Of Words and Heart

Feast Our Lady of the Rosary ~ I was asked to celebrate Mass with the grade school children at St. Paul-Our Lady of Vilna today on this feast day. I asked the kids where they would go if they won a free trip to anywhere in the world. Of course, Disney World was number one with many. And I asked them who they would bring with them if they could take any and as many as they would like. Not surprisingly, Mom, Dad, the family, and friends was the list of choice.

I said that the Rosary is the journey of a lifetime that Jesus and Mary invite ALL of us to take with them. Sometimes the journey is sad and sorrowful; sometimes it is joyful and full of life; sometimes it is so glorious it is beyond our wildest expectations; and sometimes it is like a light that helps us to see more clearly who we are and where we are going. Each of these are called the Mysteries of the Rosary – Sorrowful, Joyful, Glorious, and Luminous - that reveal the life of Jesus and Mary.

But the Rosary not only invites us to accompany Jesus and Mary on the mysteries of their life, it tells us that Jesus and Mary are with us, every step of the way, in the mysteries - the ups and downs - of our life. We are never alone.

There are two main prayers in the Rosary: the Our Father and the Hail Mary. The Hail Mary not only honors Mary as the mother of Jesus, the mother of God, it also reminds us that she is our mother and our model of faith. We know that God went to Mary, through the angel Gabriel, and asked her, “Mary will you do me a favor? I want to take on your flesh.” Of course, she said, “Yes”, and the greatest miracle happened. She gave birth to baby Jesus, who was God. At each Mass, God comes to us in the Eucharist and asks us, “Will you do me a favor? I want to take on your flesh.” And we say, “Amen”, which means “let it be”... let us become what we receive. If we say it with faith, a miracle begins to happen in us, too. We do become what we receive – the body of Christ.

Now the Our Father is very special because Jesus himself taught it to us. And the essence of the Our Father is that we want to do God’s will and to forgive each other. Each of the words is very important. But even more important than the words is whether we have truly opened our hearts and are aware of the one to whom we are praying.

Let me tell you a story. A bishop was traveling by ship when he saw an island in the distance. He asked the captain if anyone lived on the island and was told that only three holy men lived there. So the bishop became curious and asked to be taken there because he wanted to meet them. When he arrived, the three old men were there to welcome him. He asked if they were the holy men, and they said, “Oh, no. Not us. We are just simple people.” The bishop asked them if they prayed, and they said, “Yes.” When he asked them how they prayed, they said, “Oh Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are three and we are three. Have mercy on us.” The bishop said, “No, you cannot pray that way. Let me teach you how to pray.” So he taught them the Our Father, but they kept forgetting a word here and there. Finally, they had memorized the prayer, and the bishop felt proud of his work. He left them and went back to the ship. A few hours later as the ship was moving away they saw what looked like a white cloud or tornado coming at them. They could not make out what it was. As the cloud got closer they saw that it was the three old men running over the waves. When they got close enough they yelled to the bishop, “We forgot the words. Teach us again.” But he humbly said to them, “Go back and pray as you were doing. God already hears you.”

It’s good to pray the Rosary, with the Our Father and Hail Mary that we have been taught, but more important than the words is to open our hearts and to know that God is listening to our prayer.