The Rosary

The Rosary predates Jesus’ birth, and was updated most recently in 2002. It is the best known of Catholic devotions, is credited with winning an epic battle, and has the capacity to bring peace to the world.

The Rosary – specifically, the Hail Mary prayer that is at its center – begins with the greeting the angel Gabriel gave to Mary at the Annunciation: “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:28) (1) The second line of the prayer comes from Elizabeth’s greeting to her cousin Mary immediately following the Annunciation: “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” (Luke 1:42). In its earliest form, these two prayers were the whole of the “Hail Mary.” The latter portion of the prayer (“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death”) developed in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, and was recognized at the Council of Trent.

Early versions of the Rosary date back to the 12^th Century, and the devotion was promoted with much success by the Dominicans in the 15^th Century. (2) In 1571, with the navy of the Ottoman Empire menacing the Mediterranean Sea and thereby threatening Europe, Pope Pius V organized a coalition of European powers to check the Muslim advance. He also asked Christians throughout Europe to pray the Rosary and ask for Mary’s intercession to save them. Sure enough, on October 7, 1571, the outnumbered European fleet defeated the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto, halting the Ottoman threat to the West for a century. (3) Pius V established the Feast of the Holy Rosary on October 7 the following year.

The practice of meditating upon key events in the lives of Jesus and Mary while praying the Rosary originated in the 15^th Century. The original mysteries of the Rosary (Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious) were recognized by the Church in the 16^th Century. The Luminous mysteries were added in 2002 by Pope John Paul II.

Mary identified herself to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta as “Our Lady of the Rosary” on October 13, 1917, immediately prior to the great Miracle of the Sun. She implored the children to say the Rosary daily, telling them that doing so would bring peace to the world, and more importantly save many souls.

If you don’t know how to pray the Rosary, click here for a listing of all the prayers and all of the mysteries.

Praying the Rosary, especially daily, can seem daunting, but no more so than any other task worth doing. It takes 15-20 minutes to pray, which is less than one TV show. The important thing is setting aside the time to do it and sticking with it. Like any habit, it becomes easier to do once it is part of your routine.

If a daily Rosary is too much, start with a decade a day and work your way up from there. If 15-20 minutes is too long, find five minutes at different parts of the day to recite a decade. Of course it’s best to pray it without any distractions, but you can pray a decade driving to work, another washing the dishes, and so on. (4)

Part of what makes the Rosary a powerful prayer are the mysteries. The repetitive nature of the Hail Marys becomes a sweet background music as you reflect upon the most important events in the lives of Mary and Jesus, and what they might mean for your life.

Praying the Rosary isn’t a substitute for spontaneous prayer through giving thanks to God, examining your conscience, asking for forgiveness, and bringing your sufferings and your needs to the Lord to ask for his help. But the Rosary can incorporate spontaneous prayer as well. If you’re praying the Rosary and your mind drifts to something good that happened that day, pause, and thank God for his blessing. If you’re distracted by problems at work, pause, share those concerns with God and ask for his help, and go back to the Rosary. Turning your problems over to God in this way is a simple but powerful way in which the Rosary brings peace to your heart.

Some criticize the Rosary for being focused on Mary at the expense of Jesus. As if Mary could do anything but draw us close to her Holy Son! Saint Louis de Montfort expressed it this way:

“Our entire perfection consists in being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus Christ. Hence the most perfect of all devotions is undoubtedly that which conforms, unites and consecrates us most perfectly to Jesus Christ. Now, since Mary is of all creatures the one most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows that among all devotions that which most consecrates and conforms a soul to our Lord is devotion to Mary, his Holy Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to her the more will it be consecrated to Jesus Christ.” (5)

Closer to our own time, Archbishop Fulton Sheen said:

“The Rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the Rosary is beyond description.”

The final word goes to Sister Lucia dos Santos, she who spoke to the Virgin Mary at Fatima and lived for so many years to spread devotion to Mary throughout the world:

“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”

Notes:

1. This verse is also critical to the Church’s understanding that Mary was born without the stain of original sin.
2. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13184b.htm. It was then called the Marian Psalter, the latter being a term derived from Psalms, referring to a set of 150 prayers. The term “Rosary” would not appear for two more centuries.
3. The Ottomans had a resurgence in the late 17^th Century, when they laid siege to Vienna, before again being defeated by a coalition of European countries in what is known as The Great Turkish War. From that point on the Ottomans went into a slow decline.
4. More practical suggestions on why and how to make the Rosary a daily habit.
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosarium_Virginis_Mariae Quoted by Pope John Paul II in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (Rosary of the Virgin Mary) issued 10/16/2002.