Scriptural Meditations For the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Franciscan Crown, Seven Sorrows and Rosary

Lucas J. Amato

Email: RosaryScripture@yahoo.com

No, I'm not your likely author.

After graduating from Saint John's University with a business degree, I went on to climb the corporate ladder as a Public Accountant, Human Resource Director, and Executive Recruiter, more commonly called "head hunter", and Business Owner. Then my careers took a complete turn around after getting a Masters in Education, with a major in Counseling, from Duquesne University. I had decided it was time to give something back, by getting involved in education and counseling of youth, including counseling drug addicts and special education students, meanwhile taking in 4 foster children.

Nothing so far gives you any indication that I would ever write anything religious. However, in June of 2006, my wife Barbara and I made a pilgrimage to the Marian Shrine at Medjugore, a Croatian town in the midst of the Moslem portion of old Yugoslavia, now known as Bosnia. Those two weeks made a lasting impression on me, encouraging me to recommit myself to the practice of daily praying of the Rosary, (which I'm embarrassed to say had gone by the wayside.)

It didn't take too long for me to realize why that pious practice had slipped away: for me the Rosary was and still is a beautiful but difficult meditative prayer. If you're honest, you'd have to admit that you share my problems with meditating of the mysteries of the lives of Jesus and Mary. I lose my concentration so easily. Don't you? Oh, I start off fairly well at the beginning of each mystery; but before I realize it, I've drifted off into thoughts about some upcoming chore, like some needed repair at home.

Then one day it occurred to me that if I could find ten quotes from the Bible for each of the 20 Mysteries, I could read one quote before each "Hail Mary". That would keep my mind on the mystery. Thus began the arduous task of searching Scripture for 200 appropriate quotes. And, lo and behold, they were there! In fact, for the most part, there was more then I needed, necessitating the process of prioritization and elimination. In the case of the Assumption and Coronation of Mary, I was even able to appropriate meaningful quotes from Genesis, the Magnificat, and Revelation's Woman Clothed with the Sun.

You still wouldn't call me an author would you? Well, not yet! My wife and I just used those quotes to say the daily Rosary and that's as far as we thought things would go. However, her Episcopalian cousin in Chicago got wind of it and passed it on to Greg Pierce of ACTA Publicatons. What a surprise to get his phone call asking me to expand the work to three other Catholic devotions, along with the histories of each devotion as well as instructions on praying each one.

As a Secular Franciscans in the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi for over 50 years, I jumped at the chance to find quotes for the Franciscan Crown of Mary's Seven Joys. Then how could I refuse to do it for the Servite's Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Particularly timely was Greg's request that I do the same for the newly popular Chaplet of Divine Mercy. That added about 170 more quotes, not to mention four histories and instructions. Before you know it, we had come up with a substantial booklet at a reasonable price. One that can be used individually or by groups, even a whole church full.

This booklet shows one or many how to read a quotation from Scripture before reciting each prayer of these four devotions. This method enables us to continually meditate on the specific mystery and yet still devoutly pray the intervening prayers. Now each prayer becomes the melody and the Bible verse the words to our spiritual song of praise.

Now I am an author!