Thursday, November 29, 2007

Around The Horn With Mom

For someone who talks a big Rosary Ranger game, it's difficult for me to actually pray the thing on my own. Put a Rosary in my hands and the attention span shortens to that of a flea that just fell into one of those person-sized Pixy Stix. It's one of maybe two activities I'm actually better at in a group setting; somebody else has to count, others are there to keep things moving, the guy next to me isn't going to let me wander out of the room, suddenly called by cookies.

The Rosary is quite nightmare exercise for the OCD patient: Did I say that "Hail Mary" right? What if I didn't? Should I go back and do it again? Decades can seem to take, quite literally, decades.

To address the issue, I tracked myself with a CD from the Notre Dame Bookstore, Praying the Rosary With Father Theodore Hesburgh. Ted was lost in my move from The Northern Swamp to The Very Northern Swamp. He's spinning somewhere over one of the Carolinas.

It's interesting, especially given my past with the Internet, that the answer would be found right here. As in, here-- VirtualRosary.org. It's a freeware program which includes bead count, prayers, decades, corresponding Scripture quotes, and a little Ave Maria MIDI flava thrown in. (Which is, wisely, entirely toggleable.)

Now it's not just me and Mary and my little crystal circuits. It's circuits of another kind, because this involves my computer, the very conduit of my career--and Virtual Rosary, in the oddest of ways, serves to sactify my little laptop in a "You click to your Mother with that keyboard?" sort of fashion.

In the true tradition of the Internet, Virtual Rosary enables me to pray alone without praying alone; PrayerCast (also with Full Toggle Power) slowly scrolls across the bottom of the screen, uniting my intentions with this poor mother in Texas who's always asking St. Monica to help her son find friends who aren't quite so pre-Bengal.

In the event you're not the Rosarying kind--although I highly recommend it, I just wish I could get through five decades without once thinking over-fondly of frosting--all are welcome on PrayerCast. Go ahead! Cast a Prayer! All the un pre-Bengaled kids are doing it!

gratia plenas for everybody: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

7 comments:

Amy said...

Thanks for the info, MB. I try to listen to "Holy Rosary with Mother Angelica", but between doing the dishes and feeding my son and trying to cram a gazillion things into the 4 hours before bed means I usually miss it.

I love the Internet.

- amy lou the reader

Red Pill Junkie said...

Those sounds like good use of technology for upgrading an age-old tradition for a XXI century population.

If someone is interested in praying the glorious misteries while watching images of the Holy Land, you might be interested in using this link:

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d16c18574c64189ccf4b

Although I must confess that I preferr a more direct and spontaneous approach to prayer myself, but nevertheless I respect people who have the habit and mental discipline to pray the Rosary.

Jennwith2ns said...

"the true tradition of the internet." Wow. That is an awesome thought . . .

Stryker said...

Please also pray for all the children out there that may come into harm's way like Baby Grace. MB, I am forwarding this link as is requested on this blog, in hopes that we can spread the word and possibly save a life.
http://themainbang.typepad.com/blog/2007/12/very-important.html

Josh The Pilot said...

Stryker,
Do you work at ZDC?

Stryker said...

Josh, no, you couldn't pay me to work in a center, lol.

Josh The Pilot said...

Stryker,
Where do you work? I asked because there's someone I work with who is nicknamed Striker and I thought you might be him somehow.

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