Distractions during prayer
No prayer is more meritorious for the soul and more glorious for Jesus and Mary of the well-recited Rosary. But it is also difficult to recite it well and to persevere in it, particularly because of the distractions that come as naturally in the frequent repetition of the same prayer.
When reciting the Office of Our Lady or the seven Psalms or other prayers the change and diversity of words slow down the imagination and recreate the mind and consequently help the soul to recite them well. But in the Rosary, since we always have the same Our Father and Ave Maria to say and the same form to respect, it is very difficult not to get bored, not to fall asleep and not to abandon him to make other more recreational and less boring prayers. This means that infinitely more devotion is needed to persevere in the recitation of the holy Rosary than in that of any other prayer, even the Psalter of David.
Our difficulty, which is so fickle that it doesn't stand still for a moment, and the malice of the devil, relentless in distracting us and preventing us from praying, increase this difficulty. What does the evil one not do against us while we are intent on saying the Rosary against him? It increases our natural languor and our neglect. Before the beginning of our prayer our boredom, our distractions and our tiredness increase; while we pray he assails us from all sides, and when we have finished saying it with many efforts and distractions he will insinuate: «You have said nothing that is worth; your Rosary is worth nothing, you'd better work and wait for your business; you waste your time reciting many vocal prayers without attention; half an hour of meditation or a good read would be worth much more. Tomorrow, when you are less sleepy, you will pray more carefully, postpone the rest of your Rosary until tomorrow ». Thus the devil, with his tricks, often lets the Rosary be totally or partially overlooked, or changes it or makes it differ.
Do not listen to him, dear confrere of the Rosary, and do not lose heart even if throughout your Rosary your imagination had been full of distractions and extravagant thoughts, which you have tried to drive out as best you could when you noticed. Your Rosary is all the better the more meritorious it is; it is all the more meritorious the more difficult it is; it is all the more difficult as it is less naturally pleasing to the soul and the more it is full of miserable little flies and ants, that wandering here and there in the imagination despite the will, they do not give the soul time to taste what it says and rest in peace.
If during the whole Rosary you must fight against the distractions that come to you, fight valiantly with your weapons in hand, that is, continuing your Rosary, albeit without any taste and sensitive consolation: it is a terrible but healthy fight for the faithful soul. If you lay down your weapons, that is, if you leave out the Rosary, you are won. And then the devil, winner of your steadfastness, will leave you alone and put your pusillanimity and infidelity back on the day of judgment. "Qui fidelis est in minima et in maiori fidelis est" (Lk 16,10:XNUMX): Whoever is faithful in small things will also be faithful in larger ones.
Whoever is faithful in rejecting the smallest distractions in the least part of his prayers, will be faithful even in the greatest things. Nothing more certain, since the Holy Spirit said so. Courage therefore, good servant and faithful servant of Jesus Christ and his holy Mother, who made the decision to say the Rosary every day. The many flies (so I call the distractions that make you war while praying) are not able to make you cowardly leave the company of Jesus and Mary, where you are while saying the Rosary. Further on I will suggest ways to lessen distractions.
St. Louis Maria Grignon de Montfort