“Always say the rosary. Hold on to your rosary as you would a weapon. The rosary is the weapon for these times.” – Saint Padre Pio

For me, the first time I picked up a rosary it was more in confrontation than in comfort.

I had many misconceptions about the rosary before I first tried the prayer. In my life as an atheist, I had not done a huge amount of work discriminating between various Christian denominations but it represented all of the things that I felt were wrong about religion. Superstitious. Repetitive. Morbid. I pictured old ladies in shawls, kneeling painfully in freezing chapels.

I came to it in the midst of a mental health crisis. The repetitive, meditative nature of the prayer suited me much more than any expectation of a spiritual awakening. And any religious experience that was gained from praying the rosary regularly was no ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. There were no burning bushes or Marian apparitions. Simply; my heart softened. Gradually.

Still for the first year or so my faith was a personal one, not something that I discussed with friends or family and something that I felt inwardly. It was a shield and a protection. It gave me comfort through difficult times and helped me to see my own World through a different prism. And that was enough.

Over the last year, something else has happened.

Pope Francis passed. Whilst my faith had been laying some roots before this, his death precipitated a rapid growth of the shoots. I felt his absence. A mourning that I hadn’t really earned. A recognition that there was something significant shifting for a family which I was outside of but longed to be a part of. I realised too that there was a whole World outside of my own feelings and challenges and that there was something terribly, unmistakably wrong. Beyond even that, I was wrong about my faith; it is not just a shield, it is a weapon. As St Paul would say, faith is the shield but you must also be armed with the Sword of the Spirt, which is the Word of God.

Now the rosary is my favourite weapon. One that can attack at the route causes of hate and disarm, with love.

“The holy rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you’ll be amazed at the results.” – Saint Josemaría Escrivá

It is important to note that I am not yet a Catholic. I am still undertaking the RCIA in my local Parish. I am not an expert and I will not claim ever to be. What I can share is my own journey, live, as it happens. I hope that in some way, I can contribute even at this early stage of a Catholic life to the growth and the strengthening of individual’s faiths.

Starting with this: the rosary is truly the weapon that we need for our times. One of the first things that I learned from the Catholic social media space is that I wasn’t all wrong; the World is held up by the prayers of elderly Catholic women:

• In 41 out of 106 countries surveyed by Pew, adults under 40 are significantly less likely than those 40+ to say religion is “very important.” Pew Research Center
• Among U.S. young adults (ages 18-30), the proportion who identify as Catholic has dropped over decades. In the 1978-82 period, 27% described themselves as Catholic; in 2018-22, that number was around 19%. pillarcatholic.com
• Retention of those raised Catholic is also declining. Only about 54% of those raised Catholic in that age group still consider themselves Catholic in adulthood. pillarcatholic.com

There is, as always, cause for hope. Much like with myself there are the shoots of faith springing up from between the rocks. Young adults, men in particular, are more curious about faith and spirituality. There is a certain section of youth and young adults that have been completely left behind by a social media culture and political agenda in which everything is a commodity, there is no certainty – all is fluid. Faith, and in particular the Catholic faith, provides the structure and certainty that many of them crave.

I was inspired to start this particular part of my faith journey by the words of God to the Prophet Habakkuk “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” I hope, in some small way, to contribute to cutting through the commodification of ourselves and others, of the radicalisation of apathy and disconnectedness to do something meaningful in sharing my faith in others.

Starting today.

~DM