“The Rosary is a long chain that links heaven and earth. One end of it is in our hands and the other end is in the hands of the Holy Virgin. The Rosary prayer rises like incense to the feet of the Almighty” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux).

I first started trying to pray the Rosary as a teenager. No one had ever really explained it to me, though, so it was a rough beginning. I had a little booklet with the bare bones basics—a list of prayers and mysteries with no explanation of what a mystery was or what to do with it. I thought I had to focus my attention on the words of the prayers, rather than on the mysteries, and every time my mind wandered, I would start the entire Rosary over.

Needless to say, this practice was not sustainable.

Many years later, when I was dating my now-husband, he gave me a rosary for a birthday gift. I’d expressed interest in learning more about the rosary, and as a lover of beauty, my gateway was the physical beauty of rosaries themselves. We started FaceTiming each other first thing in the morning or right before bed and praying the Rosary together.

After we were married and I’d had our first daughter, I decided to start praying the Rosary every day. I wasn’t working outside the home, and our first daughter took long naps for the first six months or so of her life, so I had plenty of time. I started by praying a few Hail Marys at a time throughout the day and gradually worked up to praying a full Rosary in one sitting.

Now, I have two daughters and more work on my plate, although I’m still predominantly a stay-at-home mom. I tend to pray my Rosary throughout the day, finishing the last couple of decades as I nurse the baby before bed. I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep at night without having prayed an entire Rosary that day. (Admittedly, I don’t always pray it well, especially in the last few months since my younger daughter was born!)

Work With Your Brain

As a busy mom with ADHD, I always need help building new habits. In fact, I think praying a daily Rosary might be the first time I’ve ever consciously set out to create a new habit that actually stuck. A few tools have helped over the last few years.

One is a ChewsLife rosary bracelet. It has a charm that you can move, so you can keep track of where you left off when you’re interrupted. (Can you tell it was created by a mom?)

Another is my reminders app. I don’t use it anymore, but for a while, checking off “pray Rosary” on my reminders app was the only way I remembered to pray a Rosary every day.

I’ve also used the Hallow app to pray the Rosary, especially when I’m multitasking, like driving or cooking. If you have the free version, you can listen to the Rosary read by any of Hallow’s narrators, including Jonathan Roumie of The Chosen. If you have a paid subscription, I recommend listening to a Scriptural Rosary with Roumie, who does his “Jesus” accent when he reads verses in Jesus’ voice. It will really immerse you in the mysteries! I also have used free online mystery meditation guides. This Scriptural Rosary from the Knights of Columbus is great.

A New Tool for Learning to Pray the Rosary

Because of my love of the Rosary and continuous desire to improve my practice of really using it to connect with Jesus and His Mother, I was excited to learn that Ascension Press is launching a “Rosary in a Year” (along the lines of its popular “Bible in a Year” and “Catechism in a Year”). Led by Father Mark-Mary Ames, CFR, of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, the podcast will take listeners through:

• Building a daily habit of prayer.

• Forming a relationship with Mary and Jesus.

• The Biblical foundations of the Rosary.

• How to meditate with sacred art (visio divina), the writings of the saints, and Scripture (lectio divina).

• And more.

Ascension sent me a copy of its Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide, and it’s impressively thorough. It includes a prayer plan, daily prayer assignments, all of the Scripture passages and reflections that Fr. Mark-Mary will read in the podcast, and every piece of sacred art that the podcast will help listeners pray with, as well as charts that outline the Biblical roots of the Rosary. The mysteries are even color-coded for easy understanding.

If, like me, you’ve had a difficult time with the “Bible in a Year” and “Catechism in a Year” podcasts because you struggle to maintain attention to auditory content, this guide will be an excellent accompaniment to the podcast or stand-alone resource. There’s still time to purchase it and begin in the new year (especially if you buy the e-book)—but any day is a good day to start praying the Rosary.

Taryn DeLong is co-president and editor-in-chief of Catholic Women in Business. Her first book, Holy Ambition: Thriving as a Catholic Woman at Work and at Home, written with her co-president Elise Crawford Gallagher, is out now from Ave Maria Press. She lives with her husband and daughters outside Raleigh, North Carolina.

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