Slow Down!!

I just finished praying the rosary with my family.  For those of you who don't know what that is, allow me to elaborate:

The Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Catholic prayer established, I think, in the 1200s AD.  It consists primarily of praying ten Hail Marys in a row while meditating on an event in the life of the Blessed Virgin.  A full rosary consists of five decades and then some.  You pray a total of 53 Hail Marys when you go through a set of events.  There are four sets each consisting of five decades.  That's a whopping total of 212 Hail Marys!  Looking for the fast way to holiness?  Just kidding...

So what exactly does Sonic the Hedgehog have to do with an 800-year-old prayer that involves more than 200 Hail Marys?  Well, if you pray the rosary devoutly, you probably know where this is going (unless you're not so good at making connections.  Either way).  If not, then let me tell you something:

Praying the same prayer ten times in a row in sets of five can be very tedious!  And when I do something tedious, I tend to get bored with what I'm doing, and when I get bored with what I'm doing, I want to be done with it faster.  It's a thing I think everyone has.  So when I pray the rosary, I have this tendency to subconsciously speed up so I can get it over with.

I think it runs in our family.  I brought it up once in the middle of a rosary, and guess what?  My mom chided me for being judgmental and let people make their own decisions.  Can you say "relativism?" "Abortion logic??"  That's the logic that keeps the pro-abortion movement alive.

But that's not the point.  The point is that if you speed on a road, you miss out on something awesome depending on where you are.  Same goes for praying.  If you're praying too fast and just mouthing the words, you're missing the point of prayer: a relationship with God.

HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththeeblessedartthouamongwomenandblessedisthefruitofthywombJesus

That's how my older brother prayed it tonight (if you can read it).  My brother's a good man, but he's not perfect.  None of us are.  I'll call heaven and earth to witness to that.  But the point is that this is not cool with Christian teaching.  Non-Catholic Christians may know this better than Catholics, given that Catholics seek to preserve Tradition as well as a relationship with God while Christians are more focused on a relationship.

That's not to say Tradition is bad.  Over-obsession with Tradition is bad.  Never forget in prayer that it's about a relationship with God, not about what you say or how slow or fast you say it.

If your praying a prayer faster than 10 seconds, you may want to slow down a bit.  If you're praying half of a prayer faster than 5 seconds, SLOW DOWN!!!  You're probably missing it.  If not, you have a gift.  If so, slow down.

I think even Sonic would agree with me on that one.