Praying the Rosary?

As with so many of my spiritual bursts, it started with a dream. I dreamed of Buddhas and Christian icons, particularly a little wooden one of Jesus, and rosaries. When I woke up I went ‘ah’, and continued on my day.

But I kept thinking of rosaries. And so, the other day, I picked them up and was like ‘okay, what am I supposed to be doing with these?’. Well, as a pagan I wasn’t completely comfortable with them for the longest time, but then the other day I went ‘oh fuck it’, and decided to pray the rosary in the most Catholic of ways.

Well, it was nice. It was comforting, if a bit difficult to manage all the prayers and themes off the cuff like that. But I liked the structure. So I decided to keep doing it, along with reading the book from the Dalai Lama that I’m working on.

Now, I’m still pagan. But praying the rosary feels like coming home, making peace with the Catholic faith in a way. Integrating it into my daily spiritual life.

You see, my family has a long history of Catholicism. One of my grandmothers (that I never met) used to send my family prayer cards and plastic rosaries (even glow in the dark ones!). I kept and still have all the prayer cards, and was delighted to see that I still have a blue plastic rosary. She used to send blue ones for the boys and pink ones for the girls. How I ended up with the blue one is strange, but I think of it as a nice sign. Maybe she approves of my transition.

In any case, I was sifting through Catholic stuff online, thinking of those prayer cards she used to send when it struck me that -> not all my ancestors were pagan. I know, duh. But the ones that are the closest to me, who probably care about me the most, were Catholic.  Now they weren’t blind Catholics. Many practiced tarot and had their own opinions, but remained Catholic in their self-definition. Anyways, it just struck me that praying the Rosary and collecting prayer cards could be a lovely way to connect with those ancestors.

I mean, there’s got to be a reason that I have so many rosaries. I’ve got like five -> and I never set out to collect them or even keep them. It just happened.

Anyways, I’m not quite sure what to make of this development, honestly. I’m just going with what feels good right now. What’s odd is that my patron deity (Lucifer) seems plenty happy with this turn of events. And what also strikes me as odd is how satisfying it is. I’ve always felt that within paganism there is a lack of order, discipline, and depth. But delving into Catholic stuff, I feel that order and depth that I’ve been looking for. It just feels like so much of what I’ve been looking for from paganism is there in Catholicism. Which is strange.  But hey, I’m really not going to overthink this. I have enough on my plate emotionally right now that I’m just going fuck it. If it feels good and makes me feel better I’m going to do it. Which, coincidentally, the rosary has been doing. I find that because it has such an opening and a closing with the sign of the cross, it helps me get in and out of a meditative state relatively okay. Or so I feel.

Anyways who knows. Maybe this will be another of my strange bursts that makes very little sense. Maybe it’ll pass. Or maybe this is a new way to connect with my ancestors. Either way, there’s this song from the Notre Dame theater production that I’ve had stuck in my head for two days now. For those who don’t speak french, it’s a song about the gypsies asking for refuge in the city of Paris from Mother Mary (Notre Dame). It feels timely for me.