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Good evening Father Angelo,
I recited the Holy Rosary a little while ago but it wasn’t as successful as I wanted.

How can I avoid distractions  and live that moment more intensively?

Priest’s answer

Dearly beloved, 
I just came across your email dated 8th November 2021 today. I apologize for the delay. 

1. You tell me you get distracted as you pray the Rosary. It’s true, distractions are common during Rosary prayer and we need to acknowledge it.The remedy is to be found in the structure of this prayer itself because as you recite the Our Father and the Hail Mary you should focus on recreating the scene.
However there is still no shortage of reasons for distraction, both due to the tiredness of the day and because as soon as we stop, all the things we have suspended resurface in our thoughts, the words that need to be said and the things that need to be done.
So in the end we must be content with having dedicated some of our time to being with the Lord.
In this way we do not lose the merit of prayer.

2. Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus was saddened by her distractions in the Rosary. She writes: “However, I would not want you to believe, dear Mother, that I recite without devotion the prayers said in common in the choir or the hermitages. On the contrary, I love [5]very much these prayers in common, for Jesus has promised to be in the midst of those who gather together in His name. 324 1 feel then that the fervor of my Sisters makes up for my lack of fervor; but when alone (I am ashamed to admit it) the recitation of the rosary is more difficult for me than the wearing of an instrument of penance. I feel I [10] have said this so poorly! I force myself in vain to meditate on the mysteries of the rosary; I don’t succeed in fixing my mind on them. For a long time I was desolate about this lack of devotion that astonished me, for / love the Blessed Virgin so much that it should be easy for me to recite in her honor prayers which are so pleasing to her. Now I am less desolate; I think that the Queen of Heaven, since she is my MOTHER, must see my goodwill and she is satisfied with it.” (Story of a Soul, 318). 

3. However, Saint Teresa loved praying the Rosary and always carried it with her even before becoming a Carmelite. When he went on a pilgrimage to Loreto he wanted to place his Rosary on the bowl in which Jesus had eaten. She writes: “ I beheld the little room in which the angel had appeared to the Blessed Virgin. I placed my rosary in the little bowl of the Child Jesus. What ravishing memories! Our greatest consolation was to receive Jesus Himself in His house and to be His living temple in the very place He had honored with His presence.” (Ib., 167).

4.About the attention in prayer Saint Thomas recalls that prayer has three effects: a first is meritorious for eternal life, a second looks at the effectiveness of prayer in asking for graces and a third as it is nourishment for the soul.
Regarding the first effect (with the assumption that prayer has a meritorious effect for eternal life only if it is carried out in the grace of God) St. Thomas says that “In order to realize this effect, 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, as is the case with other meritorious acts. (Summa Theologiae, II-II, 83, 13)

5. About the impetratory effect he says that: “and again the original intention, to which God looks chiefly, suffices to obtain this effect.
But if the original intention is lacking, prayer lacks both merit and impetration: because, as Gregory [*Hugh St. Victor, Expos. in Reg. S. Aug. iii] (ibidem)

6. For the third effect, which is that of spiritual nourishment or refreshment of the soul, attention is necessarily required because in fact otherwise one is not nourishing oneself.

7. Therefore do not be discouraged by distractions because in any case prayer always achieves some effect, such as example the first and second.

Prayer is always a time well spent.

I bless you, I wish you a peaceful continuation of the Christmas holidays and I remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo