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"I know what I was taught growing up."

What you were taught for your First Communion isn't complete. Perhaps your lack of knowledge explains your leaving the Church.

Adult Catholics have an obligation to continue their catechism. Medieval piety in the West developed the prayer of the rosary as a popular substitute for the Liturgy of the Hours. In the East, the litany called the Akathistos and the Paraclesis remained closer to the choral office in the Byzantine churches, while the Armenian, Coptic, and Syriac traditions preferred popular hymns and songs to the Mother of God. But in the Ave Maria, the theotokia, the hymns of St. Ephrem or St. Gregory of Narek, the tradition of prayer is basically the same.

Please also note that the rosary guides meditative prayer. This type or prayer engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.

The praying of the Rosary is traditionally dedicated to one of three sets of "Mysteries" to be said in sequence, one per day: the Joyful (sometimes Joyous) Mysteries; the Sorrowful Mysteries; and the Glorious Mysteries. Each of these three sets of Mysteries has within it five different themes to be meditated on, one for each decade of ten Hail Marys. In addition to meditating upon the events of the mysteries, many people associate certain virtues, or fruits, with each mystery. These correspond to moments in the life, passion, and death of Jesus and Mary's participation in them chronologically.

Do I detect a certain snideness in your remark about my First Communion? Actually, I was confirmed as a soldier of Jesus Christ, and that's what I am now. I never officially left the Catholic Church--just started worshipping somewhere else, going on four years ago. So I know all about the Mysteries.

I could never fit my experience as a born-again Christian into the Catholic scheme of things. I heard a couple of good sermons in all my years going to Catholic services (thank you Fr. Galen and Msgr. Fleming). Now I can hear them as many as five or six times a week, sermons so powerful and incisive that many people have testified, "How does he know all about me like that?"

I disagree with many practices that are considered Catholic, but I also understand them a bit more than the average Protestant, so I prefer to just call myself Christian.