The Rosary?

[Guest Guest_Peppermint Patty]

Could someone tell me what praying the rosary is, or provide a link to the answer? Thanks!

[BLAZEr]

The Best thing to use to read to learn what the rosary is would be Pope John Paul's letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae. You will not find a more beatiful and truer explanation than his. This is a quote:

INTRODUCTION

1. The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” (duc in altum!) in order once more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6), “the goal of human history and the point on which the desires of history and civilization turn”.1

The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium.2 It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.

How to Pray the Rosary

[Pontifex]

This is a manuscript of a talk that I gave last year on the Rosary. Maybe this will help. Peace.

The Power of the Rosary

Talk given by Fr. Pontifex

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

You might be wondering why I decided to give this talk on the Rosary. Since Our Holy Father, John Paul II, has declared this to be the year of the Rosary, and has called for a renewal of this devotion; I thought it would be good to reflect on the Origins, and the significance of this amazing gift, given to the Church. After this time of reflection, I will lead the rosary with the special intention for peace in our World and an end to the War.

The origins of the rosary are hard to pin down. There is a legend that says that Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Dominic, handed him the beads, and taught him to pray them. St. Dominic, depicted in our beautiful Mosaic in the Sanctuary, is of course the founder of the Dominican Order. Certainly, St. Dominic deserves the credit for spreading the devotion of the Rosary during the High Middle Ages, but this particular story is partly a misconception. St. Dominic not so much "invented" the rosary but he preached its use to convert sinners and those who had strayed from the faith. Our Blessed Mother may have appeared to him, and told him to spread this devotion, but in Historical writings there is indication that people were praying the rosary or a form of it before Dominic was ever born.

In the East, around 800 AD, Christian Monks had the habit of counting their prayers on knotted strings to keep track of them. They would use these knotted strings to count as they prayed all 150 psalms. Eventually a practice started to develop among the laity of the church. Many of the faithful wanted to imitate the monk’s devotion even though they did not know the psalms, for many them could not read. Instead, they would pray the Our Father and a form of the Hail Mary. Every time a worker heard the bell at the local church ring, he would say a small prayer, one for every psalm. The carrying of these strands of beads became very popular and they were called "Paternosters," the Latin for "Our Father."

The Church picked up on this popular style of prayer and began to shape it. The structure of the rosary gradually evolved between the 12th and 15th centuries. Eventually 50 Hail Mary’s were recited and linked with verses of psalms or other phrases evoking the lives of Jesus and Mary. During this time, this prayer form became known as the rosarium, which means "rose garden". Church theologians began to see connections between the psalms and the Life of Christ and also to the life of our Blessed Mother. All the different prophecies and types and shadows in the Old Testament about the role of Mary and her special link to Jesus began to come to the forefront to become the meditative gift of prayer that we have today.

Regardless, of St. Dominic’s role in the rosary, the fact remains that he was the one who first gave it that name, rosary. And I truly believe that our Blessed Mother did appear to him and told him to spread this devotion. At the time that St. Dominic lived, in the 13th Century, the Church was under and intense attack. The clergy had grown lax and complacent. And a heresy that denied essential elements of the faith was growing and taking a foothold in the Church by word and by violence. Miraculously, for the first time the Church began to see that the rosary was a gift, a weapon used for the peace and security of the Church and its teachings. The Church was restored, and the peace of God prevailed.

Later in the 16th Century, when the Turks were invading Europe, and threatening the greater whole of that Continent with superstition and barbarism, the Church again under the influence of the Pope began to pray the rosary for peace and for victory for those who were defending that peace.

Like many things in the Church, the sacraments, different doctrines and dogmas, the rosary is one of those gifts of God that developed over time. And since its development some 800 years ago, it has become a powerful prayer and one that has been emphasized by different Popes and Saints Unanimously since then.

St. Francis de Sales says this, “The greatest method of praying is to pray the rosary.” St. Louis De Montfort, who has been acclaimed for writings on the Rosary and devotion to Mary, said this, “When the Rosary is said well, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious than any other prayer.” He adds, “Never will anyone who says his/her rosary every day be led astray. This is a statement that I would gladly sign with my blood.” St. Padre Pio had this to say, “The Rosary in THE weapon.” And of course our current Holy Father John Paul II says this, “The rosary is my favorite prayer. A marvelous prayer! Marvelous in its simplicity and its depth.” There are many more saints and holy people of God that believed in the power of the rosary, including St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the doctors of the Church, the great Fulton Sheen, and Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

The rosary, by overwhelming consensus of the faithful throughout history is the ultimate prayer, outside of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Why is this prayer considered to be so powerful? Ultimately the answer to that question is a mystery, but we will explore it a bit. First of all the Rosary is a prayer that engages all of the senses, especially when it is prayed in community, like it is here. We have the tactile feel of the beads in our hands, we here the voices of prayer around us, and we have images of the different mysteries for contemplation. The prayer style itself, wards off distractions and helps us to focus our lives on Jesus Christ.

It is a powerful prayer because Mary’s role has always been to lead people closer to her Son Jesus. There is no one who knew Jesus better, there is no one who has contemplated his life more, and there is no one who has stored up more heartfelt stories and mysteries about the Son of God, than our Blessed Mother Mary. As we learn in the Gospel of Luke, “She (Mary) kept all these things, pondering then in her heart.” Mary’s heart is a treasure chest of memories and mysteries that she freely gives to those who ask her for it. And we ask her for those pearls of wisdom each and everytime that we pray the rosary.

Many people that criticize the rosary do so, using the scripture that tells us not to use vain repetition as it says in Mathew 6:7. Of course this is true, vain repetition is a bad thing, but not all repetition is vain. “To recite the Rosary…” says John Paul II, “…is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.” He goes on to say that, “Against the background of Ave Maria (That is Hail Mary), the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass before the eyes of the soul.” The rosary is not some sort of idol worship that focuses on Mary, it is an extremely Christocentric prayer when we engage ourselves in the mysteries set before us. Mary opens her heart to us and leads us to the throne of the King of Kings, that precious baby that she held in her arms, and that brave man that she watched hang on a cross and die for us. It is certainly not vain repetition.

One thing that Scott Hahn has pointed out that would be helpful for us as Christians who are trying to grow in our faith and in our understanding of the Rosary, is that we need to read the scriptures and other spiritual writings that relate to the mysteries of the rosary. In fact it is very hard to meditate on the mystery of the transfiguration unless you have read and studied about that in the Bible. There is an old saying of the Church Fathers that says, “Seek in Reading…And you will find in contemplation.” (Repeat)

And besides being a powerful prayer of contemplation and meditation that leads us closer to understanding our Savior, it is also a powerful prayer for intercession. There once was a Peasant in a village, who wanted to give the King a gift. He didn’t have much money so he went and picked an apple from a tree, the best one he could find. He went to the palace with his apple and gave it to the King’s Mother. He told her that he wanted to give the King a gift so that he could win his favor and get protection for his village. The King’s Mother looked at the peasant man and smiled. She assured him that she would give him the gift and the message. As the peasant left, she looked down on the apple. It was bruised and tainted and wasn’t much of a gift. So she took and pealed the apple, sliced it, and placed the good and juicy pieces on a gold platter. She gave the King his gift and he was thoroughly impressed and granted the request of protection for the peasant.

This story is somewhat analogous of the way that Mary makes intercession for us. We come to her with our requests as bruised and tainted as they may be, and she presents them on Gold platters to our Lord. The angel Gabriel declared to Mary that she was full of Grace and she still is today. Her prayers, supplications, and efforts on the part of her children to our Lord are extremely powerful. It is the reason that in the times of the history of the Church when things seemed the darkest that the rosary was pushed for.

It is no coincidence that the Pope has declared this year of the rosary. As Vicar of Christ, he is leading us into the New Millennium under the protection and patronage of our blessed Mother. The Pope says this, “At the start of a Millennium which began with the terrifying attacks of September 11, 2001, a millennium which witnesses every day in numerous parts of the world fresh scenes of bloodshed and violence, to rediscover the Rosary means to immerse oneself in contemplation of the mystery of Christ who “is our peace,”.

These days of War, these days when the Church is under heavy scrutiny and attack, these days when many Church leaders in our country are turning their heads at scandals, and the abuses of true Church teaching seem normative, are days that we need to turn to the powerful prayer of the rosary. It is a prayer that has been somewhat lost in our modern culture, but we can revive it. We need to teach it to our children, grandchildren, our neighbors and our friends, and we need to make it a part of our own daily lives. So let us do that together.

I would like to close with a quote from Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical “On the Devotion to the Rosary”, which was written 120 years from this coming October. Pope Leo says this, “It has always been the habit of Catholics in danger and in troublous times to fly for refuge to Mary, and to seek for peace in her maternal goodness; showing that the Catholic Church has always, and with justice, put all her hope and trust in the Mother of God. And truly the Immaculate Virgin, chosen to be the Mother of God and thereby associated with Him in the work of salvation, has a favor and power with her Son greater than any human or angelic creature has ever obtained, or ever can gain.”

Sources:

Hahn, Scott, “Hail Holy Queen”, Double Day Printing Co., New York, NY, 2001.

Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, “Rosarium Virginis Mariae (On the Most Holy Rosary)”. Pauline Books and Media, Boston, MA 2002.

Pope Leo XIII, Papal Encyclical, “Supremi Apostolatus Officio (On Devotion to the Rosary)”. September 1, 1883.

*Other sources inspired this talk as well, but would be impossible to list in detail.