Drop What You Are Reading
I have a new book Rosary: Mysteries, Meditations, and the Telling of the Beads by Kevin Orlin Johnson Ph.D. You need this book too. Yes, need. I haven’t even finished it yet but this is the very best book on the Rosary and Catholic prayer that I have encountered. There may be deeper and more mystical books….strike that….I know there are deeper and more mystical books but while I can get something from those, I am just not mystical. I am firmly convinced that when I arrive in heaven I will be issued a sash that says “She was not a mystic.”
Dr. Johnson tells a wonderful history of Catholic prayer. Of vocal prayer and it’s purposes, of meditative prayer and contemplative prayer and how Sacred Scripture breathed life into it all. The history of breviaries and and using beads and stones and putting them in pockets and on strings and why….it’s all there! Prayers and beads are so deeply intertwined in Christian history that the English word “bead” really means prayer and it is related to the German words ‘beten’ meaning ‘prayer’ and ‘bitte’ which is used as the word ‘please’ is in English for polite requests (prayer?). The Saxon word for prayer is ‘belt’ and comes from the strings of prayer beads worn as belts.
Dr. Johson’s explanation of the whole “vain repetitions” criticism of the rosary is brilliant. Here’s just one gem from that section.
If you’re saying it right, you can’t say it often enough; and if you’re saying it wrong, it doesn’t matter how often you say it.
I can’t wait to finish this book and I couldn’t wait to recommend it.
