Hi, I'm Father Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in the Year podcast,

where through prayer and meditation, the rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary

and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in the Year is brought to you by

Ascension. This is day six.

To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a Year, visit ascensionpress.com forward slash rosary in a year or text R-I-Y to 3377777.

You'll get an outline of how we're going to pray each month and it's a great way to track your progress.

The best place to listen to the podcast in the Ascension app.

There's special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the

full Rosary with myself and other friars.

With today's episode, we're going to move our focus from looking at prayer as encounter

with another to a general reflection on prayer as battle and the role that the rosary

has in this battle.

In a section on prayer, the catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2725, says, prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part.

It always presupposes effort.

The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ as well as the mother of God, the saints,

and he himself all teach us this.

Prayer is a battle.

And against whom, against ourselves, and against the wiles of the tempter,

who does all he can to turn man away from prayer,

away from union with God. So how is prayer battle against ourselves? In part, there's just

always something that's going to feel more urgent, easier or be more interesting to do than to pray. And a fruit of us having a common

fallen human nature is that we have this internal attraction, this internal inertia towards the

...