43: Dispelling Lies about Mary and the Rosary

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mari-wagner_1_12-29-2024_161312: Hello

and welcome back to the Ever Be podcast.

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I'm Mari Wagner, your host.

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I'm so excited that you're here

today and I am excited to chat

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about all things Mary today.

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This is a topic that is very close to

my heart and one that always gets a

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lot of People riled up on the internet.

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I think every time I've posted

any sort of like real or anything

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about Mary on Instagram, it

always blows up and goes viral.

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And there's such a war that happens in

the comments, um, especially between

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our Protestant brothers and sisters

and Catholics, because I think there's.

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Great misunderstandings as

to what role Mary plays in a

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Catholic faith life, um, and life.

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And there's obviously a lot of

misconceptions as well about the rosary.

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And today we are going to dispel

all of these misconceptions, all of

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these lies about the rosary and Mary.

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We're going to set the record straight

and we are just going to talk about all

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the amazing things that Mary and the

rosary really bring to our faith lives

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and the gift that they are to our faith.

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So if you've ever been told that

Catholics worship Mary, or that the

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rosary is just a repetitive, mindless

prayer, then this episode is for you.

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My goal today is to shed light on these

topics by sharing teachings from St.

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Louis de Montfort and

JP2 and the Catechism

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to show you how really growing a

devotion to Our Lady Can transform your

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life and lead you closer to Christ.

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So let's dive in

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Hey, I'm your host, Mari Wagner,

and you're listening to the ever be

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podcast where faith meets lifestyle.

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I'm so excited you're here, whether you're

a new listener or a longtime follower,

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I know there's something here for you.

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Pull up a chair and listen in for

insightful real life conversations

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and actionable steps on how to claim

the full life God created you for.

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If you're a woman desiring to live

a Christ centered life in today's

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modern world, then this is for you.

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Welcome to Ever Be.

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mari-wagner_1_12-29-2024_161312:

Misconception number one catholics worship

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mary This is probably the most common

misconception out there for catholics.

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So I want to tackle it head on.

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The truth is Catholics do

not, in fact, worship Mary.

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We only worship God.

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We are a monotheistic faith.

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We only have one God and

Mary is not one of them.

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What we do is honor Mary,

which is called veneration.

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And this distinction is so important

Because Mary's role is always to lead us

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closer to Jesus, never to take attention

or praise or prayers for herself.

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Another analogy that I love

is the sun and the moon.

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The moon reflects all of the sun's light.

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It's not generating any light of its

own at night, which is amazing because

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it is bright obviously, but it's not.

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Taking all the light from the

sun and just reflecting it back.

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And that's what Mary does.

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Mary is not emanating her

own light, her own glory.

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All she does is reflect the light

of God and all the glory of the Lord

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She is just a reflection of that

and she is always trying to bring

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us back to him and point us to him

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the Catechism of the Catholic Church

explains it best in paragraph 971.

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It says, all generations

will call me blessed.

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The church's devotion to the blessed

Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.

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The church rightly honors the

blessed Virgin with special devotion.

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So notice how the word special

devotion is used, not worship.

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And I think this is where maybe

Protestants and Catholics differ

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a little bit with the word

worship because the traditional

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way of worship is with sacrifice.

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. It dates all the way back to the Jewish

tradition and how, when you worshiped God,

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you brought a sacrifice and usually it

was an animal of some sort, but then Jesus

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came to be the sacrifice for us so that

we wouldn't have to sacrifice anymore.

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He was the lamb, the sacrificial lamb.

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And at every mass, we

participate in that worship.

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Again, we participate in that moment where

Jesus gives his body and blood for us.

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And he continues to be the sacrifice

in the mass every single time.

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And so for us, worship isn't just a

beautiful word, you know, meaning to

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praise or to revere or to pray towards.

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Worship is strictly reserved

for that very reverent, special

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worship that happens in the mass.

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Now, we can honor God, we can revere

him, we can praise him in many other

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ways in our life, and we can do the same

for Mary, but we never worship Mary.

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If you have never heard of St.

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Louis de Montfort, he was a wonderful

saint who had a great devotion to Mary,

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and he wrote a book called The Secret of

the Rosary, and in there it says, We never

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give more honor to Jesus than when we

honor his mother, and we honor her simply

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and solely to honor him more perfectly.

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That's what Marian devotion is all about.

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It's truly honoring Jesus more by

honoring his mother, because he gave

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us the gift of his mother, right?

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On the cross, when he died, he

looked at his disciple, John,

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and he said, John, behold, your

mother, mother, behold, your son.

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He gave us the gift of

his mother and asked us.

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To be entrusted to her and

for her to take care of us.

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And what St.

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Louis de Montfort is saying here

is that we bring so much honor to

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Jesus when we honor his mother.

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Because in the end, the Lord

knows Mary's never trying to

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take attention away from him.

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Her sole mission and purpose is to draw

us back into relationship with him.

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It's also important to notice that

Mary's intercession, because that's

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something people have a problem with

a lot, like, okay, then why do you

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pray to Mary if it's not about Mary?

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Why do you pray to Mary?

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Well, Mary's intercession is

actually rooted in scripture.

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It goes back to the wedding at

Cana when Mary notices that the

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wedding has run out of wine.

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And so she approaches her son and tells

him, you know, son, this is your time.

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And she tells the servants,

do whatever he tells you.

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And she gives him that nudge

of like, Jesus, they need

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more wine at this wedding.

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Like I know you can turn this water

into wine, you know, time to get to it.

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This is a perfect example of how

Mary intercedes for our needs.

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She saw the needs of the bride

and groom at the wedding.

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She didn't want them to go through

this whole embarrassing moment

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where they would run out of wine.

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That would have been a bad

thing for a party that was

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supposed to last much longer.

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And so she went to her son, she

pleaded on our behalf and she

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asked him to provide in the way

that her children needed him to.

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So there she is just continually

bringing our needs to Jesus and

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always pointing us towards him.

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Notice she didn't take credit

for the miracle in the end.

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You know, there's nothing in scripture

saying, and thanks to Mary, you know,

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the wedding was saved and, and Mary

took glory and honor in what she did.

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No, she always just points back to Jesus.

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Another reason we honor Mary

so much is because she has been

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crowned the queen of heaven.

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And this dates back all the way to the

ancient near Eastern kingdoms, including

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the Davidic kingdom of Israel, where the

king would often have multiple wives.

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So the honor in the role of Queenship

was actually given to the king's mother,

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not the king's wife, because

the king had multiple wives and

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he only really had one mother.

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And so the honor in the

queenship was given to her.

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And so the queen mother in

the Old Testament is shown as

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having the second most important

place of honor in the kingdom.

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And she would rule together

with her son over the kingdom.

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I'll read from scripture here as well.

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First Kings 2 19 through 20 gives us an

insight again into Mary's intercession

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and why that is a practice we have.

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So in scripture it says, so

Bathsheba went to King Solomon

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to speak on behalf of Adonijah.

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And the king rose to meet

her and bowed down to her.

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Then he sat on his throne and had a

seat brought for the king's mother.

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And she sat on his right.

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Then she said, I have one

small request to make of you.

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Do not refuse me.

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And the king said to her, make

your request to my mother,

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for I will not refuse you.

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Just like the queen mother of the

Davidic Kingdom, Mary serves as an

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advocate for her people in her kingdom,

which is us, the kingdom of God.

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Therefore, we should

approach Mary with confidence

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knowing that she carries our petitions.

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to her royal son, Jesus, and

that he responds to her as

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Solomon did to Bathsheba.

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I will never refuse you.

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Misconception number two, the

rosary is just a repetitive and

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mindless prayer with no meaning.

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This is another common criticism

that I feel like we get as Catholics.

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That the rosary is just

mindless repetition.

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But let's unpack this because that

couldn't be further from the truth.

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The rosary is actually a

deeply meditative prayer.

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And each decade focuses on a different

event in the life of Mary and Jesus.

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from the Annunciation to the Resurrection.

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it's a way of entering into the gospel

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and contemplating Christ's

life, death, and resurrection.

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Let's pull out the catechism

again in the catechism.

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Paragraph two seven zero eight

explains that the meditative prayer

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engages thought, imagination, and

emotion in order to deepen our faith.

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That's exactly what the rosary does.

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It's not just about the words

themselves that we say, and it's

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not about repeating these words over

and over again, as it is more about

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allowing us to meditate as we pray.

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And this whole idea of repetition being

bad and empty is just absolutely not true.

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We see in scripture even Jesus

prayed repetitively for something.

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In the Garden of Gethsemane, he

prayed the same prayer three times.

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Father, if it is possible,

let this cup pass from me.

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Yet not as I will, but as you will.

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That's in Matthew 26, 39 through

44, and he says it three times over.

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Repetition when done with intention is not

vain, but a way of expressing earnestness

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and devotion and petition to God.

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But a lot of Protestants will bring up

a line in scripture, Matthew 6, 7 that

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says, and when you pray, do not keep

babbling like pagans for they think they

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will be heard because of their many words.

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And so it's this idea of just

repetition in vain, like babbling.

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To be heard, um, and to be noticed and

to be seen in your prayer, but that's

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not what the goal of the rosary is.

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That's not what we're doing when we're

praying the rosary, when we're praying

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Hail Mary's over and over again,

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the rosary is a meditative prayer.

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And actually this repetition allows us

to enter into a more meditative state.

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It gives us the freedom to be able to use

our imagination and engage our senses to

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meditate on each mystery instead of having

to come up with the words ourselves.

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in a certain way.

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The repetition of the prayers, the Hail

Mary, the Our Fathers, the Glory Bees.

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Serves as a rhythm, actually

freeing our minds to contemplate

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the gospel mysteries deeply.

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So it's not about the words that

we're actually saying as much

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as it is the vessel that allows

us to meditate on Christ's life.

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But even with that, the Hail

Mary is also actually scriptural.

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So we are also praying with scripture

and just repeating scripture

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when we are praying Hail Marys.

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And there's power in that as well.

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The other amazing thing about the rosary

is that it Engages the whole person in

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prayer it engages our mind our body and

our soul as we vocalize the prayers our

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minds meditate on scripture And our hearts

align with the mysteries of Jesus's life.

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And this combination engages all

of our senses and allows us to draw

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into closer communion with God.

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And honestly, in a practical sense,

in our busy and distracted world, the

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rosary is an amazing tool to give us a

space to have silence and space with God.

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It really helps me focus in and focus

in my intentions in a very specific way.

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And the repetition of the prayers kind

of acts as an anchor or like a, like a

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background melody that allows me to focus

on my intention and bring that to Jesus.

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And actually to pray the Rosary well

takes a lot of discipline and intention.

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It is not mindless or empty by any means.

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And if you just think about how we express

love to others, we say beautiful words

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and words of love to our family members

and our friends over and over again.

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It doesn't matter how many times you

say, I love you to your spouse, to your

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mom, to your sister, to your friend.

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It won't lose its meaning if you're

saying it intentionally and with heart.

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Rather, it deepens the relationship and it

shows even more your love for that person.

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And so similarly, the repeated prayers

of the rosary are like, I love yous to

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Mary and Jesus over and over again, when

they're said with faith and devotion.

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And everybody's favorite St.

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John Paul II, St.

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Pope John Paul II loved the rosary

along with countless saints who

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talked about its power and recommended

people to pray it often, if not daily.

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In JP2's apostolic letter, and I'm

totally going to butcher this, Rosarium

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Virginis Mariae, oh my gosh, um, St.

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John Paul actually emphasized

how much the rosary is

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fundamentally Christ centered.

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He says with the rosary, the Christian

people sits at the school of Mary

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and is led to contemplate the

beauty of the face of Christ and to

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experience the depths of his love.

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He highlighted that while Mary

is repeated, the heart of prayer

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is meditating on the mysteries

of Christ's life, making the

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rosary a gospel centered devotion.

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So now we've established the rosary

is not mindless and the repetition

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has great intention and the

focus is truly on Jesus is life.

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Misconception number three, Mary is just

another woman, just another human being.

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She's nothing special.

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Some people think that Mary was just

a regular person like anybody else and

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there was nothing really special about

her besides the fact that she gave

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birth to Jesus, which if you ask me

that alone really sets you apart given

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that you gave birth to the salvation

of the world, but no big deal, right?

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And scripture and church teaching

shows us otherwise, shows us that she

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is actually of great importance and

that God has given her a very specific

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and special role to her that he

didn't give to any other human being.

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So was she fully human?

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Yes.

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Of course.

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Was she divine?

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No.

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No, not at all.

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But God gave her a very specific

and special mission that he

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clearly didn't give anybody else.

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So we can't say that Mary was just a

regular person without anything special.

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Mary was chosen by God to

be the mother of his son.

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And she also revealed herself to be

the Immaculate Conception, which means

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that she was conceived without sin in

the womb of her mother, Saint Anne.

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And this is why she was able to be

a worthy vessel to carry the Son

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of God and to bring Jesus into the

world, because she was sinless.

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But the fact that Mary didn't sin

didn't mean that she didn't need

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a savior And that's what you hear

Protestants say a lot that Mary needed

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a savior just as much as everybody else

Therefore she was just any other person

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But on the contrary, because of

her immaculate conception, this

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dogma of the Catholic Church

that we believe to be true,

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and that was even revealed in different

apparitions of Mary, it actually

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highlights that God applied the merits

of Jesus redemption to her in advance.

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So that then she could carry out

the plan and bring the savior

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of the world into the world.

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There's also a lot of biblical

basis for this belief that Mary was

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believed to be conceived without sin.

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So I'll get into that right now.

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I have a few scripture verses for you.

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Hold up that are very particular.

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So Genesis three 15 is called the

Proto Evangelium and it speaks, I

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will put enmity between you and the

woman and between your offspring

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and hers, he will strike at your

head while you strike at his heel.

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This verse foreshadows the

battle between Satan and Mary

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and her offspring, which is Christ.

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And the word enmity

implies total opposition.

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And so for Mary to be in complete

opposition with Satan, she

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could not be under his dominion,

which we all are, right?

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We're all part of this broken humanity,

which is stained by original sin

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from Adam and Eve in the garden.

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But Mary, in order for her to be in

complete opposition to Satan, not being

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able to be under his dominion at all, she

must not be stained with original sin.

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Next, we have Luke 1, 28, the

angel Gabriel's greeting to Mary.

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He says, Hail, full of grace.

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The Lord is with you.

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The Greek word used for full of grace,

which I cannot pronounce, so you'll

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have to look that one up on your own,

implies a perfection and completeness.

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of grace given by God.

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This unique title suggests that Mary

was already in a state of grace of

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complete perfection and grace before

the angel came to her and before

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Jesus was in her womb, pointing

again to her immaculate conception.

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And lastly, there's this whole

idea of Mary being the new Eve.

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Romans 5,

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19 and Colossians 15 at 21 through

22 speak of Christ as the new Adam

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who undoes the sin of the original

Adam, the first Adam, similar way,

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the early church fathers have taught

that Mary is like the new Eve.

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And so she was preserved from sin to

fulfill her role in salvation history.

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All right.

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Misconception number four,

the rosary is outdated.

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This is something that

I'm going to be honest.

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I thought when I was growing up, I

didn't really have a practice of praying

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the rosary until later in college.

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Um, and that was just something that

I viewed as like my grandma's prayers.

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It was just something that I was

like, Oh yeah, that's a traditional

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Catholic prayer that, you know, People

used to do forever ago, but I didn't

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really understand the power of it

or its relevance to my life today.

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Um, and that just showed how much

I did not know about the Rosary.

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: 00:17:19

And I think that anybody who would say

that the Rosary is outdated or irrelevant

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to our lives is actually coming from

a place of not knowing the fullness of

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this prayer and the power of this prayer.

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: 00:17:31

Like I said earlier, the rosary

is about meditating on the life

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of Christ, and that is timeless.

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The mysteries, the incarnation, the

passion, the resurrection, the miracles,

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that is relevant to every generation.

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To say that the rosary is irrelevant

or outdated is to say the gospel

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is outdated or irrelevant, and

we know that's simply not true.

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: 00:17:51

Countless Saints like Mother

Teresa and John Paul II and Padre

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Pio found strength and peace

through the rosary and we can too.

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And I will say from personal experience,

when I have been very devoted to the

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rosary, I have found strength and peace

and courage and faith and so much more.

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: 00:18:08

I love this quote from Padre

Pio, where he says the rosary

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is the weapon for these times.

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It's more relevant now than ever.

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: 00:18:16

Think about the current

challenges in our world.

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Fear, division, uncertainty,

anxiety, faithlessness.

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The rosary is a weapon for

peace and a source of hope that

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always points us back to Christ.

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Those are just a few misconceptions

that I really wanted to touch on.

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And if you're feeling inspired now by

this conversation and not sure where to go

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or how to deepen your relationship with

Mary, well, I want to give you a few

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practical ways that you can do that

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: 00:18:40

this year, so that you can grow in

devotion to Mary and the Rosary.

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: 00:18:44

First thing I'll recommend is

this prayer plan and podcast that

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: 00:18:48

Ascension just came out with.

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: 00:18:49

It's called Rosary in a

Year with Father Mark Mary.

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: 00:18:52

It's similar to the other amazing podcasts

that they've launched the last few years,

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: 00:18:55

like Catechism in a Year and Bible in

a Year with Father Mike Schmitz, but

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: 00:18:59

now it's centered around the rosary.

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: 00:19:01

And so if you're looking for

a way to build this habit of

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: 00:19:03

praying the rosary daily, this is

going to be an amazing resource.

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: 00:19:06

That's going to break it down in very

digestible, tangible ways to make it easy

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: 00:19:11

for you to actually build this habit.

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: 00:19:13

The plan is designed to start

small and built up over time.

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And it has a prayer plan attached

to it that you can follow along.

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And the prayer plan is dated January 1st.

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: 00:19:22

But if you don't start on that

day, don't let that stop you.

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You can start whenever And you just do

it for 365 days from that day, right?

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: 00:19:30

Like it doesn't have to

be on January 1st only.

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So here's how it works.

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The prayer plan is broken into six

different phases, each focusing

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on different aspects of Mary.

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: 00:19:39

So phase number one is forming

the relationship and really

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getting comfortable with being in

the presence of Jesus and Mary.

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: 00:19:45

Then you have phase two, which

is biblical roots of the rosary.

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And so you're going to be learning

about how the mysteries of the

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rosaries are rooted in scripture.

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: 00:19:52

Phase three is meditating

on the mysteries.

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And so you're going to be prayerfully

meditating with the mysteries through

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sacred art, which is called Visio

Divina, different saint reflections,

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: 00:20:02

and then scripture itself, which

we've done before, Lectio Divina.

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: 00:20:06

Phase four is called finding focus.

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: 00:20:08

And it's helping us practice independent

meditation by drawing inspiration

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from the previous phases that kind of

worked up to help us get to this point.

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: 00:20:16

Phase five is called

building up the decades.

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And it slowly adds decades of the

rosary on top of each other over time.

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: 00:20:22

Then phase six is praying a full rosary,

and this is led by Father Mark Mary,

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: 00:20:27

along with a community of listeners.

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: 00:20:29

Now, don't wait till the end of the

year to start praying a full rosary.

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: 00:20:33

You can obviously start praying that

now, but these phases make it so tangible

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: 00:20:38

and digestible for you to build up

this habit and truly have intention

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and meaning and knowledge of why we

are praying this in the first place.

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: 00:20:47

So, the link to the prayer plan is in

the show notes if you're interested,

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: 00:20:50

or you can just visit ascensionpress.

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com slash Mari R I Y to download

the prayer plan and join

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: 00:20:56

the Rosarito York community.

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: 00:20:59

The second piece of advice that

I would give is to habit stack.

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This has been super helpful for me

in the past is to basically choose a

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: 00:21:06

habit that you already have in your

life every single day and stack the

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: 00:21:10

habit of the rosary on top of it so

that it becomes normal and natural.

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: 00:21:14

And it's something that you remember

to do every day and that you can

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actually commit to doing every day.

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: 00:21:19

For example, for me, when I

started praying the rosary every

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day, it was a few years ago.

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: 00:21:22

I used to be a focus missionary

on a college campus and my house

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: 00:21:25

was about like 15, 16 minutes

away from the Newman center.

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: 00:21:28

And so I had a 16 minute commute

to work every single day.

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: 00:21:32

That was a habit that I had

every single morning that I

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: 00:21:34

had to do every single morning.

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: 00:21:35

And that's when I started

praying the rosary every day.

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: 00:21:38

I told myself no matter what, I'm stacking

the rosary on top of this commute.

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: 00:21:41

And so the second I get to the

car, I start praying the rosary.

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: 00:21:44

And this became a habit every single day.

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: 00:21:47

And for you, it can be anything.

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: 00:21:48

It can be getting ready in the morning.

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: 00:21:50

It could be while you're

cleaning the kitchen.

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: 00:21:52

It could be

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: 00:21:53

while you're drinking your morning coffee.

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: 00:21:55

And if you don't have hands, right,

if you're cleaning dishes and you

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: 00:21:57

don't have hands to actually like

pray with a rosary, that's okay.

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: 00:22:01

You can just play it on sound.

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: 00:22:03

You know, you could do it on hallow or

Spotify even has some rosary recordings

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: 00:22:08

and Even that will help you begin to

pray the rosary and stack it on top of

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: 00:22:13

other things and just help it become

like a daily thing that you go to.

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: 00:22:17

And then when you don't do it,

you'll really notice that you did it.

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: 00:22:19

You'll really notice that

you're missing that prayer.

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: 00:22:22

Okay.

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: 00:22:22

My last piece of advice for this would

be to find a accountability buddy.

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: 00:22:26

And This has also been super

helpful for me in the past.

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: 00:22:28

There's been different instances,

different stretches of time where I

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: 00:22:31

really tried to commit to a daily rosary.

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: 00:22:34

And one of the reasons it was

so successful and that I was

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able to do it was because I

had an accountability partner.

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: 00:22:39

So for October, the month of the

rosary, two of my girlfriends and I,

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: 00:22:43

we texted each other every single day,

an emoji when we prayed the rosary.

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: 00:22:47

And that was just like our mark of

accountability that we each prayed it.

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: 00:22:51

And it was encouraging.

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: 00:22:52

And it also was just a helpful

reminder when you saw that.

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: 00:22:54

Awesome.

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: 00:22:54

When sending their emoji, like, Oh

my gosh, I haven't prayed the rosary.

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: 00:22:57

I got to pray that.

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: 00:22:58

Okay.

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: 00:22:58

And last point, I know I said

the other one was the last one.

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: 00:23:01

This is a shameless plug, but it

actually has really helped me in

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: 00:23:05

the past is if you don't have a

gorgeous and meaningful rosary.

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: 00:23:09

You need one because for me it totally

changed the game beauty draws us closer

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: 00:23:14

to God and it draws us to prayer There's

just something innately godly about

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: 00:23:20

beauty because he created it And so

when I had a like regular, you know

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: 00:23:25

plastic or chain link rosary I was

never really drawn to it that much.

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: 00:23:29

It would just kind of sit there.

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: 00:23:30

I would ignore it or I wouldn't

really reach for it ever.

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: 00:23:33

And then when I had a gorgeously

handcrafted, beautifully designed rosary,

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: 00:23:38

It just awoke this desire in me

and I wanted to reach for it more.

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: 00:23:41

I wanted to pray it more.

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: 00:23:43

And so I recommend if you don't

have a gorgeous, meaningful rosary,

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: 00:23:46

get one and let that be your little

motivation, your encouragement, your

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: 00:23:50

inspiration to be drawn closer to

Mary and to pray the rosary every day.

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: 00:23:55

Obviously, you know where to get them.

437

: 00:23:57

Westcoastcatholic.

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: 00:23:57

co.

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: 00:23:58

We've got the absolute most

beautiful, stunning rosaries.

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: 00:24:02

And I really, really

love the weight of them.

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: 00:24:04

I think that's something that makes

our rosary so unique as well is

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: 00:24:07

that it's natural gemstone beads.

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: 00:24:09

And so there is a nice weight to

them, which almost acts as like a

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: 00:24:12

calming sensation during prayer.

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: 00:24:14

I've heard a lot of people describe it.

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: 00:24:16

It's almost like a weighted

blanket in your hands.

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: 00:24:18

Um, so that's also a nice feature.

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: 00:24:21

Okay.

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: 00:24:22

Thank you so much for joining me today.

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: 00:24:24

That's all I've got.

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: 00:24:25

for you.

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: 00:24:25

And I really hope this episode

has encouraged you to dive deeper

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: 00:24:28

into the beauty of the rosary and

to grow a deeper devotion to Mary.

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: 00:24:32

And I hope that it gave you some,

knowledge as well that you can just kind

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: 00:24:35

of keep in your back pocket in case you

ever hear somebody, you know, talk about

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: 00:24:39

a misconception of the rosary or Mary.

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: 00:24:41

Um, you can kind of pull that out

and share the truth with them.

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: 00:24:44

And remember, Mary always

leads us closer to Christ.

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: 00:24:47

That is her mission.

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: 00:24:48

So especially if you are having a hard

time in your relationship with Jesus or

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: 00:24:52

your relationship with the Father and

don't know how to draw close, try drawing

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: 00:24:55

closer to Mary because that's her mission.

463

: 00:24:57

That's what she does.

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: 00:24:58

She draws us closer to her son.

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: 00:25:01

And if you enjoyed this episode,

please share it with a friend who

466

: 00:25:04

might need to hear this message.

467

: 00:25:06

And don't forget to subscribe to

the podcast and leave a review.

468

: 00:25:09

It helps us grow the kingdom and

spread the message of the gospel

469

: 00:25:13

and the beauty of our faith.

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: 00:25:15

All right, friends, until next time, bye.