Need Ideas For Rosary Workshop

[He is Risen!]

A friend of mine asked me to come and present a workshop, class, potluck, social, etc. where the theme is the Rosary.  This group includes people of many different (even non Christian) faiths.  Most of these people are 100% new to the Rosary and I'm trying to work out how to approach this in a way that 1. leads people to the fullness of faith, 2. is easy to understand, and 3. is approachable/appealing.  I was wondering if any of you have had experience with this kind of thing and know what kinds of questions that Rosary newbees might have.  Thanks! 

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

Hopefully I can help. I was just over being completely anti-catholic and still skeptical of the Church when I learned the Rosary.The Blessed Mother carried me home from there. There are four general points I would use to teach about the Rosary and they build on each other. I'll give each in brief, but hopefully they make enough sense for you, if not feel free to ask questions. It is important to make it clear especially to a mixed group who are coming from different approaches that for Catholic prayer is not worship, prayer is to ask and to speak with. When one person asks for somebody else to pray for something that in itself is a prayer. It is a much older understanding and definition of the word than what most protestant and faith use. As well make it clear that while we pray to Mary and other Saints as well, out thoughts, wishes, desires, and worship are directed to God.

 

1) The Jewish custom of praying the psalms and 7 hours of prayer each day (note these are not full hours, but more like the Liturgy of The Hours are done at certain times). The early Christians also maintained this practice and we have the scriptures of them going to pray with the Jewish community up until they were kicked out of the synagogues. Eventually this practice developed into the Monastic tradition of the Early Church to pray all 150 psalms everyday, and then eventually did become the liturgy of the hours.

 

2) After a time, the faithful wanted to join the prayer of the monks, but how does a worker have time to pray all 150 psalms and still get their work done? The answer came about by praying shorter pieces of scripture and meditating on Christ's life and the Gospel. The first part of the Hail Mary is the Angel Gabriel's greeting to Mary at the annunciation "hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with you." and Elizabeth's words of greeting to Mary when Mary came to visit her "blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb." The second 1/2 of the Hail Mary confirms our belief in the communion of the Saints and asks for intercession from our mother. originally there were the 3 sets of 50 Hail Marys one for each psalm, but after time Blessed John Paul II saw fit to add the 4th set. This is just the organic development of devotions and prayer over time and the Rosary has been proven to be so effectual in spiritual life.

 

3) This is where I would talk about the other prayers in the rosary, briefly what they are where they come from and show a diagram of the mysteries and how it all flows. maybe even pray a decade together.

 

4) I would then talk about the spiritual benefits of the Rosary, graces received and any of that other good stuff that may be relevant to the group. This is the least important point I think for a complete newbie and might even just be some direction on where to find more information if they are interested.

 

This is the basic format of how I learned the Rosary and I personally think it's great.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Tell them that we ask for the holy mothers intercession and pray with her not to her. :)