Living with Passion

A music professor writing in a diocesan bulletin recalls a time he was satisfied in the way he was  saying the rosary until he heard a  priest talk about the rosary;  his whole mental way of thinking was turned upside down.  He learned  the way he was saying the rosary left a lot to be desired.

His meditations on the mysteries, he doesn't remember when, all very quickly disappeared. He began to work with a new set of meditations. However, they did not develop in the way they were supposed to. He read books on the meditations of the different mysteries, but  there was no progress and  began to feel there was something he was doing wrong.

How can we meditate on the same mystery over and over again? The first sorrowful mystery: "Jesus shed  tears of  sweat and blood." How painful this all must be, was the extent of his meditation. He moves to the second mystery with the same thoughts, and gradually another thought enters and he moves to the next mystery. Each day he says the sorrowful mysteries how can he have different thoughts for the mysteries? This in itself is a mystery, he laments.     

In life there are times, because of need, we are faced with repetition, and we endure. He remembers as a child the piano lessons and the need to practice over and over again the same music which he disliked. 

Those who become performers know the repeated practices and overcoming the boredom, enabled them to  appreciate the beauty of the music. As performers, they have not  stopped doing the repetitions. Before the  performance they practice again and after the performance they  feel there was something missing and they return to practice. Even years later they will return to the music, and are moved to another level of appreciation.                                            

This is not only true of music but many other endeavors. When we love what we are doing there is no boredom but just joy. The writer is not a performer but he can go back to a piece of music and repeat it often and with joy.He discovers something different each time. The joy comes because he loves the music.

He realized that in his saying the rosary he did not find satisfaction because he did not have an affection for the mystery on which he was meditating. The need to go back to the Scriptures and read again the details of the  mystery are important, but to have passion for what you are doing is more important. Developing  passion for the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary is his  aim for Lent. The word ardor, suffer and endurance  come from the same Latin word--- passion.