Is it okay to stop my rosary in the middle and then just continue with it later? Last night I was praying the rosary but I started dozing off. So I stopped, busied myself with some paperwork, and then went back to my rosary. As a child my Lola told me the rosary, once halted, loses its meaning.
Why do many parents read bed-time stories to their children or sing
lullabies? Isn’t it to help them fall restfully asleep so that they’ll waken up refreshed next morning? What better way to fall asleep than reflecting on the life of Jesus Christ, which is what the rosary is!
My late father, after the death of my mother, used to fall asleep praying the rosary. One of the graces of the rosary is that we can divide it up, praying one mystery at a time. We can spread the five mysteries over the day.
I’m sure your Lola was very close to our Blessed Mother and her Divine Son, but any prayer from the heart retains its meaning, even if we fall asleep. Did your Lola cease to love you when you were asleep?
Helpful Website
Rosary Center, How to pray the rosary
http://www.rosary-center.org/rosary.htm
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flores de mayo
Since I became a catechist for flores de mayo, I always hear debates about the recitation of the rosary during the 30-day activity. Recently, the chairman on catechesis of our Diocese published a guide which says that a decade of the Rosary should follow after the opening prayer. Now, the older catechists did not like the idea. In the area, when this elderly catechist was around, she would let the children pray the whole rosary and "preach" that it is irreverent to just say one decade. This became a source of inconsistency in the activity because she was always late and somehow confusion because the younger catechist (my sister) was praying just a decade of it.
In our case, we follow the format of the Diocese and explain each decade before the rosary so that it would be better understood by the floristas. This is also a strategy because children have short attention span and become restless if the whole rosary is prayed.