Luky
WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF as a Martha or a Mary type of person?
Years ago I tried to get someone to promise to say the rosary daily with her family. A friend and I used to obtain such pledges on behalf of the World Rosary Crusade for Peace. When I had used up all the arguments in favour of the rosary I could think of, the person tersely said: "You pray! I work!"
Balance needed
What the Marthas of the world don't always seem to realise, however, is that working and caring for the home are just not enough; you've got a pray a little too.
"You tell me", another housewife said: "Do I drop everything at the busiest time of the day to recite my rosary with the family? What about my cooking, dishes, the children's baths? Which would you like me to skip?" I was amazed to hear myself answering: "None. You see to everything, but make sure our Lord gets His share too."
Why?
For what purpose are we washing nappies, serving meals, cleaning dishes, pulling out weeds, or playing chauffeur, chef and nanny, if these and our other daily chores are not backed by a meaning? Would you want to continue living if you truly believed that life were one continuous effort, terminating in the grave?
Only prayer and meditation can give meaning to these seemingly meaningless tasks.
Like all other human beings, the housewife has a contemplative side to her nature, although it may seem to sit ill on one wearing an apron, holding a baby and a broom or a duster. It isn't strange, when you think about it, because she has been used as an instrument in the miracle of creation, and that should make anyone thoughtful.
When she hears words like: "My soul is thirsting for the Lord; when shall I see Him face to face?", the housewife may be moved to tears of longing. But then again, if her Doctor told her she had a fatal disease, she'd make straight for the Church, light a candle and pray for the joy of seeing the Lord Face to face to be deferred till her children were off her hands.
I don't meditate
I read with interest exchanges in letter columns about meditation on the rosary, and have come to the horrible conclusion that I don't meditate properly, either on the mysteries or on the words of the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
I try to, honestly, but I fail time and time again. I've been tempted at times to leave off reciting the rosary, but can't because of my pledge.
Fortunately God knows I've a lot on my plate, so maybe one day I'll learn to meditate properly as I pray.
Simply beautiful
And yet I wonder if perfection is what God demands of His children as much as the desire to become perfect. One of my children used to bring me a bedraggled bunch of veld flowers, picked daily on the way from school. The smile on the child's face would be so devastating that I'd arrange the flowers in a good vase, where they would flop gracelessly.
I suppose my rosary, when it reaches Mary's feet, looks as bedraggled as those veld flowers. But I hope and believe that when she in her turn presents my bouquet to Jesus, it will look beautiful.
Catherine Nicolette
Ah, perfection. That elusive goal. What makes perfection, I wonder? A good heart, I think. God knows that we are but small human beings, all trying to make the best of the deal we got. And some of us got a very raw deal in life.
However, God's Grace will never be outdone, and many are those who started small in life who made it big in heaven. (David the shepherd to David the King; Mary the village girl to Queen of Heaven.)
Why go to Church?
Just recently someone asked me the same question I have been asked since my childhood days; why should they go to church services to pray when they can pray perfectly well at home?
Why share church pews with people who are hypocritical because - although churchgoing - they don't live up to full expectation?
I was very thoughtful. This question had always flummoxed me, because it is quite true; we don't always live up to the full stature of what it means to be a practising believer in God. But that, to me, is the whole point; we are all broken people. Sinners. Children of the Fall. People, who with the best intentions in the world, try to hit the high mark of what it means to be a dedicated believer in God, and often fail.
(Sometimes spectacularly). But isn't this what it means to humbly take our hat off, and get back into the pew again at Church Worship, to try again?
We know we are all mistake-makers, it's in our nature; but we want to be something more, someone better; so we go to church and bow our head and reflect on our shortcomings; and learn from the mistakes we have just made. So we don't make bigger ones.
After all, don't we go to Church because we need God's help? Precisely because we are sinful, broken people? If we wait until we are perfect before we step into the pew, we'll be passing up all that wonderful Grace and Blessing we receive from the Sacraments in Church, especially the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Needing a physician
Jesus told us He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. "It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick." *
And so the answer to that recent query is that we all need the consolation and support of God's Grace in Church as spiritually in need; because there is not one of us who is perfect.
But we will be. When the incredible work of God is completed in us . . .
*Luke 5;31-32
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