Dreams & Rosaries

A couple of nights ago, I had a dream. It seemed full of meaning... even if it was only my subconscious mind having some fun with spiritual realities.

There were two babies in the dream. They had both been born many years ago and died shortly after that. Even so, their bodies were completely intact.

I was filled with a great desire to see their lives restored, and I thought to myself, if only they would eat... then they would live again.

Unable to feed them from my own body (keep in mind that I am past the season of childbearing and nursing), I looked down at my hands and saw my white pearl rosary.

Some of the beads were swollen - full of something. I knew immediately that they contained the nourishment these little babies needed.

I took the swollen beads and touched their mouths. They began sucking on the white beads, which broke open and began filling the little mouths with a nourishment that was beyond earthly sustenance. The babies revived.

It was a beautiful dream.

And I keep replaying it in my mind.

I think of it each day as I pray the rosary.

Isn't it possible that there is some spiritual truth here. It is completely consistent with our Faith to believe that we can do far more by offering a rosary for lost souls than anything we might strive to do with human effort alone.

I think especially of those who have been baptized... but fell away.

Metaphorically speaking, they are like the babies who were born, but died or lost consciousness from lack of nourishment shortly after birth.

We try everything we can to bring them back to the Faith. Our efforts seem pointless, as pointless as a middle-aged woman who wants to nurse a dead baby back to life.

But...

Go ahead. Walk over to your rosary and pick it up. Look at it. Spiritually attach your lost one to a certain bead... a decade... the entire rosary.

And then, get on your knees.

I do not believe this is a random dream. I believe this dream reveals what we already know as people of faith.

There is more power in one rosary prayed with great faith than contained in all of the tears and words and books and letters and DVDs we insert into their lives to try to bring them back.

I'm praying my rosary with more fervor than ever.

Each white bead - each Hail Mary & every Our Father - yields life-giving graces.

And in that dream, the babies began to suck, and their eyes were opened.