Growing up I had a specifc view of the use of the Rosary in Roman Catholocism, being from a restorationist heritage in a protestant country this is pretty normal. What I had always been told is "they just tell their sins to a priest and he tells em how many times to pray to Mary and forgives em of their sins." Anyone who has studied any form of Eastern or Western Orthodox/ Catholic faiths will see vaious mistakes in the statement. One of the things that is most annoying to me is the statement that the Catholics pray to Mary, this statement has a hint of truth in it, that being, Pray and Mary, but Mary is the intercessor not the means of salvation, nor is the Rosary the means of salvation.

I have been looking into the Catholic Rosary and the Orthodox prayer rope to see why. Because it seems to me that mantra style praying has benefits to it. One obvious benefit is the ability to still the heart, the second is to clear the mind. There is this book called the practice of the presense of God by a guy named brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence talks about his life as a practice of the presense of God. He spent most of the minutes of his monk life in constant prayer, so this gave him a special perspective when he sat down for what we call "devotional times." Since he spent most of his day in intercessory prayer anyway when he sat down to commune with God he cleared his mind and simply dwelt in the presense of God. If someone wants to do this it is recomended they find a Mantra, something like the name of God or a calming word to focus on and clear the mind so that one can truley focus only on God. This takes a lot of work. What I have seen is that the Rosary helps with this.

When I would sit down to pray with no structure around me my mind would wander and I would find that I was hurrying out of prayer to get back to my day, so I wrote a simple prayer liturgy. It involved the statement of faith, the serenity prayer, the "our Father" and some prayers i have written all serving as introductory prayers to right my mind. Oh I also had the prayer of St Francis.

As of late I have discovered the Orthodox Jesus prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy on me a sinner." One can pray this on a prayer rope or just over and over allowing the words to settle the spirit. Repetition is to lead the devout to three levels. The first level is simple recitation, and stays at this level for some time. The second level is where we begin to pray without distraction. The third level is a level of the heart, not only do we speak the prayer but it is proclaimed in our hearts. I have been told that this can lead to transfiguration, a change of the whole person. I remember hearing stories about the old monks who could feed dangerous animals without fear because the animals saw something within them, St Francis of Asisi for one.

The prayer bead pictures I have posted are called Anglican prayer beads, I chose them for my journey because they allow the prayer to assign the beads the way I choose, I do this because though I don't have theological issue with the hail Mary I am not comfortable with it because I think too much about my religious heritage. Regardless when I finish my prayers, which are always outloud though it might be a whisper, my eyes are closed and there is a peace that surrounds me. On one level if feels like I am in a different world, on another I have gone nowhere.

I want to make it clear that this doesn't mean that I don't freestyle prayer anymore, but I have found I am better focused on it after I have gone through my prayer beads.