43: Dispelling Lies about Mary and the Rosary

And there's such a war that happens in the comments, um, especially between our Protestant brothers and sisters and Catholics, because I think there's. Great misunderstandings as to what role Mary plays in a Catholic faith life, um, and life. And there's obviously a lot of misconceptions as well about the rosary. And today we are going to dispel all of these misconceptions, all of these lies about the rosary and Mary.

We're going to set the record straight and we are just going to talk about all the amazing things that Mary and the rosary really bring to our faith lives and the gift that they are to our faith. So if you've ever been told that Catholics worship Mary, or that the rosary is just a repetitive, mindless prayer, then this episode is for you.

My goal today is to shed light on these topics by sharing teachings from St. Louis de Montfort and JP2 and the Catechism to show you how really growing a devotion to Our Lady Can transform your life and lead you closer to Christ. So let's dive in

And this distinction is so important Because Mary's role is always to lead us closer to Jesus, never to take attention or praise or prayers for herself. Another analogy that I love is the sun and the moon. The moon reflects all of the sun's light. It's not generating any light of its own at night, which is amazing because it is bright obviously, but it's not. Taking all the light from the sun and just reflecting it back. And that's what Mary does.

Mary is not emanating her own light, her own glory. All she does is reflect the light of God and all the glory of the Lord She is just a reflection of that and she is always trying to bring us back to him and point us to him the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains it best in paragraph 971. It says, all generations will call me blessed. The church's devotion to the blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship. The church rightly honors the blessed Virgin with special devotion.

So notice how the word special devotion is used, not worship. And I think this is where maybe Protestants and Catholics differ a little bit with the word worship because the traditional way of worship is with sacrifice. It dates all the way back to the Jewish tradition and how, when you worshiped God, you brought a sacrifice and usually it was an animal of some sort, but then Jesus came to be the sacrifice for us so that we wouldn't have to sacrifice anymore.

He was the lamb, the sacrificial lamb. And at every mass, we participate in that worship. Again, we participate in that moment where Jesus gives his body and blood for us. And he continues to be the sacrifice in the mass every single time. And so for us, worship isn't just a beautiful word, you know, meaning to praise or to revere or to pray towards. Worship is strictly reserved for that very reverent, special worship that happens in the mass.

Now, we can honor God, we can revere him, we can praise him in many other ways in our life, and we can do the same for Mary, but we never worship Mary. If you have never heard of St. Louis de Montfort, he was a wonderful saint who had a great devotion to Mary, and he wrote a book called The Secret of the Rosary, and in there it says, We never give more honor to Jesus than when we honor his mother, and we honor her simply and solely to honor him more perfectly.

That's what Marian devotion is all about. It's truly honoring Jesus more by honoring his mother, because he gave us the gift of his mother, right? On the cross, when he died, he looked at his disciple, John, and he said, John, behold, your mother, mother, behold, your son. He gave us the gift of his mother and asked us. To be entrusted to her and for her to take care of us. And what St. Louis de Montfort is saying here is that we bring so much honor to Jesus when we honor his mother.

Because in the end, the Lord knows Mary's never trying to take attention away from him. Her sole mission and purpose is to draw us back into relationship with him. It's also important to notice that Mary's intercession, because that's something people have a problem with a lot, like, okay, then why do you pray to Mary if it's not about Mary? Why do you pray to Mary? Well, Mary's intercession is actually rooted in scripture.

It goes back to the wedding at Cana when Mary notices that the wedding has run out of wine. And so she approaches her son and tells him, you know, son, this is your time. And she tells the servants, do whatever he tells you. And she gives him that nudge of like, Jesus, they need more wine at this wedding. Like I know you can turn this water into wine, you know, time to get to it. This is a perfect example of how Mary intercedes for our needs.

She saw the needs of the bride and groom at the wedding. She didn't want them to go through this whole embarrassing moment where they would run out of wine. That would have been a bad thing for a party that was supposed to last much longer. And so she went to her son, she pleaded on our behalf and she asked him to provide in the way that her children needed him to. So there she is just continually bringing our needs to Jesus and always pointing us towards him.

Notice she didn't take credit for the miracle in the end. You know, there's nothing in scripture saying, and thanks to Mary, you know, the wedding was saved and, and Mary took glory and honor in what she did. No, she always just points back to Jesus. Another reason we honor Mary so much is because she has been crowned the queen of heaven. And this dates back all the way to the ancient near Eastern kingdoms, including the Davidic kingdom of Israel, where the king would often have multiple wives.

So the honor in the role of Queenship was actually given to the king's mother, not the king's wife, because the king had multiple wives and he only really had one mother. And so the honor in the queenship was given to her. And so the queen mother in the Old Testament is shown as having the second most important place of honor in the kingdom. And she would rule together with her son over the kingdom. I'll read from scripture here as well.

First Kings 2 19 through 20 gives us an insight again into Mary's intercession and why that is a practice we have. So in scripture it says, so Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak on behalf of Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her and bowed down to her. Then he sat on his throne and had a seat brought for the king's mother. And she sat on his right. Then she said, I have one small request to make of you. Do not refuse me.

And the king said to her, make your request to my mother, for I will not refuse you. Just like the queen mother of the Davidic Kingdom, Mary serves as an advocate for her people in her kingdom, which is us, the kingdom of God. Therefore, we should approach Mary with confidence knowing that she carries our petitions. to her royal son, Jesus, and that he responds to her as Solomon did to Bathsheba. I will never refuse you.

Misconception number two, the rosary is just a repetitive and mindless prayer with no meaning. This is another common criticism that I feel like we get as Catholics. That the rosary is just mindless repetition. But let's unpack this because that couldn't be further from the truth. The rosary is actually a deeply meditative prayer. And each decade focuses on a different event in the life of Mary and Jesus. from the Annunciation to the Resurrection.

it's a way of entering into the gospel and contemplating Christ's life, death, and resurrection. Let's pull out the catechism again in the catechism. Paragraph two seven zero eight explains that the meditative prayer engages thought, imagination, and emotion in order to deepen our faith. That's exactly what the rosary does. It's not just about the words themselves that we say, and it's not about repeating these words over and over again, as it is more about allowing us to meditate as we pray.

And this whole idea of repetition being bad and empty is just absolutely not true. We see in scripture even Jesus prayed repetitively for something. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed the same prayer three times. Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. That's in Matthew 26, 39 through 44, and he says it three times over. Repetition when done with intention is not vain, but a way of expressing earnestness and devotion and petition to God.

But a lot of Protestants will bring up a line in scripture, Matthew 6, 7 that says, and when you pray, do not keep babbling like pagans for they think they will be heard because of their many words. And so it's this idea of just repetition in vain, like babbling. To be heard, um, and to be noticed and to be seen in your prayer, but that's not what the goal of the rosary is.

That's not what we're doing when we're praying the rosary, when we're praying Hail Mary's over and over again, the rosary is a meditative prayer. And actually this repetition allows us to enter into a more meditative state. It gives us the freedom to be able to use our imagination and engage our senses to meditate on each mystery instead of having to come up with the words ourselves. in a certain way. The repetition of the prayers, the Hail Mary, the Our Fathers, the Glory Bees.

Serves as a rhythm, actually freeing our minds to contemplate the gospel mysteries deeply. So it's not about the words that we're actually saying as much as it is the vessel that allows us to meditate on Christ's life. But even with that, the Hail Mary is also actually scriptural. So we are also praying with scripture and just repeating scripture when we are praying Hail Marys. And there's power in that as well.

The other amazing thing about the rosary is that it Engages the whole person in prayer it engages our mind our body and our soul as we vocalize the prayers our minds meditate on scripture And our hearts align with the mysteries of Jesus's life. And this combination engages all of our senses and allows us to draw into closer communion with God. And honestly, in a practical sense, in our busy and distracted world, the rosary is an amazing tool to give us a space to have silence and space with God.

It really helps me focus in and focus in my intentions in a very specific way. And the repetition of the prayers kind of acts as an anchor or like a, like a background melody that allows me to focus on my intention and bring that to Jesus. And actually to pray the Rosary well takes a lot of discipline and intention. It is not mindless or empty by any means.

And if you just think about how we express love to others, we say beautiful words and words of love to our family members and our friends over and over again. It doesn't matter how many times you say, I love you to your spouse, to your mom, to your sister, to your friend. It won't lose its meaning if you're saying it intentionally and with heart. Rather, it deepens the relationship and it shows even more your love for that person.

And so similarly, the repeated prayers of the rosary are like, I love yous to Mary and Jesus over and over again, when they're said with faith and devotion. And everybody's favorite St. John Paul II, St. Pope John Paul II loved the rosary along with countless saints who talked about its power and recommended people to pray it often, if not daily.

In JP2's apostolic letter, and I'm totally going to butcher this, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, oh my gosh, um, St. John Paul actually emphasized how much the rosary is fundamentally Christ centered. He says with the rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty of the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.

He highlighted that while Mary is repeated, the heart of prayer is meditating on the mysteries of Christ's life, making the rosary a gospel centered devotion. So now we've established the rosary is not mindless and the repetition has great intention and the focus is truly on Jesus is life.

Misconception number three, Mary is just another woman, just another human being. She's nothing special. Some people think that Mary was just a regular person like anybody else and there was nothing really special about her besides the fact that she gave birth to Jesus, which if you ask me that alone really sets you apart given that you gave birth to the salvation of the world, but no big deal, right?

And scripture and church teaching shows us otherwise, shows us that she is actually of great importance and that God has given her a very specific and special role to her that he didn't give to any other human being. So was she fully human? Yes. Of course. Was she divine? No. No, not at all. But God gave her a very specific and special mission that he clearly didn't give anybody else. So we can't say that Mary was just a regular person without anything special.

Mary was chosen by God to be the mother of his son. And she also revealed herself to be the Immaculate Conception, which means that she was conceived without sin in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne. And this is why she was able to be a worthy vessel to carry the Son of God and to bring Jesus into the world, because she was sinless.

But the fact that Mary didn't sin didn't mean that she didn't need a savior And that's what you hear Protestants say a lot that Mary needed a savior just as much as everybody else Therefore she was just any other person But on the contrary, because of her immaculate conception, this dogma of the Catholic Church that we believe to be true, and that was even revealed in different apparitions of Mary, it actually highlights that God applied the merits of Jesus redemption to her in advance.

So that then she could carry out the plan and bring the savior of the world into the world. There's also a lot of biblical basis for this belief that Mary was believed to be conceived without sin. So I'll get into that right now. I have a few scripture verses for you. Hold up that are very particular.

So Genesis three 15 is called the Proto Evangelium and it speaks, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will strike at your head while you strike at his heel. This verse foreshadows the battle between Satan and Mary and her offspring, which is Christ. And the word enmity implies total opposition. And so for Mary to be in complete opposition with Satan, she could not be under his dominion, which we all are, right?

We're all part of this broken humanity, which is stained by original sin from Adam and Eve in the garden. But Mary, in order for her to be in complete opposition to Satan, not being able to be under his dominion at all, she must not be stained with original sin. Next, we have Luke 1, 28, the angel Gabriel's greeting to Mary. He says, Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with you.

The Greek word used for full of grace, which I cannot pronounce, so you'll have to look that one up on your own, implies a perfection and completeness. of grace given by God. This unique title suggests that Mary was already in a state of grace of complete perfection and grace before the angel came to her and before Jesus was in her womb, pointing again to her immaculate conception. And lastly, there's this whole idea of Mary being the new Eve.

Romans 5, 19 and Colossians 15 at 21 through 22 speak of Christ as the new Adam who undoes the sin of the original Adam, the first Adam, similar way, the early church fathers have taught that Mary is like the new Eve. And so she was preserved from sin to fulfill her role in salvation history.

All right. Misconception number four, the rosary is outdated. This is something that I'm going to be honest. I thought when I was growing up, I didn't really have a practice of praying the rosary until later in college. Um, and that was just something that I viewed as like my grandma's prayers.

It was just something that I was like, Oh yeah, that's a traditional Catholic prayer that, you know, People used to do forever ago, but I didn't really understand the power of it or its relevance to my life today. Um, and that just showed how much I did not know about the Rosary. And I think that anybody who would say that the Rosary is outdated or irrelevant to our lives is actually coming from a place of not knowing the fullness of this prayer and the power of this prayer.

Like I said earlier, the rosary is about meditating on the life of Christ, and that is timeless. The mysteries, the incarnation, the passion, the resurrection, the miracles, that is relevant to every generation. To say that the rosary is irrelevant or outdated is to say the gospel is outdated or irrelevant, and we know that's simply not true. Countless Saints like Mother Teresa and John Paul II and Padre Pio found strength and peace through the rosary and we can too.

And I will say from personal experience, when I have been very devoted to the rosary, I have found strength and peace and courage and faith and so much more. I love this quote from Padre Pio, where he says the rosary is the weapon for these times. It's more relevant now than ever. Think about the current challenges in our world. Fear, division, uncertainty, anxiety, faithlessness. The rosary is a weapon for peace and a source of hope that always points us back to Christ.

Those are just a few misconceptions that I really wanted to touch on.

And if you're feeling inspired now by this conversation and not sure where to go or how to deepen your relationship with Mary, well, I want to give you a few practical ways that you can do that this year, so that you can grow in devotion to Mary and the Rosary. First thing I'll recommend is this prayer plan and podcast that Ascension just came out with. It's called Rosary in a Year with Father Mark Mary.

It's similar to the other amazing podcasts that they've launched the last few years, like Catechism in a Year and Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz, but now it's centered around the rosary. And so if you're looking for a way to build this habit of praying the rosary daily, this is going to be an amazing resource. That's going to break it down in very digestible, tangible ways to make it easy for you to actually build this habit. The plan is designed to start small and built up over time.

And it has a prayer plan attached to it that you can follow along. And the prayer plan is dated January 1st. But if you don't start on that day, don't let that stop you. You can start whenever And you just do it for 365 days from that day, right? Like it doesn't have to be on January 1st only. So here's how it works. The prayer plan is broken into six different phases, each focusing on different aspects of Mary.

So phase number one is forming the relationship and really getting comfortable with being in the presence of Jesus and Mary. Then you have phase two, which is biblical roots of the rosary. And so you're going to be learning about how the mysteries of the rosaries are rooted in scripture. Phase three is meditating on the mysteries.

And so you're going to be prayerfully meditating with the mysteries through sacred art, which is called Visio Divina, different saint reflections, and then scripture itself, which we've done before, Lectio Divina. Phase four is called finding focus. And it's helping us practice independent meditation by drawing inspiration from the previous phases that kind of worked up to help us get to this point. Phase five is called building up the decades.

And it slowly adds decades of the rosary on top of each other over time. Then phase six is praying a full rosary, and this is led by Father Mark Mary, along with a community of listeners. Now, don't wait till the end of the year to start praying a full rosary. You can obviously start praying that now, but these phases make it so tangible and digestible for you to build up this habit and truly have intention and meaning and knowledge of why we are praying this in the first place.

So, the link to the prayer plan is in the show notes if you're interested, or you can just visit ascensionpress. com slash Mari R I Y to download the prayer plan and join the Rosarito York community. The second piece of advice that I would give is to habit stack. This has been super helpful for me in the past is to basically choose a habit that you already have in your life every single day and stack the habit of the rosary on top of it so that it becomes normal and natural.

And it's something that you remember to do every day and that you can actually commit to doing every day. For example, for me, when I started praying the rosary every day, it was a few years ago. I used to be a focus missionary on a college campus and my house was about like 15, 16 minutes away from the Newman center. And so I had a 16 minute commute to work every single day. That was a habit that I had every single morning that I had to do every single morning.

And that's when I started praying the rosary every day. I told myself no matter what, I'm stacking the rosary on top of this commute. And so the second I get to the car, I start praying the rosary. And this became a habit every single day. And for you, it can be anything. It can be getting ready in the morning. It could be while you're cleaning the kitchen. It could be while you're drinking your morning coffee.

And if you don't have hands, right, if you're cleaning dishes and you don't have hands to actually like pray with a rosary, that's okay. You can just play it on sound. You know, you could do it on hallow or Spotify even has some rosary recordings and Even that will help you begin to pray the rosary and stack it on top of other things and just help it become like a daily thing that you go to. And then when you don't do it, you'll really notice that you did it.

You'll really notice that you're missing that prayer. Okay. My last piece of advice for this would be to find a accountability buddy. And This has also been super helpful for me in the past. There's been different instances, different stretches of time where I really tried to commit to a daily rosary. And one of the reasons it was so successful and that I was able to do it was because I had an accountability partner.

So for October, the month of the rosary, two of my girlfriends and I, we texted each other every single day, an emoji when we prayed the rosary. And that was just like our mark of accountability that we each prayed it. And it was encouraging. And it also was just a helpful reminder when you saw that. Awesome. When sending their emoji, like, Oh my gosh, I haven't prayed the rosary. I got to pray that. Okay. And last point, I know I said the other one was the last one.

This is a shameless plug, but it actually has really helped me in the past is if you don't have a gorgeous and meaningful rosary. You need one because for me it totally changed the game beauty draws us closer to God and it draws us to prayer There's just something innately godly about beauty because he created it And so when I had a like regular, you know plastic or chain link rosary I was never really drawn to it that much. It would just kind of sit there.

I would ignore it or I wouldn't really reach for it ever. And then when I had a gorgeously handcrafted, beautifully designed rosary, It just awoke this desire in me and I wanted to reach for it more. I wanted to pray it more. And so I recommend if you don't have a gorgeous, meaningful rosary, get one and let that be your little motivation, your encouragement, your inspiration to be drawn closer to Mary and to pray the rosary every day. Obviously, you know where to get them. Westcoastcatholic.

co. We've got the absolute most beautiful, stunning rosaries. And I really, really love the weight of them. I think that's something that makes our rosary so unique as well is that it's natural gemstone beads. And so there is a nice weight to them, which almost acts as like a calming sensation during prayer. I've heard a lot of people describe it. It's almost like a weighted blanket in your hands. Um, so that's also a nice feature. Okay.

Thank you so much for joining me today. That's all I've got. for you. And I really hope this episode has encouraged you to dive deeper into the beauty of the rosary and to grow a deeper devotion to Mary. And I hope that it gave you some, knowledge as well that you can just kind of keep in your back pocket in case you ever hear somebody, you know, talk about a misconception of the rosary or Mary. Um, you can kind of pull that out and share the truth with them.

And remember, Mary always leads us closer to Christ. That is her mission. So especially if you are having a hard time in your relationship with Jesus or your relationship with the Father and don't know how to draw close, try drawing closer to Mary because that's her mission. That's what she does. She draws us closer to her son. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this message. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.

It helps us grow the kingdom and spread the message of the gospel and the beauty of our faith. All right, friends, until next time, bye.