New Prayer Guide Accompanies "The Rosary in a Year" Podcast

Pray the Rosary with a Prayer Guide

Is one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2025 to spend more time in prayer?  Would you like to learn more about Scripture and the lives of the saints?

If so, then join Ascension Press on January 1 for their new, year-long podcast The Rosary in a Year, hosted by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, a priest of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.  In a similar fashion to their enormously popular podcasts, The Bible in a Year and The Catechism in a Year, The Rosary in a Year will engage listeners in prayer and a short reflection every day, for one year.

Now, Ascension Press has developed a Prayer Guide that accompanies the podcast. The Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide is 386 pages of inspiration and guidance, drawing out the deeper meaning of the Scripture readings and providing full color renderings of the sacred art that will be used in the podcast. 

The guide begins with an overview of the entire year, giving a detailed view of the journey the podcast will take. The Introduction includes a welcome and explanation of the idea behind The Rosary in a Year podcast from Fr. Mark-Mary, and six chapters describing each of the phases that will be taken through the Rosary in a Year.

One thoughtful aspect of the Prayer Guide is that each of the six phases are color-coded, deepening from light blue to dark blue, as an imitation of journeying with Mary and growing in our prayer life. Each of the sets of the Mysteries are also presented in a color that best represents them:  rose, representing rejoicing, for the Joyful Mysteries, green, signifying growth, for the Luminous mysteries, purple, meaning repentance, for the Sorrowful mysteries and gold for glory for the Glorious mysteries. 

All of the Scripture passages that will be read during the year, as well as the quotes from the saints, are also provided in the Prayer Guide so that you can read along during the podcast and then easily return to them for further reflection and journaling later. 

"Build up a type of spiritual mental muscle and focus more deeply on each mystery."

But the greatest benefit of the Prayer Guide, as Fr. Mark-Mary puts it, is the way it helps the one who prays to enter more deeply into the rosary itself by “building up an inner ‘library’ or ‘archive’ of sources of meditation that we can pull from while praying.”  The person praying no longer has to struggle to focus his or her mind on the mysteries, trying to avoid distractions and wandering thoughts. By using the Prayer Guide, one is able to look at the words written or contemplate the sacred art, while also listening along with the podcast or recalling it afterwards. The prolonged meditations upon the Scriptural passages, combined with a variety of insights from saints of every walk of life, will build up a type of spiritual mental muscle, enabling us to focus more deeply on each mystery and enter more fully into the life of Christ, as we worship and reflect with Mary.

Building this mental muscle takes place by doing a “slow build” - by taking a step back and breaking any bad habits we may have formed in praying the rosary, for those already devoted to its frequent recitation, or in help beginning this prayer practice for the first time, for those just discovering the rosary. 

To accomplish this “slow build,” The Rosary in a Year does not start out by immediately praying 50 Hail Marys a day.  Instead, the podcast begins by taking a slow, careful look at the prayers themselves, so that each word of the Our Father and the Hail Mary speaks to us. In fact, it’s not until Day 69 that Fr. Mark-Mary guides listeners in praying one full decade of the rosary. All five decades are not recited until well into the year, taking place after Day 209.  

Taking this “slow build” approach does not mean, of course, that Fr. Mark-Mary is telling people to stop praying their daily rosary, should that be part of their normal prayer routine. But adding The Rosary in a Year podcast and using the Prayer Guide will deepen that daily practice and make its recitation more fruitful, since it will add images, words, reflections and a fuller understanding of the entire prayer. It can turn the rosary into a full bouquet of beautiful roses, offered to Jesus through Mary, just as its name implies. 

Besides providing the road map for the year, as well as the Scripture quotations, saint reflections and images of sacred art, The Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide also has a Sources section at the end of the book. This section is a goldmine, offering the specific location the written work or sacred art is drawn from. Some of the pieces are available online, like Day 128’s quotation from St. John Henry Newman. If the quotation is not available online, the book and publishing information is given, so that pray-er can learn more from a saint or artist that resonates with them. 

The rosary is one of the most popular and beloved Catholic prayers, used by the faithful around the world. In recent years, other Christians have also begun to discover the power of the rosary as well. Joining in The Rosary in a Year podcast, and diving deeper into the reflections for each day by using the Prayer Guide companion, can only help to lift our supplications to God, and draw down all of the graces and fruits associated with the rosary and the lives of Jesus and Mary. Make plans now to listen to The Rosary in a Year podcast and preorder the accompanying Prayer Guide to make each and every day of 2025 count, and get ready to pray the rosary with new eyes, a renewed heart and greater fervor and focus. The guide can be preordered at the Ascension website for $24.99 (please note: the Ascension Press website says the guides will ship out the week of January 17, 2025) or from Amazon.