Encountering God Through Rosary: Sorrowful Mysteries I: Encountering God Through Rosary, #3

By RODNEY DOMINICUS S. K. CHUA

This book is a collection of enlightening reflections on the 'SORROWFUL' Rosary mysteries that help us discern their meaning and applications for our life situations and challenges, appreciate God's graces and goodness that we have taken for granted and importantly, listen to God's 'still small voice (1 Kings 19:12)' speaking to us – In essence to help us encounter God through the Rosary.

Mother Mary has always asked the people to pray the Rosary. But Rosary praying is declining because most find it to be a mere repetition of prayers and do not discover the real treasures of the Rosary which are hidden in its mysteries. The Rosary mysteries are called 'mysteries' because we are to 'solve the mystery' of how those biblical events apply to our own life when we meditate on them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Faris Digital Solutions Pte Ltd
• Release date: Apr 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9789810779764

Book preview

Encountering God

Through the Rosary

An Anthology

of

Inspirational Reflections

on the

Sorrowful

Mysteries of the Holy Rosary

Compiled by

Rodney Dominicus S. K. Chua

Copyright © 2013 Chua Seow Kang Rodney

All Rights Reserved.

Nihil Obstat

Reverend Fr. D. Louis-Marie Navaratne O.S.B., S.T.D. (Rome)

Former Professor of Dogmatic Theology - National Seminary of Our Lady of Lanka

Kandy, Sri Lanka

17 December 2013

Imprimatur

The Most Reverend Bishop Cletus Chandrasiri Perera, O.S.B., D.D., L.TH (Rome)

Bishop of Ratnapura

Avissawella, Sri Lanka

25 December 2013

Digital Publishing by Faris Digital Solutions Pte Ltd, Singapore

Website: www.adalsebook.com

E-ISBN: 978-981-07-7976-4

Front Cover Image:

‘Saint Peter Attempting to Walk on Water’ (1766)

Artist: François Boucher (1703–1770)

Back Cover Image

‘Crucifixion – Central Image of the Bockstorfer Altar’ (1524)

Artist: Christoph Bockstorfer

Gloria

Patri ✠Filio ✠Spiritui ✠Sancto

trinity.jpg

Adoration of the Trinity (1791–1792)

Artist: Vicente Lopez y Portana (1772–1850)

Prologue

All glory, praise and thanksgiving be to Almighty God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the grace of bringing this book compilation to a wonderful fruition. Heartfelt gratitude too to our Holy Mother Mary for her prayers and intercessions in making this book a reality.

This book consolidates inspiring and enlightening reflections on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. The hope is that these Rosary reflections, with the grace of God and the intercessions of Our Lady of the Rosary, will help enhance one’s encounter with God the Holy Trinity, one’s friendship with Jesus and Mary and one’s faith experience, renewal and transformation.

In most if not all of the Marian apparitions throughout the centuries, one of the repeated requests of Mother Mary has been to pray the Rosary. However, the practice of praying the Rosary is declining and is prayed primarily by the more senior generations. One of the reasons for the decline could perhaps be attributed to the fact that most do not reflect on how the mysteries apply to their lives and hence, find it to be a mere repetition of prayers. I too was one of those people and often put off the praying of the Rosary as I found it tedious and not very meaningful to pray.

During Lent 2013, I experienced a transformational renewal of the Rosary. I began by searching for inspirational reflections on the Rosary mysteries to pray with. These Rosary reflections go beyond just narrating or recollecting the biblical events with respect to the mysteries. Additionally, they also include thoughts, questions and insights that help one apply the lessons from the mystery to one’s life situations. That is, the reflections extrapolate from the inspiring biblical events to what they may mean for and/or how they may apply to our lives.

Good Shepherd Sister Gabriel Emily Mary Byrne R.G.S., a religious sister from the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, once explained to me that the reason why the biblical events, meditated on in the Rosary, are called mysteries is because we are called, when meditating on the Rosary, to ‘solve the mystery’ of how those biblical events apply to our own Christian life, what they mean for us and what they are teaching us.

Hence, it is of paramount importance that we reflect and listen to what God is telling us when we meditate on the biblical events in the Rosary mysteries. I have found the following approach to praying the Rosary helpful in this regard and I would like to share it with you. At the start of each decade, I would read the reflections for that decade before saying the ‘Our Father’. I would then recite the ‘Our Father’, the ‘Hail Mary’s’ and the ‘Glory Be’ in whispers or silently. Whilst praying the decade, I would, at the same time, be re-reading the reflections as I am praying the Rosary prayers. Almost without exception, when I pray in this manner, I find the words from the scriptural passage and the reflections speaking to me directly. Often times, whilst in the midst of praying the decade, I would pause and have spontaneous conversations with Our Lord or Our Lady when certain parts of the reflection speak to me and I want to pray more about it. I would resume praying the decade after the spontaneous conversation and may go into another spontaneous conversation with Our Lord or Our Lady again should something else in the reflection speak to me whilst praying the rest of the decade.

I now find the entire Rosary experience an edifying reflection of my life situations, how the mysteries apply to me and what the Lord is telling me. This manner of praying the Rosary gives me many special encounters with Jesus and Mary and enables me to have wonderful dialogue sessions with God the Trinity and Our Mother Mary. I look forward to praying the Rosary as it is now for me a direct encounter with God.

I felt called to share this wonderful Rosary prayer experience with others by searching for and consolidating enlightening reflections and meditations on the Rosary mysteries to help enhance people’s faith and spiritual experience when praying this wonderful prayer advocated by our Mother Mary herself at all her apparitions (Lourdes, Fatima, Knock, etc.); importantly, to help people encounter God through the Rosary.

This book compiles the enlightening reflections on the mysteries of the Rosary that have helped to enhance my own faith experience when praying the Rosary and I am positive that you will find them meaningful to your Rosary prayer experience as well. I am certainly most grateful to the authors and owners of the Rosary reflections who have so kindly given me their permission to print them in this book. I have acknowledged each author or owner (by name, organisation and/or website) alongside their respective reflections included in this book. Furthermore, in the section of this book entitled ‘Sorrowful Mysteries Reflections: Authors and Contributors’, I have also referenced all the authors along with the wonderful people who have given me or have helped me obtain the relevant permissions to print their respective Rosary reflections.

The hope is that this Rosary experience, with the grace of God, will touch, enlighten and transform individual lives. As individual lives get transformed, they will positively impact the lives of the people around them. Hence, transformed individual lives will in turn effect the betterment of family, community and societal lives.

To God be the Glory! To Jesus Through Mary!

Rodney Dominicus Chua Seow Kang

Republic of Singapore – July 2013

Encountering God Through The Rosary

A Suggested Approach

This book comprises 14 sets of reflections on the Sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary.

The following is an approach to praying the Rosary and meditating on its mysteries that has helped me encounter God through the Rosary. However, let the Holy Spirit inspire and guide you to use this book in the manner that would work best to enhance your Rosary experience and to encounter God through the Rosary.

A Suggestion Only:

Step 1: Select the Rosary reflections set you want to pray with by browsing the content pages. Note that some of the reflections are fairly long. For the longer reflections, you may want to reflect on just one mystery for the entire five decades of the Rosary, meditating on only a portion of the