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Jean A. Costa / Posts tagged "rosary"
January 19, 2014 In Faith

Praying the Rosary

Affirmation: I am committed to cultivating compassion for
those who most need God’s mercy. 
Many years ago when my husband Sandy and I were in New York City
we went to Ellis Island.  It had recently
opened and I was very anxious to see it. 
I knew that both our ancestors had entered the United States through
that terminal and even if they hadn’t I felt it was an amazing opportunity to
experience at least a trace of the United States’ history in a very real way.  It was late in the day when we headed off for
the tour.  It was a rainy dark day.  We stood on the line to embark on the ship
and finally boarded and headed towards the island.  It was remarkable!  I was stunned by the size of the entry hall
and took time to imagine what it would have been like to come into it, wondering
if I would be allowed to enter the country or if I would be turned away.  I could only imagine the exhaustion and
anxiety that would accompany such an experience.  
We didn’t have as much time as I would have
liked because we’d started out so late but I was pleased that we had made the
effort.  The last ferry was about to leave.  It was still raining and now it was totally
dark.  We again waited on line to board
the ship.  When we finally got aboard,
there weren’t any seats but there was a little shelter towards the bow.  My husband and I were quiet with our
thoughts.  I decided to say the Rosary as
we headed back to port.  When you
disembark the ship at Battery Park there is not a que for the taxis.  One must search for transportation and if
you’re trying to get back uptown it can be a very daunting exercise.  There weren’t any taxis to be found
anywhere.  There were all these people
vying for a ride and it was crazy!  We
decided to head off in the opposite direction of the crowd, to take the
“path less traveled.”  As we
walked along we were quiet and I threw in a few more Hail Mary’s.  Roaming around that area in the dark was not the
best choice, even for two street wise people from NYC.   
We were becoming concerned when we turned a
corner and two people were exiting a taxi. 
We immediately got into it and took a few deep breaths.  I don’t remember the cabbie’s name and why,
you ask, would I?  Well, the first thing
we noticed is that he had on a classic music station; it was playing Pachelbel’s
Cannon. I could feel the tension drain away, not only from me but from my
husband and then we both noticed the Rosary hanging from the cabbie’s rear view
mirror.  I smiled.  I might have even giggled a bit.  My husband turned in the seat and looked
directly at me and said, “You’ve been praying the Rosary, haven’t
you?” 
Now, this was quite a while back. 
I say this because now if you hail a cab in NY, the driver probably
doesn’t speak English and they won’t have music on, they have TV screens with
advertisements that demand your attention but even then, many years ago, most of
the cabbies were from another country. 
The probability of getting an English speaking driver was very low.  The probability of getting an English
speaking, Rosary practicing Catholic cabby was miraculous. 
I have a young friend who is not a Catholic.  She was raised a Christian but her life has
taken her in another direction at this point. 
She recently shared with me that she was reading a book about Mother
Mary, the goddess.  It’s not the first
time someone has told me they thought of the Blessed Mother as a goddess.  I once went for an interview for a graduate
program and when I told the interviewer that I was a Catholic, she exclaimed,
“Oh, that’s so cool!  Your faith has
a goddess, Mother Mary.”  At that
time I was surprised.  So, I wasn’t
surprised this time.  What surprised me
is that my friend shared that she had begun to pray to Mary.  She shared that she’d had an issue with a
loved one who was not well and she didn’t want to add to her relatives’
distress.  Instead she wrote a letter to
Mary, burned it and asked for peace.  She
was sharing with me that peace came, almost immediately and it had remained
with her up to this point. 
Catholics are sometimes criticized for praying to others besides
Christ.  It’s true we do, or I should
say, I do.  It’s not that we’re really
praying to another.  We’re really asking
that spiritual being who we believe is closer to God at that moment than we
are, to intercede for us.  I pray to St.
Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, more and more often. It never
fails!  “Saint Anthony, Saint
Anthony please look around.  I’ve lost my
_______ and it needs to be found.” 
I recite a lot of memorized prayers and several I’ve made up.  I also pray the Rosary.  It was once explained to me that Mother Mary
can intercede for us by asking for what we really need, many times when we
don’t even have a clue about what we really need. 
It is part of the practice to meditate on one of the Mysteries of
the Rosary before beginning the prayers for each of the five decades of ten
beads.  There are four Mysteries each one
assigned to a different day or days of the week.  They take you from the conception of Christ
to the Assumption of Mary.  I’ve been
saying the Rosary since I was a child and love to pray it especially as I walk
around our nearby lake.  I find comfort
in the recitation.  With the reading of
Father Haas’ book, Catching Fire, Becoming Flame, I decided to make an
effort to recite the Rosary daily.  He
calls us to be of service.  He reminds us
that being of service is the purpose of our existence and we are especially
called to be of service to those most in need. 
I believe that to be true and while I am a volunteer in many ministries,
I wanted to do even more for the marginalized of society.  I wanted to find a way to bring comfort and
peace and hope to those most in need.  I
therefore, have committed to saying the Rosary, daily, for those God deems most
in need of help.  I believe in answered
prayer.  I achingly hope that my
thoughts, intentions and the energy I am sending forth into the universe are
tenderly touching the lives of those who are suffering.  I feel it’s a step, perhaps the first step
for me, towards feeling a greater sense of compassion for those who most need
God’s mercy.
If Mother Mary can bring peace to a non-believer and a NY taxi to
a couple of nervous, wet, cold travelers, I am very hopeful about what she can
do for the comfort of those who so desperately are in need of comfort.  Join me. 
Pray your set of prayers for those who are suffering.  Imagine our energy bringing solace, hope,
maybe even joy to those who are suffering more than we can even imagine. Every
thought we think, every word we say, every action we take affects everyone else
in the world. May our thoughts and energy bring peace, salvation and perhaps
even joy to those who suffer more than we can even imagine. 
September 28, 2013 In Women, Yoga

And Then the Wind Chime Rang

Affirmation:  When I practice an attitude of gratitude, I
let go of regret and disappointment.

My energy
was really low.  The house was in the
middle of a renovation.  We were leaving
for a trip that morning and I had received three calls from family members the
day before, each regarding a different issue and each presenting a fairly
serious, if not life threatening problem. 
I’d had a terrible night’s sleep. 
It had taken a long time to fall asleep and by 4 AM I was wide
awake.  I’d lain there and said the
Rosary and all the memorized prayers I knew and I think I dozed on and off but
by 6 AM I was wide awake.  I silently
slipped out of bed because my husband was still resting peacefully, grabbed my
daily meditation book and my journal.  I
put on my slippers and a cover-up and made a cup of tea and headed downstairs
to the sun room but it looked like a beautiful warm morning and so I chose
instead to sit on the patio. 

At the
Pink Ribbon Yoga Retreat the month before this particular day, we were led in a
guided mediation by TJ Martin, one of our dedicated founding yoga teachers. Our
intention for our yoga-off-the-mat was to help the participants find their
heart space, that place where they felt safe and calm.  Once they were able to visualize it they were
then encouraged to draw it and finally to paint it.  Irene Talton, our yoga-off-the-mat
facilitator and TJ Martin showed us how to use the water colors to achieve our
goals, or at least to come close to them for those of us who didn’t have a clue
how to paint.  The guided meditation led
me to my back yard patio.  It wasn’t the
first time I was stunned by the place mediation had taken me.

One time
many years ago I had been invited by a doctor friend to come to his home and to
do some “imaging.”  Once I was
in a relaxed state he too had me imagine a safe place.  Whoosh! 
There I was sitting on a bench in front of the Eseeola Lodge in
Linville, NC.  We had visited there many
times with very dear friends but I had never considered it a safe or sacred
place.  I was so surprised to
“be” there that I gave a small gasp. 
I can still remember that session with Dr. Telfer.  It was in 1999 but every time I recall it,
it’s as clear to me now as it was then.

 
Now I was
“on” my patio.  We had lived in
this particular house for a little over six years.  It isn’t my dream house but it’s a good
house.  It’s spacious and I’ve had it
painted lots of bright colors, yellow being the primary one.  We’ve spent a lot of time and treasure spiffing
it up and making it the way we’d like it to be but I still missed the house I
had left, my former dream home.  It was
not an attitude of gratitude and I knew it but I was still lacking in
thankfulness.  Now here I was at the
retreat visualizing my sacred space; it could be anywhere in the world or
anywhere in my imagination and where was I, I was on my patio!

As I sat
down this morning with my tea and my journal I felt blessed to actually be in
my sacred space.  It was coolish but I
had my hot tea and my cover-up so I was comfortable.  I opened the journal and began to write.  I noted I wasn’t well rested and then a stiff
breeze blew and the wind chime in the tree rang out.  The sound went right into my chest, my heart
and reverberated up and out all of my limbs. 
I was stunned by the feeling.  I
stopped writing and listened.  There’s a
small waterfall off to the side of the patio and it was rippling joyfully.  The birds were waking up and their chirping
was lyrical.  Then I heard the young
children who live behind me talking with their parents.  They were giggling.  Tears sprang to my eyes.  Thank you I wrote.  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

The day
before this epiphany I had walked the local lake with a neighbor friend.  I always wondered why she didn’t always
understand what I said to her.  I had
decided it was my NY accent and her foreign ears but this morning she shared
with me that she had been very ill as a young woman and had lost half of her
hearing.  It hadn’t slowed her down and
she went onto a very blessed life but as I sat there on my patio this morning,
I was even more aware of the gift of my hearing. I have continued the practice
of listing each morning three joys from the day before.  On this morning I listed the joys I had
discovered at sunrise.  The joy of waking
to a new day.  The joy of having a sacred
space I could actually walk onto.  The
joy of being married to a man who supports me and my dreams, no matter how
daunting they may seem.  The joy of
taking time in the morning to pray and write. 
The joy of being the person her family turns to when they need
support.  I know that’s more than three
joys.  Most mornings there are way more
than three.  This morning I also listed
the joy of the gift of my hearing.   My
attitude of gratitude had finally overtaken my thanklessness and that sound of
the wind chime had pierced not just my chest and my heart but it had pierced
and healed my soul.
March 4, 2012 In Uncategorized

Worry and Anxiety

Affirmation:   I avoid all thoughts that weaken me.

Do you ever feel anxious?  Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with so many things on your mind you can’t get back to sleep?  If you don’t you must already have developed a system that keeps you calm and centered.  It’s not something you can develop when you’re in the throes of what is or appears to be a crisis.  It must be something, some tool you’ve created and use regularly when you are calm.  Then when you are not feeling calm, you use that tool and your body responds with the conditioned reflex, relaxation.
I had a friend tell me that he had a mantra (a repeated phrase or word) he used every time he was at the airport (one of his most stressful environments) but it really didn’t seem to make any difference.  He didn’t see what purpose it served.  He never felt any calmer.  I asked him if he used this tool at any other time and he said, “No.”  Can you see the problem with this?  Every time he found himself stressed, he repeated the same phrase.  He conditioned his response to anxiety.  He needed to practice his mantra when he was feeling calm and centered. 

People I know use meditation to create this sense of peace, others use prayer.  Many in the catholic faith say the Rosary, a set of Our Fathers and Hail Marys that are repeated over and over while moving one’s fingers along a set of beads.  Many meditators finger beads called mala beads while they repeat their mantras. 

When I was going through radiation, it was an extremely stressful situation and I was very anxious.  I also didn’t feel too well so that added to the anxiety.  One of the Duke Cancer Patient Support Counselors set up an appointment with a nurse practioner named John Seskavitch.  In my experience John was a unique nurse.  He focused on healing the whole person; mind, body and spirit.  He had already created several meditation tapes and sponsored many mind-body workshops.  He sat with me and asked me about my faith, my practices and then suggested I repeat the Hail Mary during treatment. 

My walks take me around Apex Lake, a beautiful path close to my home.  I’ve walked it for over twenty years and often use the quiet time to say the Rosary.  I dedicate each decade (a group of ten Hail Marys and one Our Father) to a specific group of people; my family and friends, my church group, the support people in my life, all those special intentions I have in my heart, our military and their loved ones and our world leaders. (I figure they could use all the help they can get with the condition of the world today.)  As soon as I lied down for my radiation treatment after that first session with John, I was no longer anxious.  I was on that path around Apex Lake!  The sun shimmered on the water, the geese and ducks called out, the great Blue Herons stood perfectly still in the water, people nodded and said, “Good Morning!” and I was calm and all was well.

I once read about someone who kept a “worry box.”  All week long, if something came up that he was concerned about, he would put it in the box and he’d tell himself that he’d worry about it on Friday at 5 PM.  Each Friday, he’d go to the box and lay our all his concerns.  What do you think happened?  Most of his concerns had been addressed, had been resolved.  Part of my journaling practice is to look back each month and do a general review of how my life went.  One of the questions I ask myself is, “What was something I worried about that I don’t worry about now?”  There’s always an answer that reflects something that’s been resolved or even more profound, something that never even came into reality. 
George Burns the famous comedienne once said he never worried; it was a useless waist of his time. “Why would I worry about something I can do something about?  I’ll just go do it.  And, why would I worry about something I have no control over?”  Really, isn’t that a futile exercise in self-absorption? 
Not worrying takes practice.  If you’ve developed the worry habit, you can develop the habit to not worry.  You can find some tool, some process that will effectively help you control your anxiety.  One of those tools is affirmations.  “I avoid all thoughts that weaken me.”  Turn your thinking around.  Use your quiet time to assure yourself that all is well, all is well!  Take God’s peace and love and your sense of well-being with you out into your life and into the world.  It’s the work of a life-time but it’s well worth it, don’t you think?