Making time for the 15decade Rosary as a family

[jmjZelie]

My family has been working on making the family Rosary an ingrained habit for every evening without fail. With God's grace, our efforts are succeeding. But my husband and I feel drawn to being able to say, and to teach our children to say, the full Our Lady's Psalter, all 15 mysteries instead of the 5 decade. In order to make this a possibility, we have found that reciting it in Latin, in the call and response manner, at a fairly rapid clip, can allow us to complete it in 30-40 minutes. We are too slow with our Midwestern drawl to be able to say it in less than a full hour if we use English and do not use call and response.

Anyway, that is how we are making this work for our family. I am going to make some large prayer cards using artistic masterpieces as representations of each mystery that my children can have the honor to display, taking turns each evening, so that even the little ones know what we are supposed to be thinking about. The toddler and the baby are the only ones who haven't learned the Latin yet, but both are able to look at paintings.

I thought maybe people here might like to read this so they can think of ways to make the family Rosary or even the full Psalter of our Lady an evening ritual. Your suggestions or thoughts are welcome. God bless!

Do you think it would be better for Monks to say all 150 psalms daily as quickly as they can, or slowly and devoutly Chant only a portion of the psalms daily?

That wouldn't be for me to say. It would depend upon their rule of life. It has been known for some monks to be required to recite the whole Psalter daily, and it has been known for families and lay groups to recite the full Our Lady's Psalter daily.

My phrase "fairly rapid clip" was contrasted to "Midwestern drawl" after all, so relative speed may not be all that fast for us. And it is aligned with our natural breathing patterns, so that we can say one phrase with one breath and the others respond with their phrase with one breath. Quite relaxing actually and in my opinion, a beautiful sound.

Many monks fill their days with chant, and our little family is learning how to fill our days with prayer and hymn etc as we work and play. God is good!

[jmjZelie]

Fifteen can be said in one hour, but the ability to say Latin quickly and accurately is the skill of a well trained priest (a Low Mass and Prayers after in half an hour is attainable if the priest has good Latin) or lay Latinist. One set of Mysteries said devoutly is surely so much more pleasing to God and Our Lady?

We are required to do at least a 5 decade Rosary everyday, however, as part of the requirements that go along with investment with the Scapular. Our confessors gave us permission (any confessor can) to do the Rosary instead of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

And to your point about the Latin, anyone can learn how to recite the 4 main prayers of the Latin Rosary quickly and easily, as well as the meaning (the Apostles Creed is harder, so we often use the Nicene Creed because we already know that one). It is totally different than the challenging Latin of an entire Mass. Really, my children know how to chant all those prayers. The Pater Noster and the Gloria Patri and In nomine Patris they hear at every Mass, and they sing the Ave Maria all the time anyway.

No one needs to be thoroughly educated in Latin in order to pray or understand the Latin Rosary when traditional Catholics are practically swimming in these prayers every week.

I think now I have replied to everyone, hopefully. I still encourage people here at SD forum to give it a try. I think it is better to fall flat on my face making mistakes with things in the early days of a spiritual practice and let it humiliate me a bit, than to not try it at all for fear of making a mistake. If anyone else finds themselves to be similar in temperament, this method might work for them too. God bless!

[Greg]

I hope it works for you.

My experience has been that it doesn't.

[jmjZelie]

I hope it works for you.

My experience has been that it doesn't.

Which part? The daily family Rosary, or the 15 decades, specifically? Or the Latin?

Could you share from your experience what didn't work and why?

[Greg]

Why not 30 decades?  If you really wanted to you could make the time for 2 hours of praying each day.  Child swimmers put that much training in daily after all.

Well balanced parents.  All of the ones I know, without exception, say 5 decades.  20-30 mins per day is plenty enough.

By subjecting your children to statistically extreme amounts of praying and chanting you are giving them a gold plated excuse to rebel later on.

Extremes don't work because the kind of parents who go to extremes are not balanced about other things in life that children do want.  I've seen extreme religiousity many times and it always ends the same way.  1 a priest, 1 a wacko and 3 lapsed.