lady each week. This week’s article was going to be about what five different popes said about Marian devotion. However, I changed my mind after listening to these episodes of Divine Intimacy Radio, The Discovery of Mental Prayer (Part 1 and Part 2), in which Dan and Stephanie Burke interview the host of Gabi After Hours. As a Secular Discalced Carmelite, both mental prayer and Marian devotion are vital parts of my spiritual life. These interviews beautifully explain the element of mental prayer in the rosary.
Some Protestants criticize the rosary, accusing Catholics of “heaping up empty phrases” which Jesus told us not to do. If they’ve witnessed the rosary being said before Mass at a speed that rivals an auctioneer, I can’t blame them. In our Carmelite meetings, we take turns leading the decades slowly, allowing space for reflection.
As far as I can understand, the gate by which to enter this castle is prayer and meditation. I do not allude more to mental than to vocal prayer, for if it is prayer at all, the mind must take part in, it. If a person neither considers to Whom he is addressing himself, what he asks, nor what he is who ventures to speak to God, although…
