Announcing a New Series

It's been a minute

Hi everyone,

It’s been too long since I’ve last posted. I feel I got this publication off to a strong start - I’m especially proud of of Shrek, Loneliness, and Celibacy, Despoiling the Hipsters, and Not Even God Could Win This Game. Unfortunately, while I’ve been able to maintain a regular posting rhythm on my friend’s blog, the scale of the ideas I wanted to tackle for this newsletter proved too ambitious for me during what turned out to be a jam packed semester. Now that I’ve had some time to slow down and reboot during the summer, I want to build momentum that can withstand the time pressures I will face in my coming internship year.

To do this, I’ve decided to start a weekly series on the Rosary, which I will call The Monday Mystery. For those unfamiliar with the Rosary, it is a Marian and Christological prayer where (in the midst of other prayers) one recites the Hail Mary while meditating on various episodes (i.e. mysteries) in the life of Mary and Jesus.

The Rosary is not one devotion among many; it is an absolute pillar of Western Christian spirituality. In the words of Mark Shea, it is “the 800-pound gorilla and all-time champion form of Marian devotion.” Like countless Catholics around the world, I pray through five mysteries every day. I highly encourage you to give it a try. Here is a helpful guide to praying the Rosary.

To be sure, it can be a challenging prayer, but that’s often because we simply recite the prayers while failing to meditate well on the mysteries. It is my hope that my reflections can provide you a weekly reminder to pray the Rosary, and that they can help you more fully engage with the mysteries as you pray through them. Every Monday for the next twenty weeks I will post a reflection on one mystery of the Rosary, making my way through them chronologically. In keeping with the theme of this publication, my goal is to show the beauty, wisdom, and applicability of God’s word. At the end of each reflection, I encourage you to give the meditation a test run, by praying that decade of the Rosary while meditating on that particular mystery.

Thanks again for signing up to receive my work. I look forward to having you along for the ride for this new chapter of Integrated Prayer. Here is the series so far:

The Joyful Mysteries

Salvation Endgame (The Annunciation)
On Accepting Compliments (The Visitation)
Frodo, Avatar Blues, and Micro Christmases (The Nativity)
Playing to Win (The Presentation)
The Theology Police (The Finding in the Temple)

The Sorrowful Mysteries

TBA