“The Rosary is one of the greatest secrets to have come down from heaven. Since the rose is the queen of flowers, the rosary is the rose of all devotions, and it is therefore the most important one.”
-ST. Louis de Montfort
History of a prayer
There is something elegant in the history of each devotion. It gives us a true love for its practice. The rosary is the most beautiful prayer heaven has ever given to the human race, and it wonderfully blends both vocal and mental prayer. It has formed over the centuries. For the prayer our father was taught by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, creed came from the holy apostels. In the sixth century, the church combined the angelic salutation (“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!”) with the evangelical salutation (“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is your womb!”) for the offertory prayer for the mass on the last Sunday of Advent; thus, the first half of the Hail Mary formed. Until the 11th century, the Hail Mary prayer consisted only of a combination of these two salutations. It was viewed as a preparatory prayer said before formally petitioning the Virgin Mary for a particular grace.
There was a custom in earlier days to pray 150 'our father' instead of 150 psalms for those who could not have the ability to read the Breviary . This version of pater noster beads became known as the "poor man's breviary". In the 12th century, there was a renewal in Marian devotion by men like St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Blessed Issac of Stella, both Cistercian monks, who began to interpret much of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament in a Marian way, which had profound effect upon Marian devotion in general. Wanting to express a devotion to Mary, monks began to develop a psalter dedicated to honoring Mary that paralleled the poor man's breviary. They prayed 150 Hail Marys, and within a short period of time, 15 our fathers were added to break up the 150 Hail Marys into sets of 10. These sets of 10 became known as "decades".
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Church was experiencing violent opposition from a group known as the Albegensians, a heretical sect named after the town of Albi in southern France where it originated. Its main teaching was that only spiritual realities were good and everything material was evil. According to their doctrine, each person’s soul is imprisoned in an evil body. If a person wants to experience ‘salvation’, they need to be freed from the material prison of their flesh. This belief system was a direct attack against Christian morality and the saving mysteries of the God-Man, especially the incarnation, the Passion, and the Resurrection. The Christian teaching that God took on flesh in order to save us was unthinkable to the Albegensians, and they violently opposed the incarnational Christian religion.
During this period of Albegensian heresy, a Spaniard named Dominic Guzman, a member of the Canons Regular established himself as a dynamic orator against their errors. Even though Dominic was gifted with great oratorical ability and theological acumen his efforts as effective as he had hoped and came to conclusion that he needed something more. In 1208, he retreated into the silence of the Prouille forest near the town of Fanjeaux, France, to pray, begging heaven to come to his assistance and give him what he needed to overcome the Albegensians. After three days of intense prayer, fasting, and penitential acts, the Queen of Heaven came to his assistance. She informed him that his efforts in preaching had been noble, but it was the Ave Maria that would give his preaching power. It is important to remember that the Marian Psalter was already exciting. What uniqueness made the exhortation of Mary to St. Dominic was that she explicitly instructed him to preach her Psalter. There he was to combine the ave maria with his preaching on the saving mysteries of Jesus. The Church has always stated that when Mary exhorted St. Dominic to preach her psalter, she also revealed to him specific mysteries that were to be associated with it. Accordingly, when she gave him the mysteries, the Queen of Heaven instructed St. Dominic to divide the 150 Hail Mary of the Marian Psalter into 10 Hail Marys, with each decade attached to a particular mystery. The faithful were to meditate on the mysteries while praying the Hail Marys. The mysteries Mary provided directly answered the errors being promoted by the Albigensians. They focused on the Incarnation, Passion, and the glorious triumph of her divine Son.
20th century Dominican theologian explained St. Dominic’s victory in the following way: Under her inspiration, St. Dominic went into the villages of the Albigensians, gathered the people, and preached to them the mysteries of salvation- the Incarnation, the redemption, eternal life. As Mary had taught him to do, he distinguished the different kinds of mysteries, and after each short instruction, he had ten Hail Marys recited- somewhat as might happen even today at a Holy Hour. And what the word of the preacher was unable to do, the sweet prayer of the Hail Mary did for hearts. In essence, Our Lady had instructed St. Dominic to take the Marian psalter out of the monasteries, infuse it with sacred mysteries and meditation, and take it into the streets to become a weapon of mass conversion.
The 14th century witnessed the formation of a prayer by the urgent need of the people of God. When the black death hit Europe, people were inspired to petition to the Mother of God, especially from the death. After the Black Death, the second half of the Hail Mary began to appear in the breviaries of religious communities, especially those of the mercedarians, Camaldolese, and Franciscans. Then, in the 16th century, the Church officially codified the prayers of the rosary and inserted the second half: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”.
In the mid-19th century, 1858, Our Lady blessed a little French girl named St. Bernadette with a series of apparitions at Lourdes. When Mary appeared , the Blessed Mother held in her hands a golden rosary with white beads. For the first time in any Marian apparition in the history of the church, Mary prayed with the visionary. During the Our Fathers and Hail Marys, Our Lady lets her fingers glide over the beads as St. Bernadette prayed for them; when it came time to pray Glory Be, she joined her voice to that of St. Bernadette. Indeed, the mid-19th witnessed the beginning of the “Age of Mary”, which started with the visions given to St. Catherine of Laboure about the miraculous medal and ended with the Marian year of 1954. It is well noted that within that year there came a Pope whose papacy produced 11 rosary encyclicals: Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903). Then, in 1917, Our Lady appeared to three children at Fatima, and said that the rosary should be said daily for peace in the world and an end to the war (World War I). Another significant fact of Fatima's apparition was in the last apparition on October 13th. She referred to herself as “Our Lady of the Rosary”. Our Lady also desired a new development in the prayer of the rosary. Her request was to recite the following prayer after Glory Be: “Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are in the most need of your mercy”. This prayer was officially recognized and promoted by the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See in 1956.
Contrary to the efforts of Popes, people lost their love for the rosary in the era of the 1960s and 1970s.Historians and theologians have labeled the decade from 1965 to 1975 as the “decade without Mary”. During the first half of the 20th century, it was common practice for Catholic families to gather together every evening and pray the rosary. All of this changed as a result of the cultural and theological shifts in the 1960s. In fact, Bl. Pope Paul VI had given permission for all priests to bless the rosaries. Up until 1964, it was reserved only for priests of the Dominican Order. In 1969, he promulgated the decree that the Optional Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary celebrated on October 7th was now to be celebrated as an obligatory memorial by the entire Church.
The election of St. John Paul II to the See of Peter was the new spring time for the rosary devotion. On October 29, 1978, less than two weeks after his election, he announced to the whole world that the rosary was his favorite prayer. He even took a phrase from the writings of St. Louis de Montfort as his papal motto: Totus Tuus (“All Yours”), a shortened version of Montfort’s Marian consecration formula: “I am all yours and all that I have are yours. I take you for my all. Mary, give me your heart.”
Through the efforts of St. John Paul II, the rosary once again became the most popular Marian devotion among Catholics during the last two decades of the 20th century. In 1987, he declared a Marian Year for the Church. It is he who taught the world that to pray the rosary is to make a pilgrimage, since those who pray the rosary mentally and spiritually revisit the holy places associated with the lives of Jesus and Mary. It was also during his pontificate the new Code of Canon Law while dealing with formation of priests noted as follows: “The veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, including the Marian rosary, mental prayer, and other exercises of piety are to be fostered” (canon 246, no.3). It also mentioned that members of religious communities were to foster a particular love of the rosary. At last in 2002 in his apostolic letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae he gave the church the “mysteries of light”.
The Name
Historically, the word “rosary” was in use even before the time of St. Dominic. Prior to the 13th century, the Latin word rosarium was used to describe a rose garden or a group of roses in a wreath or a bouquet. Yet it was only during lifetime of St. Dominic that the word came to be associated with the Marian Psalter.
The rosary victories
From the beginning, the rosary had a special connection with strife and war. The first rosary victory was won at the Battle of Muret on September 12, 1213. A small town in southern France, Muret was a stronghold for the Albegensians. The Pope Innocent III was deeply concerned by their expansion and sought to organize a crusader army that would rid France from of their heretical influence once and for all. With the Pope’s blessing a catholic force of 1500 men assembled by Count Simon de Montfort. Count Simon had hoped for reinforcements from northern France, but they never arrived. The Albegensian forces, on the other hand, had more than 30,000 men.
Believing they are invincible, the Albegensian army spent the night before the battle in drunkenness and debauchery. In contrast, the entire catholic army, under the joint command of Count Simon and St. Dominic, spent the night praying the rosary. Morning St. Dominic retreated to the church of Saint- Jacques in Muret to pray for victory, Simon de Montfort towards the enemy. Catholic army was able to rush upon the hung- over and disorganized Albegensians and completely routs them.
Again in 1571, when the Ottoman Empire inched closer toward Rome, the Dominican Pope, St. Pious V, called for the assembly of an army to defeat the Muslims. Only 24-year-old Don Juan was chosen by the Pope to be the commander of the Christian fleet. Indeed, Don Juan had been sent from God. Prior to sailing off to war, he gave orders that all blasphemy was forbidden on his ships and required that all of his men fast for three days. He forbade women from entering his vessels, lest any men fall into the sin of lust and mar their souls before battle. He also distributed a rosary to every man in his armada. Then, on the eve of battle, they prayed for it. Even the Pope himself led the rosary at the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. He prescribed that public devotions be conducted in honor of Our Lady and her rosary.
On the morning of October 7th, 1571, the Christian fleet set sail in search of the Muslim fleet. Don Juan and his men had no idea that they were sailing toward an advanced Muslim fleet of more than 300 vessels and 100,000 men, as the Christian fleet was only 285 vessels and 70,000 men. First, there was the problem of brisk headwind blowing against the Christian fleet and the thick fog. But at the same time that the Muslims were advanced towards the Christian fleet, to everyone’s surprise, the wind on the bay suddenly shifted and began favoring the Christians. The war lasted for five bloody hours and was a complete victory for Christianity. Actually, everyone knew it was a rosary victory. In Venice, the Venetian senate commissioned the construction of a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. The walls of the chapel were lined with records of the battle. Reflecting their gratitude to the rosary, one inscription read: “NEITHER VALOR, NOR ARMS, NOR ARMIES, BUT OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY GAVE US VICTORY!” Saint Pope Pious V was so convinced that Our Lady’s intercession had brought victory that he wanted the victory to be liturgically celebrated every year on October 7th, the date of the actual Battle of Lepanto. He granted a plenary indulgence to all those who, in addition to celebrating the feast on October 7th, also commemorated the great victory of Lepanto on the first Sunday of October. This annual commemoration became known as Rosary Sunday. One year after St. Pope Pious V established the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, the Dominicans requested there be a feast specifically titled “Our Lady of the Rosary”. Pope Gregory XIII granted their request in 1573, in a document titled Monet Apostolus. The pope transferred the Feast of Our Lady of the Victory from October 7th to Rosary Sunday and gave the new feast the title “Our Lady of the Rosary”. The 17th and 18th centuries also witnessed rosary victories. Considering Mother Mary’s powerful intercession over the wars, Pope Clement XI established the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary as a universal feast day for the entire Christian community. Until then, the feast was restricted to some places.
The Teresian way
In the book of Life St. Teresa, our holy mother recounts that in her childhood, she sought out for solitude to pray her devotions especially the rosary (Life 1:6). Again, while commenting on 'our father', she writes that she also thought of saying something about how to recite the Hail Mary. But it has been so lengthy that she has to let it go. And she continues "It is enough for you to have understood how to recite Our Father well in order to know how to recite all the vocal prayers you must recite”(WP).
For St. Teresa, vocal prayer cannot be separated from mental prayer. She always joined them together. Her rule to pray vocally consists mainly of three things we must be aware of and understand:
1) Whom are you praying to?
2) Who is it asking?
3) What are you asking for?
In the Rosary, we are praying to the Mother of God. We are her children, and we ask of her the virtues that shine forth in her Son as well as in her. To recite the rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ, said Pope St. John Paul II. It was he who declared that the rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation. We are contemplating the face of Jesus with Mary while we pray the Rosary.
METHODS
There is a pious custom to add a virtue to each mystery called 'fruit of the mystery'. A beginner who cannot meditate and draw fruits from the mysteries can use the fruits traditionally attached to them, as we see in the prayer book, until the time he could have produced his own. Here is one model:
The Annunciation | virtue of humility |
The visitation | virtue of charity |
The Nativity | Spirit of poverty |
The Presentation | virtue of obedience |
Finding of Jesus in the Temple | zeal |
Jordan | For baptismal purity |
The Wedding Feast at Cana | Confidence in God |
The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God | Repentance |
The Transfiguration of Jesus | True conversion of heart |
The Institution of the Eucharist | Love and reverence for the holy Eucharist |
The Agony in the Garden | Will of God |
The Scourging at the Pillar | Spirit of mortification |
The Crowning with Thorns | Detachment |
The Carrying of the Cross | Patience |
The Crucifixion | Good death |
The Resurrection | Faith |
The Ascension | Hope and desire for heaven |
The Coming of the Holy Spirit | Wisdom |
The Assumption of Mary | True devotion to Mary |
The Coronation of Mary | Fortitude |
· To remember each mystery while reciting Hail Marys St. Louis de Montfort promotes a different method, this is to add clauses to the end of the first part of the Hail Mary. Actually, it is rooted in the 15th-century Carthusians. Henry of Kalkar, a devout Carthusian, claimed to have had a vision from Mary, according to the chronicles of the Carthusians of Cologne, in which she taught him a contemplative method of praying at least 150 Hail Marys. The new Carthusian version of the rosary was prayed by first saying Our Father, followed by 10 Hail Marys repeated 15 times, all while meditating on the designated clause. The drawback of this method was the difficulty of remembering the 150 clauses. Learning the meditative dimension of the rosary already made known among the monks, a Carthusian called Dominic of Prussia, during his novitiate days, set out to modify it to a simpler form. He reduced 150 clauses to 50. It became known as the ‘Life of Christ rosary”. Monks were free to choose the clauses and pray as many Hail Marys in this version. Thus, Hail Mary in the Carthusian rosary was prayed like this: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus, conceived at the Annunciation”. However, this version of the rosary didn’t get much attention until St. Louis de Montfort recommended it.
In paragraph 46 of his apostolic exhortation “Marialis Cultus,” published in 1974, Pope St. Paul VI notes, “As is well known, at one time there was a custom, still preserved in certain places, of adding to the name of Jesus in each Hail Mary reference to the mystery being contemplated. And this was done precisely in order to help contemplation and to make the mind and the voice act in unison.” Now there is a revival of this practice.
MYSTERIES | CLAUSES |
The Annunciation | ..Jesus, whom thou, holy virgin, didst conceive of the Holy Spirit. Holy Mary…
|
The visitation | …Jesus, whom thou, holy virgin, didst carry in thy womb while visiting Elizabeth. Holy Mary… |
The Nativity | …Jesus, whom thou, holy virgin, didst bring into this world at Bethlehem. Holy Mary… |
The Presentation | …Jesus, whom thou, holy virgin, didst present in the Temple. Holy Mary… |
Finding of Jesus in the Temple | …Jesus, whom thou, holy virgin, didst find in the Temple. Holy Mary… |
Jordan | ..Jesus, who was baptized in the Jordan for our sake. Holy Mary…
|
The Wedding Feast at Cana | …Jesus, who manifested his divine power in Cana. Holy Mary… |
The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God | …Jesus, who proclaimed the Kingdom of God with his disciples. Holy Mary… |
The Transfiguration of Jesus | …Jesus, who manifested his divine glory on Mount Tabor. Holy Mary… |
The Institution of the Eucharist | …Jesus, who gave us his own flesh and blood as sustenance. Holy Mary… |
The Agony in the Garden | ..Jesus, who sweat blood in the Garden. Holy Mary…
|
The Scourging at the Pillar | …Jesus, who was scourged for our sins. Holy Mary… |
The Crowning With Thorns | …Jesus, who was crowned with thorns for our sake. Holy Mary… |
The Carrying of the Cross | …Jesus, who carried the heavy cross for our sake. Holy Mary… |
The Crucifixion | …Jesus, who died on the cross for our sake. Holy Mary… |
The Resurrection | Jesus, who rose again from the dead. Holy Mary…
|
The Ascension | …Jesus, who ascended into heaven. Holy Mary… |
The Coming of the Holy Spirit | …Jesus, who sent us the Holy Spirit. Holy Mary… |
The Assumption of Mary | …Jesus, who assumed thee, holy virgin, into heaven. Holy Mary… |
The Coronation of Mary | …Jesus, who crowned thee, holy virgin, in heaven. Holy Mary… |
· For a person who has advanced in prayer, there is another method, a more contemplative way when it is said alone. It is to meditate on the mystery with Mary, assimilating her and her Son’s role in salvation history and in our very lives. Pope Benedict VI once said “The recitation of the rosary allows us to fix our gaze and our hearts upon Jesus, just like His mother, the supreme model of contemplation of the Son”. In this method, we draw the fruits of the mystery for which we are in need in our personal lives. Here we open our lives to Mary and her Son. The contemplative way of praying is far-reaching; one can only know its depths by allowing oneself to immerse in it. While we drew fruit for our personal lives, we could have remembered those people closely related to that mystery and made our prayer apostolic. For example, the first mystery of light reminds us about the baptism of our Lord. Our Lord begins his ministry by becoming an ordinary man by receiving the baptism of repentance, even though He wasn’t in need. We too have to be faithful in our daily ordinary lives to fulfill God’s salvific dreams about us. Mary had her only Son, and she was becoming alone while allowing her Son to begin his public ministry. She sacrificed His daily presence for others sake. There are thousands of parents sacrificing their children for the kingdom of God. In this mystery, we may pray for the parents of the priests and religious all over the world.
The second mystery is that a wedding in Cana is very special. Jesus does His first miracle at the desire of His mother. There are times we don’t want to do certain things, but someone compels us to do them. If we have a spirit of interior mortification and love of God, it is good to lose our opinion and become a blessing to others. Mary is noticing a lack in the wedding house. She didn’t go anywhere else than her son. In our lives too, we may notice shortcomings in our neighbor’s lives. We are not obliged to tell anyone but God. Be Mary for them by interceding to her Son as she has done. This practice can bring into our lives an assimilation of their attitudes and identification with the salvific mission of Christ.
THE PROBLEMS
1) Problem of concentration
It will be a great help for the beginner, and the one who cannot concentrate on the mysteries will have a book at hand to recollect oneself. This will enable them to have a good look on the mysteries. For the problem of concentration, St. Teresa teaches us to use pictures, which are closely related to the mysteries of the rosary.
2) Problem of speed
When the rosary is prayed by one alone, it should take at least 15 to 20 minutes. It is possible and praiseworthy to spend more than 20 minutes praying the rosary and meditating on the mysteries. If a person prays the rosary in less than 15 minutes, they are praying it too fast because there really is no way a person can devoutly meditate on the mysteries and say the prayers reverently in less time than that. For St. Teresa, vocal prayers must be said in solitude, for this is what Jesus did when He prayed. “One cannot speak simultaneously to God and to the world; this would amount to nothing more than reciting the prayer while listening to what is being said elsewhere or letting the mind wander and making no effort to control it.
There can be exceptions at times either because of bad humor or because of faint feelings in the head, or it can happen that God will permit days of severe temptation in his servants for their greater good” (WP24:5). Whoever finds themselves in these conditions, according to the Mistress of prayer, should just pray as best they can. But these distractions are the fruits of one’s own fault; they must strive to be attentive in their vocal prayers. The best remedy she displays is to strive to center the mind on the one to whom the words are addressed.
When it is said in public, the normal amount of time that should be allotted is 20 minutes—no less. There are several dangers to avoid when praying the rosary in a group, including praying the rosary too fast, too slow, too loudly, or emphasizing certain words over others. There, we must join with the particular group in a spirit of mortification. For in a prayer said by a community, it is best to obtain and practice more interior virtues by immolating our'selves'.
3) Problem of preparation
Preparation means a mind that is ever seeking to improve one’s prayers. In every prayer, we are joining the church militant, suffering, and triumphant. There is a lack of reverence when one comes to the prayer hastily and joins with others. Preparation is very important for every prayer. Before the rosary begins, one can initiate a loving conversation with the Mother of God and place general intentions in her hands.
Another thing is that when we pray together, we cannot pause to meditate or present our intentions to Mary. If we practice meditating on the mysteries alone when we are free, it helps our community prayer. What we meditated on earlier will become background and help for the prayer in common, and it will be easy for us to remember the intentions attached to them. It will be a great help to have intentions in a paper.
There are people who cannot pray the rosary alone. Let them follow the example of Little Flower, who, even though she faced difficulty praying the rosary alone, did not fail to have loving conversations with the Mother of God. She confided to her sister Celine: "I must have confided to you one of my simple ways with her. I surprise myself at times by saying to her, "But good Blessed Virgin, I find I am more blessed than you, for I have you for Mother, and you do not have a Blessed Virgin to love” (GC, LT 137). There is no reason for shame if one finds oneself unable to pray the rosary but can have affectionate love for Mother Mary. But if one finds themselves in a condition to pray easily but cannot indulge in a loving conversation, that is too bad. For it is ‘LOVE’ that merits heaven, nothing else! May the Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, reign in our hearts with her adorable Son.
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