We enter the solemn and penitential season of Lent today. Ten years ago Ash Wednesday fell on March 5. That morning, four days after purchasing a simple, wooden Rosary at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, I decided to try to pray the Rosary as my 2014 Lenten discipline. I wasn’t yet Catholic, but had been considering it and its implications for me for about five months at that point.
In my journal of March 5, 2014, I wrote: “This morning I prayed my first Rosary. Like anything new it was awkward, however I look forward to growing in the prayer and devotion.” Little did I know then that praying the Rosary would continue to be part of my daily life ten years later. Nor did I dream that praying the Rosary and the discipline and daily practice of it would greatly fortify my prayer life, something that had often suffered its ebbs and flows for the first 57 years of my life.
You don’t have to be Catholic to pray the Rosary. It truly is the Bible (reflections of the life of Christ through the eyes of his mother Mary) on beads. I took the challenge 10 years ago. The bottom line is I’m so glad I did!