The Rosary II: Vain Repetition?
A Frequently Argued Quandary
Let me quote C.S. Lewis:
Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And [the majority] don't go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best--if you like, it "works" best--when, through long familiarity, we don't have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.1
We might say the same about the Rosary. What most Protestants probably do not know is that the Rosary is structured around five “mysteries”, moments from the life of Christ to meditate upon during the next set of prayers. These sets of prayers are called “decades” because they are composed of 10 Hail Mary’s, as well as a Glory Be and an Our Father. Each of the vignettes from Christ’s life is complemented by a spiritual fruit to pray for and reflect on. Each decade is a window you peer through into the heart of Jesus in hopes of becoming more like him.2 What Lewis says about the Mass (a term he began using toward the end of his life) might just as well apply to memorized prayers. If you’re “using” them correctly, you won’t be thinking about moving your lips or filling up a word quota. You’ll be thinking about God.
When the act becomes an end in itself and not a means to know and love God more, it does indeed become vain repetition. After all, we have been told that we will not be heard simply for our many words. God is in heaven and we are on earth, so let our words be few. You might wonder, then, how one could spend an entire hour in prayer. Must you constantly think up new things to avoid repeating yourself and disrespecting God? I certainly have had that experience, especially when praying out loud in Protestant settings. Of course, I love spontaneous group prayer, but we should all admit there comes a point where you are consciously trying hard to fill the space with prayer and not babbling. An elegant solution to this would be to pray a few good lines many times, as they invite you to relax into the words the Church has prayed millions and millions of times so you can focus on God rather than your own speech.
I shouldn’t have to make this argument, though, because it is the clear teaching of the Bible. Psalm 119 is a massive celebration of reciting, mulling over, and memorizing the Word of God. Deuteronomy 6 commands that God’s laws be bound to your heart, mind, and hands (that is to say, your passions, intellect, and actions), that you ponder them when you get up and when you lie down, when you’re off traveling and when you’re dining at home. And to pick just one sample from the New Testament, in the 10th chapter of his Revelation, John is commanded to “eat this book”, which Bishop St. Victorinus of Pettau, writing in the late 200’s, explains this way:
To take the book and eat it up, is, when exhibition of a thing is made to one, to commit it to memory.
Likewise the Venerable Bede, a monk from 735AD, understands it as a command.
Take: That is, place it in thy inward parts, and write it down in the breadth of the heart.
Protestants are generally exceptional students of Scripture, largely because they simply spend so much time with it. Using repetition as a means to internalize (the connection to eating is clear) the words of a good prayer should not be a foreign concept, particularly when the prayer is almost entirely lifted directly from Scripture. In any case, it should not automatically evoke charges of vanity.
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Letters to Malcolm, Letter 1. Bolding mine.
It was getting too complicated to explain in the main text, but there are actually four sets of mysteries, each of which brings out a different aspect of the life of Christ. Which set of mysteries you pray depends on the day of the week. So the Rosary you pray today won’t be identical to the Rosary you pray tomorrow. As with the Church calendar, it is a marvelous way to balance the stability of repetition with the freshness of variation. And, because it includes so many episodes from the life of Christ, you enjoy the depth of focused meditation with an impressive breadth of biblical material covered. You can read a detailed walkthrough of the Rosary here.