Making the Rosary a Daily Habit in Times of Overwhelm

Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.

-Our Lady of Fatima

For years, I was inspired to daily pray the Rosary. Yet, I often struggled with making it a habit to the point that I would go many months without praying it.

I knew all the great things about the Rosary: how powerful the prayer is, how Our Lady is constantly asking us to pray it in her apparitions, how helpful it is to meditate on the Mysteries of Christ’s life, and how much Mary blesses us when we do pray the Rosary.

To be sure, when I did pray the Rosary, I often felt a peace and consolation doing it. I deeply admired people who had a strong devotion to praying the Rosary. In fact, there was a time in my life, when I first was inflamed in my Faith, that I did have a strong habit of praying the Rosary. As the years went on, and I became more busy and less on fire, I couldn’t seem to get myself motivated enough to make it a habit once again.

There’s Never Enough Time or Energy

While I had the desire to pray it, it just wasn’t strong enough to overcome the difficulties and overwhelm that I had in my life. How was I to have the mental and emotional energy to focus on the Rosary at the end of the day? By the end of the day, I either wanted to zone out a little (or sometimes a lot) on television or social media, or crash into bed.

I also tried to wake earlier in the morning. This didn’t seem to work out, either. Why is it that, when you finally motivate yourself enough to wake up early to pray before your children wake, they always seem to wake earlier, too? It’s almost like they have an internal sensor that tells them when I get up!

In addition, over these past five years I have been consistently sleep deprived, either waking frequently due to pregnancy symptoms or by babies and toddlers who constantly wake all night.

Every Stage is Busy

In this season of life, I needed all the extra precious moments of sleep I could get. While it seemed to me that maybe I was just not in a season of life to be able to commit to praying the Rosary, the reality is, I have struggled with this long before I was a mother.

When I was in college or when I was working full-time, I never seemed to have enough time or energy to commit to saying the Rosary daily. Not having it as a daily habit made it that much harder for me to be motivated enough to pray it when I did find myself with a little time or energy.

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Perfectionism: The Enemy of Action

I realized that I had fallen into a perfectionistic, all-or-nothing thinking that was halting any attempt to pray the Rosary. I had it in my mind that, if I was going to pray the Rosary, then I needed to pray the full five Mysteries, daily, at the same time of day, in complete silence, and at a time when I could give my full attention to it. That's how you create a habit after all, by setting aside a particular time every day and giving your full attention to it.

While this is good advice to help get a regular habit going, it wasn't practical for my season of life. Instead of creating a solid habit, this mentality was keeping me from trying at all.

Making the Rosary a Daily Habit

In order for me to get in the habit of praying the Rosary, I just needed to try and fit in the Rosary in the everyday, nitty-gritty parts of my life. I needed to focus on saying a decade or two at a time, while doing the dishes or driving in the car, when rocking or nursing the baby at all hours of the day or night, or when putting the kids to bed.

I needed to resist the discouragement that came when I failed and hadn’t prayed it in days or weeks, and thought, “What’s another day?”

I needed to focus on small, realistic goals for myself, and have courage to get back up and keep at it.

In this way, I was able to create a habit of praying the Rosary throughout my busy day and take the pressure off myself to do it the “right way.”

I soon found that the more I prayed the Rosary, the more I experienced the fruits of peace, joy, faith, and patience. Experiencing these fruits strengthened my desire and will to make the Rosary a part of my everyday life. While I do still enjoy a good podcast or music when I drive or do the dishes, I have been able to create the habit of making this wonderful prayer a priority in my daily life and am so grateful for this gift.

In what ways can you creatively incorporate the Rosary into your daily life, and experience the blessings and graces that Jesus has in store for you through His Blessed Mother?

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Anna Maria Sevilla is wife to a wonderful man and mother of three sweet, young boys. She is a homemaker and homeschool mom, and enjoys spending time in nature, reading, writing, crafting and dancing. Find out more about her here.