Today, an insight, and a find

Today is the Optional Memorial of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The link above provides an interesting little article on the etymology of the name, "Mary." Here's an excerpt:

In accordance with Jewish custom our Lady's parents named her eight days after her birth, and were inspired to call her Mary. The Hebrew name of Mary (in Latin Domina) means lady or sovereign; this Mary is in virtue of her Son's soveriegn authority as Lord of the World. We call Mary our Lady as we call Jesus our Lord, and when we pronounce her name we affirm her power, implore her aid and place ourselves under her protection.

Also, here's an insight on the rosary that I found helpful from St. Louis de Montfort's little treatise, The Secret of the Rosary (or online here). This could really apply to prayer in general:

This faith must be lively and informed by charity; in other words, to recite properly the Rosary, it is necessary to be in God's grace, or at least in quest of it. This faith must be strong and constant, that is, one must not be looking for sensible devotion and spiritual consolation in the recitation of the Rosary; nor should one give it up because his mind is flooded with countless involuntary distractions or one experiences a strange distaste in the soul and an almost continual and oppressive fatique in the body. Neither feeling, nor consolation, nor sighs, nor transports, nor the continual attention of the imagination are needed; faith and good intentions are quite enough. "Faith alone suffices" (From the Pange Lingua)
-- The Eleventh Rose: The Creed