We have recently tried to reintroduce the family Rosary but my sons, aged 11 and 13, say they find it boring. I have not been able to convince them otherwise. Can you help me?
Experience tells us that children will always say that something is boring when they don’t want to do it.
How many times have we heard that the Mass is boring, or the Stations of the Cross, or even visiting the grandparents or other older relatives?
There are a number of things we can say about this. First, we shouldn’t look on the Rosary, or the Mass or visiting relatives, for that matter, as a form of entertainment.
It was never meant to be that. If we are going somewhere to be entertained we can rightfully say that we find it boring.
But if we are doing something to please someone else, or for some other noble reason it doesn’t make any difference whether we find it boring. We still do it.
Thus we visit relatives whom we may find boring because we want to show them our love, and we take subjects in school that we don’t find particularly interesting, because they are necessary for our overall education.
And we wash the dishes after a meal and work in the garden to please our parents who have done so much for us, even though we may not particularly enjoy these activities.
So too in our relationship with God we do such things as go to Mass and pray the Rosary not to please ourselves, but to show our appreciation for all God’s blessings and to grow in love for him.
As regards the Rosary in particular, Our Lady herself asked us to say it. In the apparitions in Lourdes in 1858, she appeared with the Rosary beads in her hands and she recited it together with St Bernadette.
At Fatima in 1917, in the first apparition on May 13, Our Lady appeared holding the beads and she asked the three children to pray the Rosary every day.
In the July apparition she again asked the children to pray the Rosary every day for peace in the world and for the end of the war.
In the final apparition, on October 13 before the great “Miracle of the Sun”, Mary identified herself as “the Lady of the Rosary” and she showed the children three tableaux, or visions, representing the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries of the Rosary.
If it were only to please our heavenly mother, who loves us so much and who asked us to pray the Rosary, we should do it, no matter how boring we find it.
But the Rosary not only pleases Our Lady. We derive much benefit from it ourselves. If in saying the Rosary we meditate on the mysteries, we come to know Our Lady and Our Lord much better.
After all, the mysteries of the Rosary consider the principal events in the life of Christ, from his conception in the virginal womb of Mary, through his infancy and public life to his suffering, death and Resurrection and finally his glorification, along with that of Our Lady.
For this reason, the Vatican’s Directory on the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops, Ecclesiae Imago, says the Rosary “has been ceaselessly recommended by the popes as a kind of compendium of the Gospel and therefore as a model devotional practice recommended for the Church and splendidly confirmed by the practice of the saints.”
When we meditate on the mysteries we do not find the Rosary boring. Rather, we find it short as we have only some three minutes to meditate on each mystery.
In order to make this meditation more practical, it can be good to focus on some particular aspect of the mystery, such as a virtue, a sacrament, a truth or devotion suggested by it.
In this regard, my booklet Understanding the Rosary, published by the Catholic Adult Education Centre in Sydney in 2008, can be helpful.
It has a section at the end with five different themes for meditation on each mystery.
In this way, the Rosary is not only a compendium of the Gospel but a compendium of the entire Catholic faith.
When saying the Rosary with children, it is good to ask each child lead a mystery and to suggest an intention for which the family will offer that mystery.
When the children suggest these intentions – peace in Syria, children who have lost a parent, a sick friend or relative, someone who has just died – they are more inclined to say the Rosary willingly, and they find it more meaningful.
Finally, we should remember that people in love do not tire of saying the same things over and over again: “I love you.” “I love you too.” They do not find it boring.
Nor should we find boring our loving reflection on the life of Christ and Mary contained in the Rosary.