Hail Mary

Just as a follow-up to last week. The car is still running great and the songs went really well. I remembered all of the chord changes and the words. Woohoo! Hopefully some day I'll put up a version online.

So this morning I prayed a rosary. For those of you who aren't familiar with rosaries, it looks like a necklace with a series of little beads broken up by larger beads with a cross at the end. If you've seen a horror movie with demons in it or an exorcism, you've probably seen one. Apparently they are really handy for that sort of thing.

Anyway, here's my motivation, I don't want to go to hell. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Several years ago I went to confession and the priest said for me to pray a rosary as my penance. I had never prayed one before but had a general idea of the thing; it's a whole lotta 'Hail Mary's' (prayers, not football passes) with some 'Our Father's' (again, a prayer) tossed in for seasoning. At the time, I was lazy so I looked into it a little and then figured, look as long as I get the right number of 'Hail Mary's' and 'Our Father's' in, that should cover it. So, I prayed my cliff notes version of a rosary.

Since then I've gone on living like everything is fine. But there has always been this nagging feeling like I really didn't do that right. And if I didn't do the penance right, then I'm not really forgiven. It's an if/then clause, the priest says in the confessional that you're forgiven but that's only IF you do the penance afterwards THEN you'll be completely forgiven, right? So if I didn't say the rosary right, and I pretty much knew at the time I was doing it half...way, then I'm not really forgiven. And then, if you take communion and your not caught up on your forgiveness, then you're committing even more sins!

For those non-catholics out there, yes, there seriously are all kinds of rules and technicalities in the church. Sure, I may not understand them all correctly but I know they exist. And some of you may say all of these rules are made up and don't really mean anything. Maybe. But I like these rules. I'm not just Catholic because my parents raised me to be Catholic. I'm Catholic because this form of Christianity speaks to me, resonates with me. And a big part of what resonates with me is the rules. I like rules and ritual. They comfort me. Because if I dot my I's and cross my Ts I can relax a little and know that God and I are cool. I hurt his feelings, I said I'm sorry, he asked that I do a rosary (meditating on the whole situation) and then we're good. We're buds.

But I didn't do it. I bailed. All this time I've been feeling a little guilty and I haven't felt completely sure that everything is okay.

Last week I started researching how to pray a rosary. It's even more complicated than I thought! And I still can't tell if I'm doing it right because apparently there are different ways to do it. There used to be 3 Chaplets (series of prayers/trips around the beads) and then in 2002 the Pope added another one that's optional. So for it to count do I do one Chaplet or 3 Chaplets or now 4 Chaplets? Do I pray it the way that adds the mystery (the event to meditate on that set) at the beginning of the set only or adds the mystery in between each 'Hail Mary'? Some say to add in Fatima prayers, some don't. I still don't know that I know what I'm doing.

And yet, this morning I said a rosary. And I'll do one a day all week until I cover all of the 4 Chaplets (just in case, of course.) And for a little while I'll think I'm good with God again. Sort of. Maybe.