Crunching numbers

I’ve thought a lot this week about my Mom.  Not just because last Sunday was Mother’s Day, but because I’m grateful she’s such a warrior when it comes to prayers.  I drag myself back to the apartment some nights and though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak as I try to get a rosary said.  At least twice this week, I have fallen asleep at about the 3^rd Mystery.  When I am startled awake in the middle of the night I try to pick up where I left off, but after the 2^nd Hail Mary I’m gone to dreamland again!

Mom, on the other hand, has a regular regimen.  She has prayed the Liturgy of the Hours every day for as long as I can remember.  She says a minimum of 4-6 rosaries a day, and the Divine Mercy prayers every day at 3 pm.  Every time I talk to her, she’s telling me about another Novena she has started to one particular saint or another on behalf of her children or grandchildren.   At her age (93) she considers it her “job”, and she has rarely “called in sick”.  When she has had problems keeping her schedule, she works twice as hard the next few days to “catch up.”

I have a few images that come to mind when I think about Mom praying for others.  When on a commercial airliner, usually while taxiing to the runway, the stewardesses will explain the safety features of the aircraft.  In case of the loss of cabin pressure, the oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling above you.  You are supposed to put your own mask on first, then help the others around you, especially the small children and elderly.  Her rosaries and novenas are not for HER sake, but for those of us who haven’t put our own masks on yet and expressed our love of God and neighbor through the prayers our Blessed Mother has asked us to pray.  And has Mom been busy!

  

I ran the numbers.  Let’s consider just the rosaries she has said.  She usually says about 5 to 6 rosaries a day.  Let’s be conservative and say 5.  That’s 35 rosaries a week, 140 a month or 1,680 per year.  I know she’s been on this regimen for at least the last 10 years (probably 20, but we’re being conservative, remember?), so that’s 16,800 rosaries said on the behalf of her family in just the last 10 years!  If you break it down to individual petitions—after all, a prayer is a petition for intercession—there are 53 Hail Marys,  6 Our Fathers, and 6 Glory Bes to every rosary, in addition to the Hail Holy Queens (1).  That’s a total of 66 individual prayers during each rosary.  Are you ready for the total number of prayers she has said in the last 10 years?  Drum roll, please……..     1,108,800. That’s over ONE MILLION prayers, boys and girls! 

That leads me to the second image I get when I think of Mom and her persistence.  As Jesus said in Matthew 18:10 our angels are not only with us every minute of every day but also face-to-face with God, Himself, presenting our petitions, joys and anxieties to Him. 

With numbers like these, I think George (that's what Mom calls her guardian angel) deserves a raise, or at least a new pair of running shoes! 

Her prayer life also brings me the image of the parable in Luke18:1-9.  You’ll have to look it up.  I’m very tired right now, and I haven’t said my rosary yet!