By our own correspondent

EAO Region, 8 October 2020 -- Yesterday was the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (7 October), one of the most visible days during the Month of the Rosary and Month of the Missions - a good invitation 'to pray the Rosary for the Missions and missionary vocations'. And in the EAO provinces we treasure so many beautiful traditions of praying the rosary together as a community or with our young people in boarding houses, school or in parish groups.

Each year this liturgical attention is offered all around the world, but probably this year more than ever - since March there have been lockdown times in most of the EAO provinces - many members of the Salesian Family have been praying the Rosary online to keep in touch with the Oratory or Youth Centre youth, with the families of their Catholic students - simply to stay closer in prayer in the most easy and meaningful way. At the bottom of this article you will find some special initiatives from Thailand (ADMA), from the Philippines (Word and Life) and from Indonesia (Scriptural Rosary online by 4 different religious priests, including Fr. Noel Villafuerte, SDB).

There is one group in the Salesian Family (ADMA - Association of Mary Help of Christians) started by Don Bosco at Valdocco. We may benefit from their inspiration 'How to pray the Rosary'.

"The prayer of the Rosary is a simple, popular prayer, accessible to all: it is the prayer that the Mother of Heaven teaches her children. The Rosary is a prayer of the heart, a gift that Mary gives us, to help us to be closer to Jesus.

Here are five practical tips for those who want to start praying the rosary:

1. The easiest way to begin to love the rosary is to get used to carrying arosary in your pocket. It is a simple gesture of entrustment to Mary. It is a very concrete and not at all fatiguing way of expressing our filial affection to her. Every time we put our hand in our pockets, we can say a Hail Mary, or simply invoke Mary with the title that is dearest to us (Mary Help of Christians prays for us; or Mary helps me) or with spontaneous words that our hearts suggest...
2. If you want to start praying the rosary, it is good not to worry too much about praying it at once. The beauty of the rosary is that you can pray even just one mystery a day, or spread the decade through different times of the day.... The important thing is that it is a moment of encounter with Jesus and Mary.
3. The repetition of the Hail Mary at first may seem boring... to overcome this obstacle it can be useful to use your imagination: we can imagine that every Hail Mary is a seed of good, that God will make it germinate somewhere in the world, where it is most needed. In this way each Hail Mary becomes unique, unrepeatable! Or, holding the rosary in our hands, we can imagine shaking Mary's hand and that the repetition of the Hail Mary is like the repetitive "verses" made by a small child who is learning to speak: the mother is pleased with those verses, even if they are always the same, she knows how to interpret them and rejoices in them. Mary rejoices in our affection, in our repetition of the Hail Mary prayer!
4. The most beautiful thing about the Rosary, however, is that it helps us to contemplate the mysteries of the life of Jesus and Mary, and the more we contemplate them, the more similar we become to them. This contemplation of what Jesus lived is precisely Mary's way of praying, which she kept in her heart and constantly thought about what she had lived together with her Son. Therefore, while repeating the Hail Mary, it is a question of imagining scenes from the life of Jesus and Mary, of trying to see with the eyes of the heart their faces, their gestures, and to ask for the grace to enter into their feelings. The main thing is not to feel the need to finish the whole rosary, nor to respect the mysteries of the day. Any moment in the life of Jesus and Mary can be meditated on! The important thing is to let oneself be touched by the heart, to let oneself be transformed by the encounter with Mary and Jesus!
5. The last thing: it is beautiful and most pleasing to Mary, to pray the rosary with a big heart which remembers the needs of all. There are no limits to the intentions that can be put in the prayer of the Rosary. All human beings, all situations of pain, everything, find space in Mary's heart... In this way, little by little, our heart also widens and becomes more and more able to recognise and meet the needs of our brothers and sisters!

Mary herself will give a great boost to those who begin well: as time passes they will feel the desire to pray the rosary, to pray it all, to pray in communion with the Church. But above all, those who learn to pray the Rosary, little by little, will feel a growing desire to love as they love Jesus and Mary and to do the Father's will in everything! Try and believe!" (by ADMA)

• Catechetical aids for Rosary Prayer (Scripture Rosary, Salesian Rosary)
• Salesian Prayer Book: In dialogue with the Lord

Related news articles:

• Australasia 5238 (II) Bosconians join The One Million Rosary Prayer Campaign (2019)
• AustraLasia 4870 (II) Daily Prayer of the Rosary during October (2018)

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