.
Those are good responses, above.
I have fallen into habits of sin and at times, lukewarm faith. Only reading traditional Catholic material on the internet sustains me. I do not have the mass, but I do have confession. I say the full rosary daily, and want to get a scapular of benediction to make me live more gracefully.
I blame this first on my own free will, because I succuмb all to often to worldly impulses. I go to college, and there I am imbued with worldly notions amongst the people I speak to. I try to convert them, and I am the only Trad Catholic in the place, but as if to try to understand them more, I take on their habits of sin and lukewarm faith.
Though I have been told that the answer is prayer, I perhaps do not pray properly. I say the minimum of my rosary and there is no feeling in me when I say it. I think that I am better than others who don't have my faith. I have become vain and this causes me to sin.
Not only do I ask you Orate pro Mei Fratres,
but I require advice on how others have persevered in a state of grace.
One solution I wonder about is giving up college and becoming a hermit, and force myself to pray all day.
What must I do?
Perseverance is the key! You should ask God for the grace
of perseverance when you pray. And you should always
ask for the grace of final perseverance, as this should be a
lifelong petition that will one day be of great benefit for you.
Ask for the grace to overcome these faults, and don't give up.
Keep asking, and you shall receive.
When you pray your Rosary with others, you have to work with
what their habits are, and don't make them conform to your
habits, for this alone is a work of penance that you can make
efficacious for your prayers and for theirs.
But when you pray your Rosary alone, you can use some tools
that St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort recommended in his
various books.
Sometimes praying your Rosary in a variety of ways can help
to get a grip on the prayer and not be distracted.
There are various ways to use variety, and there are three
that I can think of right away.
1) For one of the Hail Marys in each decade, try slowing WAY
DOWN, and say each word with total attention. The fact that
you are slowing down will draw in your thoughts. Think only
of the Hail Mary prayer, for the associated mystery will be a
later development. Stick to the Hail Mary and all that the
words of that prayer signify. Try to plumb the depths of these
mysteries, in just this one prayer -- you can do this for an
entire lifetime and never find the end to them. So there is a
lot to think about in this one prayer alone. You can vary the
one you choose to do this with, maybe the 4th in the decade
or the second, or even the 10th, it makes no difference. I
used to think that the first or second would be necessary, but
with experience I find it matters not if it is the 9th or 10th,
because I am then thinking about which one it will be in
advance and that also keeps my mind on the Rosary instead
of wandering to mundane things.
2) You can add a key phrase after the Name Jesus in the
middle of each Hail Mary, which phrase links to the
respective mystery. For example, you say, "Hail Mary, full
of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among
women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, Whose
Incarnation is announced to thee. Holy Mary, mother of
God,..." etc. You can do that for each of the 10 Hail Marys in
this decade or in any number of them, but don't worry about
forgetting to do so in one or more. It's okay! You can use
the same key phrase or a different one, so long as it is in
regards to the mystery at hand. Other examples would be,
"in His Incarnation," or "Word made flesh and dwelt among
us," or "God's fulfillment in time of His Word," or "Flesh of thy
flesh, blood of thy blood," or, "God made Man in time and in
eternity," or simply, "incarnated," and so on. You will find
there is practically no end to the number of such phrases
that could apply, and they all fit to this one mystery alone,
and to none of the other 14! This is how to increase your
devotion in your Rosary, and the fruits of this effort cannot
be measured, for they are without limit.
3) You can add a phrase to the beginning of each Hail Mary,
as well, or that is, instead. There have been books published
on this topic, my favorite being one from Liguori Press called
"Let's Pray, Not Just Say the Rosary." It was out of print for
a few years in 1994-97 as I recall, and then it came back into
print, but they had changed it all around and added a section
for the dubious "luminous mysteries" of John Paul II. If you
would like me to look up the original I can do that for you.
I would probably want to put it in the Library section, though,
for it is a great reference. There is a different sentence or
two for each of the 10 Hail Marys in each decade. Some of
them are direct quotes from Scripture, but many are
compilations of two or more passages, from different chapters
or books of the Bible. Many of them are pious thoughts of the
saints or perhaps phrases the author found useful by
experience -- we don't know, because he did not provide any
footnotes or explanations for where these words came from.
In fact, this modern booklet is a prime example of how the
Traditions of Holy Mother Church grow over the ages, when
certain prayers are found to become commonplace among
the faithful and no one knows where they came from. All in
all the book is very beautiful, and one mystery in particular
is curious for it parallels the Stations of the Cross: the fourth
Sorrowful mystery, the carrying of the Cross, has 10
meditations that exactly are the same as the first 10 stations.
And note: some of these are not found in Scripture, such as
the 6th station, Veronica wipes the Holy Face of Jesus. I
found it much more useful than the "Scriptural Rosary"
scripts, because these do not try to force Scripture into
pigeon-holes, but rather use Scripture the way Our Lady
did when she prayed her Magnificat: there are places in
the OT that sound incredibly similar, but she took all of
Tradition and with the influence of the Holy Ghost, came
up with an entirely new prayer that perfectly fits the
occasion in which she was at the time, the Visitation.
Speaking of which, it is the second Joyful mystery, and these
10 meditations take the praying person (you or me!) through
all the parts of Blessed Mary's journey to help her cousin.
It begins with recalling that the Angel Gabriel had revealed
that Elizabeth was with child, and the Holy Virgin Mary
decided to go visit her, taking a long and solitary road into
the Judean hill country. When she arrives, the sound of
her voice calling Elizabeth is the moment of St. John the
Baptist's sanctification - by which we are given to know
something MORE regarding the power of Our Blessed
Mother's voice, and the EFFICACIOUS nature of Her words.
In two mysteries in a row: "the word was made flesh" -
we think that's the Word of God, and it is, but it was also
the FIAT of Our Lady:
"Be it done unto me according to
thy word!" And now,
"Elizabeth!" We can wonder how
that one name sounded, for it echoes through time and shall
forever resound in eternity, a sound more holy and more
pure than that of all the angels and saints combined. Then
she helps her cousin, with the new baby, whose voice later
would cry out in the wilderness, the one about whom Our
Lord would say there is no man greater born of woman.
She washes dishes, sweeps the floor, prepares the meals.
And her time being complete, after 3 months (herself with
child!), she returns home to face the long journey to
Bethlehem with her husband, Joseph. Pro-life groups have
a lapel pin that shows the tiny feet of a baby after 10
weeks, in shiny golden color. These feet are the size that
Our Lord's own feet were when Our Lady went to be with
her cousin, St. Elizabeth.
The mysteries of the Rosary are an abyss of contemplation,
and we should never be at a loss for having more to think
about when we pray the Rosary.
You will go through "dry" periods, when there is no feeling
in you, and you may get discouraged. These periods of
dryness are to be expected, but it will be by your not
giving in to the temptation to stop praying because of the
dryness, that you will eventually emerge victorious. St.
John of the Cross had a dryness that lasted over 20 years.
He wrote about it calling it his "dark night of the soul." So
you won't be the first one. And you won't be the last.
"But he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved"(
Matt. x. 22, cf.
Mt. xxiv. 13).
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Topic: habits of sin (Read 898 times)