Whatever struggles you may face with the rosary, never walk away feeling discouraged. If your mind wanders, if you don’t feel the fervor, or if you’re very sleepy while praying, remember that the words you are reciting are biblical and holy. Simply pulling out your beads and saying the sacred words is giving something beautiful to God, even if your heart or mind is not as into it as you’d like.
Moreover, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, the intention to pray is itself the beginning of prayer. In fact, he wrote in his Summa Theologiae, “It is not necessary that prayer should be attentive throughout; because the force of the original intention with which one sets about praying renders the whole prayer meritorious.” If we sincerely desire to give God our best in the rosary, but we lose attention and fervor, that foundational good intention is still a beautiful gift to God. So even if our performance of the rosary is not as great as we’d like it to be, that doesn’t wipe out the foundation of a good intention.
—from the book Praying the Rosary Like Never Before: Encounter the Wonder of Heaven and Earth
by Edward Sri
