Hail Mary

My mother used to say that a child needs to be the apple of someone’s eye, and for me, that was Grandma Daisy—my dad’s mother. A devout Catholic, she often cared for me while my parents were in graduate school, and I adored her. Mom told me “Rosie, Rosie!” were almost my first words. I’d reach for the rosary beads that had lulled me to sleep countless times on my grandmother’s lap, her soft voice whispering prayers.

I still treasure an image of her from my early twenties: sitting in a chair in our living room, rosary in hand, head bowed. Decades would pass before I came to appreciate—or share—Grandma Daisy’s devotion to Mother Mary. That shift began one morning after daily Mass, in the parking lot, with a woman I’d often seen in the front pew.

She was always on her knees when I entered, quiet and still, and again as Mass ended. Many times I wanted to thank her for her witness of faith but never dared interrupt. This time, she walked toward me.

“My name is Pat, and I have something for you,” she said, handing me a copy of Rosary Novena to Our Lady.

Cars pulled out all around us, but we stayed rooted as she shared her story. Her mother had died when she was four. “When God took my mother,” her father told her, “He gave me His.” He also taught her the rosary, instilling his love for Mary.

For nearly thirty years Pat was a criminal prosecutor in Chicago, one of the toughest courtrooms in the country, often advocating for victims of sexual assault—many of them children. She told me she survived by praying the rosary: on her way to work, on the way home, and throughout the day as needed. Every morning after Mass, she returned to her knees, praying for “her children.”

I drove away in wonder, carrying both her story and a strange sense of urgency. At home, looking at my year-at-a-glance calendar, I stopped short. The anniversary of Grandma Daisy’s death was just two days away.

In two days, I thought, I’ll begin praying the rosary.

The affirmations came quickly. A priest urged us in a homily to ask Mary to help us know her. (He’s also known to leave the sanctuary after Mass singing Ave Maria a cappella.) “She’s your spiritual mother,” he reminded us. “Ask her to show you her love.”

An enduring way to pray was calling to me. Step one was finding the beautiful wooden rosary my husband had given me years earlier, when he and several other Catholic men—driven, successful professionals—committed to a weekly 6 a.m. rosary call. “The tenderizer,” he still calls it, because men who dial in weary and stressed hang up renewed in faith.

The rosary is a chain of prayers tied to beads, grouped in five “decades,” beginning and ending at a crucifix. As we pray, we move through mysteries from Jesus’ life—scenes from scripture that form a kind of mini-Gospel. The Church doesn’t mandate the rosary but strongly encourages it, calling it “a compendium of the Gospel.”

Like every gateway into God’s presence, the rosary is as simple as we need and as deep as we can fathom. Its mysteries, repetitions, and prayers steady our thoughts. The words meet us where we are, uniting us with believers around the globe and across time. They are both earthly and divine, with effects we sometimes see and more often entrust to God. Most of all, they are new every morning.

“But doesn’t it get old?” newcomers often ask. “Isn’t it just saying the same thing over and over?” The answer is no. In the rhythm of prayer, beginning “Hail Mary, full of grace,” our thoughts find space to rest in God’s lead for the day—whether through scripture, silence, or something unexpected. Our task is simply to listen. In the cadences we are both active and at rest, freshly fitted with “ears to hear.”

Catholics don’t worship Mary or idolize her. We ask for her intercession. Just as we ask friends or loved ones to pray for us, why should that change when our intercessors are with God?

And there is precedent. At the wedding in Cana, Mary didn’t instruct her son; she simply told him, “They have no wine.” Then turning to the servers, her last recorded words were: “Do whatever he tells you.”

On the anniversary of Grandma Daisy’s death, I began praying the rosary each morning, growing more aware of Mary’s presence. Not long after, I asked her to help me know her better. One day, in artwork behind an altar, a bright halo of light shone from her image—like a stage light. I’d seen that altar countless times, but never with such intensity. It happened only once.

A 97-year-old woman named Dee, a friend of my mother’s, once pulled a rosary from her neck when I asked if she was Catholic. “Oh, sweetie, I’m as Catholic as they get,” she said, gazing at the beads. Then after a pause: “But you know, I think I take Mary for granted.”

I think many of us do. We miss her role in salvation history, in our faith, and in our lives. Across the centuries, she has appeared to people—often the ordinary, not the powerful—always to draw them closer to her Son. The most familiar accounts are Guadalupe, Fatima, and Lourdes, but her appearances abound.

Of course, I’m no scholar or theologian. I can only scratch the surface in this short blog. My hope is simply that these words spark a conversation—between you and God.

And if that happens, if even the smallest spark catches, I pray you take your questions fearlessly to our Father. Believe me, He'll take it from there.