for my favorite time of year:
preparation.
i love my rosaries. they are all very special to me for different reasons. but i've always wondered what the creators were thinking when the picked the hail mary and the our father. i just wish i could be in their heads and hearts to have known what it meant to them. what those prayers meant to them.
for a long time the hail mary didn't mean much to be, besides serving as a reminder of how unholy of a young girl i was. but i've always loved mary. for a long time. maybe because i feel like i understand some of what she might have felt in the secret of her mind. oh, and i love how as she grew and as Jesus grew she treasured things in her heart. i love to witness things that amaze me and treasure them in my heart like she did. but the hail mary still perplexed me to a certain degree. i always enjoyed praying the our father more. 10 to 1? It just always seemed steep to me.
until the other morning as i was praying the rosary on my way to work. (i like the repetition as a platform for meditation on the mysteries.) i got frustrated. what was the deal with this prayer?! i didn't have the internet to google it (i would do that while driving anyway)...so i simply had to rack my brain and ask the Lord to help me find the answer I was seeking. And He did!
hail mary, full of grace--full of the LORD!
the Lord is with you--INSIDE of you!
Blesses art thou among women--for bearing the Lord!
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb: Jesus!
Mary is not the focus...Jesus is.
Mary was certainly a much better little girl than I was,
but through faith in Jesus Christ I have received the Holy Spirit,
and the Holy Spirit lives inside me.
I am a temple of the Lord, just like Mary!
And the praise is for the Lord, not the temple.
I can be good; I can be bad. But He makes us blessed. He makes us holy.
Praying the rosary just got so much cooler.
God is so faithful.
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I love this, i'm so glad i re-found your page. this august during the feast of the Theotokos I was really struggling to fully celebrate and fast, and one morning when I was doing my morning prayers I read it so differently- "without defilement YOU gave birth to God the Word." It's not that God was dependent on her, but she was the house for God in a way that makes her an icon of the church, which I just think is endlessly meaningful. "let it be unto me as you have said"
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