In Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II identified two compelling reasons as to why the revival of the Rosary in our time is an urgent priority. First, he noted our desperate need for the gift of peace, specifically citing the 9/11 attacks and the escalating violence and bloodshed throughout the world. Only Christ, the Prince of Peace, is able to break down the barriers of hostility that divide peoples and nations (cf. Eph. 2:14).
We tend to forget about the spiritual dimension of conflict when it's right in front of us. Our response when war breaks out is to spend hours in front of CNN or Fox News, not the Blessed Sacrament, calling upon “embedded” journalists, not guardian angels. And so the Pope gave us a timely reminder that when we enter into the Rosary, we can't help but be caught up in the quest for peace. Without getting into a scholarly discussion of “just war” principles and related issues, the Holy Father emphasized that prayer—and specifically the Rosary—is the most effective weapon we have against the discord and disorder within ourselves, within our families, and within our troubled world.
Pope John Paul II offered a second reason for renewed attention to the Rosary. He saw the Rosary as a means of building up the family. He frequently emphasized that as the family goes, so goes the Church and society, because the family is “the first and vital cell of society.”4
As vital cells of the universal Church, each Christian family as a “domestic Church” or “church in miniature” contributes to the overall well-being of the Body of Christ. Healthy families can be a source of healing, growth, and vitality. The widespread breakdown of the family, however, is a cancer that afflicts the Church and stunts her growth.
In this context, the Holy Father reminds us of the critical importance of family prayer. Surely this is not to the detriment of personal prayer, prayer of married couples, and liturgical prayer. But we must understand and take to heart the adage that “the family that prays together stays together.” This adage may sound negative or at least defensive at first. Surely families today are menaced by forces of disintegration that threaten to tear us apart from God and from one another, and family prayer is understandably a response to such a threat. But even more, family prayer helps us to play “offense” by fostering strong, intact families that can serve as “spiritual powerhouses” in the Kingdom of God.
From our own experience, we readily admit that all this is easier said than done. Family prayer is very challenging, as many families are often too busy to communicate with one another, let alone to come together to communicate with God. We can also very easily get caught up with the wrong sorts of images and values, especially through excessive recourse to television and the Internet.
Several important things go on at the same time while we pray the Rosary. First, there are the prayers themselves, which have a calming effect and dispose us to communion with God. Second, there is the contemplation of the mystery from the life of Christ. But the family Rosary goes even further. As we strive to pray in communion with Christ through the heart of Mary, we remember the mystery and it becomes present and effective in our lives and gets woven into the very fabric of our lives. Our family's joys get woven into the Joyful Mysteries, our
those who are closest to us, who are dearest to us. Thus the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human life.5
We have found that praying the Rosary as a family at the end of the day adds an element of recollection into the hubbub of our household. The rhythm of the prayer has a remarkably calming effect on the rhythm of our family's life.
We know a family in which the father, every evening at a set time, tells the kids to get their weapons. That means it's time for the Rosary. Surely the Rosary is a weapon for our own individual spiritual battles, but it's also a weapon for the family's spiritual battles. Sometimes these are actual battles as well, as on occasion this “meditative prayer” is anything but meditative when the kids are screaming or wrestling over prayer books or getting into something. Sometimes that's part of the battle.
Saint Matthew says in his Gospel that no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals Him (see Mt. 11:25–27). He also records Saint Peter's confession of faith, to which Our Lord responds that flesh and blood have not revealed this to him, but rather that this was a gift from His Father in heaven (see Mt. 16:17).
In order to contemplate the face of Christ, we too need a revelation from above. If we're honest, we must humbly admit that we don't know how to pray as we ought even in the best of conditions, though we do need to do what we reasonably can to create an environment in our homes that's conducive to prayer. We know that Our Lord showers with grace those families who hang in there when praying the Rosary with their rambunctious children, as the occasional or not- so-occasional distractions of normal family life become incorporated into the rhythm of the family's prayer.