on the rosary

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/why-a-former-evangelical-loves-the-rosary

As the Pope reminds us, ‘To recite the rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.’

see also: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/08/ad-jesum-per-mariam/

and from a comment 12 on this link

I can sympathize with your bafflement regarding the coronation of Mary. I struggled with the same question (among others) before I entered the Catholic Church over 3 years ago.

I wish first to underscore the point made in the article that the Rosary is a Christocentric prayer. Even though the majority of the words spoken during the Rosary are asking for Mary’s intercession, the majority of one’s “mental energy” during the Rosary is meant to be directed to meditating on the mysteries, of which all save the last two glorious mysteries are explicitly focused on Christ (these last mysteries are also Christocentric, as I will explain shortly). I have found that, after I got the “mechanics” of it down, the Hail Marys become just a sort of background noise and that my primary focus is on some aspect of the current mystery. As an example, during the first joyful mystery, the Annunciation, I may be led to focus on Gabriel’s encouragement, “Nothing is impossible with God,” and reflect on the areas or problems in my life which I am not fully entrusting to God. At other times, I might instead focus on Mary’s response, “I am the handmaid of the Lord,” and to what degree I am making that statement my own; or on the fundamental mystery of the Incarnation itself; or on any number of other things. In other words, my mind and my heart is primarily engaged with Christ and with Scripture, more so than with Mary.

I say all that just to attempt to convince you that the focus of the Rosary truly is on Christ, although this is not readily apparent to outside observers because this focus is happening internally while externally it seems to be mostly about Mary. That Christocentric focus extends even to the final two glorious mysteries, the Assumption and Coronation of Mary. I understand why you see these as problematic: not only are they not explicitly found in the Bible, they also seem to be about Mary more than about Christ. I don’t think that is actually true.

First off, who is the one assuming and crowning Mary? The answer, in both cases, is Christ, so he is not actually absent from these mysteries. The real key to understanding these mysteries, I think, is to recognize that Mary is the first, the ideal, and the prototypical Christian. She is the Christian disciplepar excellance. Therefore, because we too are (trying to be) disciples of Christ, everything that happens to Mary, we hope will also happen to us. Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven; we too will have glorified, resurrected bodies in heaven. Mary was crowned queen of heaven and earth; we too hope to receive a “crown of righteousness”, as Jonathan pointed out. I should also mention that I at least interpret Mary’s queenship as more of a “queen mother” role: Mary is the queen only because she is the mother of the King. And since we also are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” then we are princes and princesses who hope to be similarly crowned and rewarded with treasure laid up in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy.

Mary is unique in that she experienced these things first (just as she is unique in being the only woman chosen to bear the Son of God in her womb), but everything that happened to Mary we hope will happen to us. The Assumption and Coronation should thus strengthen the virtue of hope in us. They remind us of the inheritance that lies in store for us and the promises that God means to fulfill for us.