The Rosary (again)

Such a lot of kerfuffle on the web over the Holy Father's suggested additional mysteries for meditation. Um, it's a private devotion. If you don't like them, why not just not use them?

A few years ago there was a whole new set of stations of the cross produced for Good Friday. There was also a 15th station suggested for the traditional stations devotion. Did anybody adopt any of this? Anywhere? Was anybody's spritual life irreparably harmed by it?

Of course, what people are really objecting to isn't the new mysteries themselves. It's the mere fact of change. A great many people are competely fed up with it. That means any change, even change manifestly for the better. I would suspect that the real problem here is that it is the wrong time.

In a recent post in a mailing list to which I belong one woman compared it to herself as a housewife. If she re-arranged the living room each week, her husband would soon get tired of it, then irritated by it. Eventually he'd start avoiding the living room altogether.

Try the new mysteries again in 50 years when people again feel at home in their own churches and see what the response is.