Rosary

• 1. Introduction

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  The Rosary takes its name from a Latin word, rosarium, which means a crown or garland of roses. Its formal title is the Psalter of Jesus and Mary. Catholics also call it the Dominican Rosary, to set it apart from relatives such as the Franciscan Crown and the Bridgettine Rosary. The word covers two things at once. It names a set of prayers, and it names the string of knots or beads used to count them. Writers capitalize the prayer and write the object in lower case.

  A single session can take as little as a few minutes or as long as half an hour. Yet this repetitive prayer has drawn the attention of popes across more than four centuries. Why does a prayer built on repetition keep inspiring such devotion? Where did it truly come from, given that its famous origin story is disputed? And how did one string of beads end up in Irish farmhouses, on car mirrors, on a finger ring and in a smartphone app?

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• 2. Counting Prayers

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  The basic unit of the Rosary is the decade, a set of ten Hail Marys. Each decade is led by one Lord's Prayer, known as the Our Father, and traditionally closes with one Glory Be. A typical session covers five decades, and each one invites the person praying to dwell on a single event from the lives of Jesus and his mother Mary.

  The opening happens on the short strand that hangs from the loop. The person makes the sign of the cross, often holding the crucifix, and recites the Apostles' Creed. The first large bead carries a Lord's Prayer, offered for the needs of the Church and the intentions of the reigning pope. Three Hail Marys follow on three small beads. They are offered for faith, hope and charity, the three theological virtues. After a Glory Be and a second Lord's Prayer, the decades begin. For each one, the person announces the mystery, for example that the First Glorious Mystery is the resurrection of Jesus. The Hail Holy Queen and a final sign of the cross close the whole sequence.

  When a group prays together, each prayer is split into two halves. The leader says the first half, and everyone else answers with the second. The second half of the Our Father begins at "Give us this day our daily bread." The Hail Mary's second half begins at "Holy Mary, Mother of God." Some groups instead rotate the opening half among different voices.

  A full Rosary usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes, though a brisk pace can finish in 15 to 20. Praying a single decade takes about two to three minutes. People have also added their own touches over the years. Pope Pius IX liked to end decades with a petition that the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. The Brothers of the Christian Schools say a sixth decade for their students. Many pray the Fatima prayer, which appeared in the early 20th century, after each Glory Be.

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• 3. Twenty Mysteries

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  In 2002, Pope John Paul II published the apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae and proposed five new mysteries. Their name was the Luminous Mysteries, or Mysteries of Light. Until then, the Rosary had held steady at fifteen mysteries since the 16th century, when Pope Pius V standardized them according to long-standing custom. The new set brought the total to twenty. It had been written originally by George Preca, the only Maltese official Catholic saint, and the pope later reworked it.

  The mysteries come in four sets of five. The Joyful Mysteries begin with the Annunciation and the Visitation and end with the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. The Luminous Mysteries cover the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, the Wedding at Cana, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the Transfiguration and the institution of the Eucharist. The Sorrowful Mysteries run from the Agony in the Garden through the scourging, the crowning with thorns and the carrying of the cross to the Crucifixion. The Glorious Mysteries close the arc with the Resurrection, the Ascension, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Assumption of Mary and her Coronation.

  Each mystery also carries a "fruit," a spiritual aim. In the list given in Louis Marie de Montfort's book Secret of the Rosary, the Annunciation is tied to humility. The Visitation points toward love of neighbor, and the Crucifixion toward perseverance in faith. The Resurrection is paired with faith itself.

  A weekly rhythm decides which set to pray. With the Luminous Mysteries included, the Glorious Mysteries fall on Sunday and Wednesday, and the Joyful on Monday and Saturday. The Sorrowful take Tuesday and Friday, and the Luminous take Thursday. Under the older pattern, Sunday changed with the season. Advent called for the Joyful Mysteries and Lent for the Sorrowful. Easter and Ordinary Time called for the Glorious. A priest may also assign the Rosary as a penance after confession, where it is meant to encourage reflection rather than serve as punishment.

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• 4. Legend and Scholarship

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  In the year 1208, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to Dominic de Guzmán in the church of Prouille and gave him the Rosary. The apparition was named Our Lady of the Rosary. Many popes accepted this account, mostly before the 17th century, and Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI repeated it in official documents. Louis de Montfort affirmed it in his writings as well.

  The documentary trail is thinner. Twentieth-century editions of the Catholic Encyclopedia noted that the story appears in no Church or Dominican document before the writings of the Dominican Alanus de Rupe, some 250 years after Dominic. Recent scholarship by Donald H. Calloway tries to refute that claim. Leonard Foley took a middle path. He called the gift to Dominic a legend, but he credited the Order of Preachers with much of the prayer's development.

  The practice itself is older than Dominic. Herbert Thurston considered it certain that during the twelfth century, before Dominic was born, reciting the Ave Maria 50 or 150 times had become familiar. Even earlier, the Desert Fathers are said to have tied knots in ropes to count their repetitions of the Jesus prayer or their recitation of the 150 psalms.

  Meditation came later. Dominic of Prussia, a Carthusian monk from Trier who lived from 1382 to 1460, added a scripture quotation to each of fifty Hail Marys and called the result the "Life of Jesus Rosary." Rosary confraternities began to be founded shortly before 1475, helped by the preaching of Alanus de Rupe. Then in 1569, the Dominican Pope Pius V issued the papal bull Consueverunt Romani Pontifices and officially established the devotion in the Catholic Church.

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• 5. Popes at the Rosary

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  Pope Pius V did more than issue a bull. He also placed the Rosary on the Church calendar by instituting the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, later renamed Our Lady of the Rosary. It is celebrated on the 7th of October.

  Three centuries later, Pope Leo XIII wrote twelve encyclicals and five apostolic letters about the Rosary. He added the invocation "Queen of the Most Holy Rosary" to the Litany of Loreto. He also began the custom of praying the Rosary daily through the month of October. In his encyclical Quamquam pluries, he tied the devotion to Saint Joseph and granted indulgences to those who added a Prayer to Saint Joseph at the end of the Rosary in October. Leo described the Rosary as the one road from the faithful to Mary, from her to Jesus, and through Jesus to the Father.

  On the 28th of April 1962, Pope John XXIII issued an apostolic letter urging the faithful to pray the Rosary in preparation for the Second Vatican Council. Pope John Paul II later called it "among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation." On the 3rd of May 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said the Rosary was enjoying a new springtime, and he called it one of the most eloquent signs of the love that young people have for Jesus and his Mother.

  A plenary indulgence is attached to the prayer. The 2004 Enchiridion Indulgentiarum grants it when the Rosary is recited piously in a church or oratory, in a family, in a religious community or in a gathering of people who meet for that purpose.

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• 6. Under Penal Law

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  In 16th- and 17th-century Ireland, practicing Catholics faced severe legal penalties. When the Penal Laws restricted or banned the Mass, the Rosary became a substitute ritual, prayed privately inside homes.

  The beads themselves adapted to the danger. Devotees favored single-decade rosaries, small enough to hide, and counted the same ring of ten beads again for every decade. These became known as Irish penal rosaries. The crucifixes carried coded symbols. A hammer stood for the nails of the cross, and cords represented the scourging. A chalice recalled the Last Supper, and a crowing rooster signified Peter's denial.

  The rosary ring served a similar purpose. This finger ring has eleven knobs, ten round ones and one crucifix, standing for a single decade. Rings like these were especially popular in the 15th and 16th centuries, and they were easy to conceal during persecution. They were also worn for protection and adornment when Catholicism was not under threat, since a ring was harder to break or wear down than beads on a string. Nuns sometimes receive one at the time of their solemn profession.

  In the 18th century, Louis de Montfort pressed a different concern. He urged that the Rosary be prayed with attention, devotion and reverence, qualities that a hurried recitation could lose.

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• 7. Beads in Hand

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  A five-decade rosary has 59 beads in total. The loop holds the five decades, with a Hail Mary bead for each prayer and one fewer Our Father bead than there are decades. The Our Father beads are often larger, made of a different material or spaced apart, so that a thumb can find them by touch. A short strand hangs from the loop, holding five beads and ending in a crucifix or cross. Religious orders often use rosaries with fifteen decades, and since the early 20th century manufacturers have also made twenty-decade versions.

  The beads free the mind. Because they keep count, the person praying does not have to, and attention can rest on the mysteries. Still, the prayers do not strictly require beads. Fingers or a mental tally will do.

  Bishop Fulton J. Sheen designed the World Mission Rosary, with decades in different colors. Green stands for Africa, red for America and white for Europe. Yellow represents Asia, and blue represents Australasia and the Pacific Islands. The whole rosary is meant to support missionary work across the world.

  The materials range widely. Beads have been made of wood, bone, glass and even crushed flowers, as well as agate, jet, amber and jasper. Coral, crystal, silver and gold appear in costlier sets. Some rosaries use seeds from the rosary pea or bead tree. Beads may carry special meaning, such as jet from the shrine of Saint James the Greater at Santiago de Compostela or olive seeds from the Garden of Gethsemane. Early rosaries were strung on thread, often silk, whereas modern ones are more often chain-linked. Italy has a strong manufacturing presence in medium- and high-cost rosaries.

  Generosity shapes the supply too. Rosary-making clubs around the world distribute rosaries free to missions, hospitals and prisons. Our Lady's Rosary Makers alone produce some 7 million a year.

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• 8. Worn and Displayed

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  Christians wear rosary beads as a sign of faith in places including the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Palestine and Uganda. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort encouraged the practice and said that wearing the beads eased him considerably. Many religious orders include the rosary in their habit, and a rosary hanging from the belt is part of the Carthusian habit.

  Canon Law section 1171 says that objects blessed for worship must be treated reverently and not put to profane use. Edward McNamara, a professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum University, applied it to the question of necklaces. A rosary worn as a statement of faith or a reminder to pray is fine. Worn merely as jewelry, it would be disrespectful. He added that wearing one around the neck is not common Catholic practice, and he suggested checking how the gesture will be read in a given culture.

  Other forms exist. A rosary bracelet carries ten beads and often a cross or medal. A rosary card has a handle that slides like a slide rule to count the decade, or it carries a whole rosary as raised bumps, similar to Braille.

  Ordinary life has its own uses. Many Christians hang a rosary from the rear-view mirror of a car as a witness of faith and a prayer for protection while driving. In some households that cannot afford religious art or a crucifix, a rosary on the wall becomes the focal point for prayer.

  The Servite Rosary comes from the Servite Order and consists of seven groups of seven beads. It is often said in connection with the Seven Dolours of Mary. The Franciscan Crown recalls seven joyful episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary and originated among the Franciscans in early 15th-century Italy. Its themes resemble the 12th-century Gaudes, Latin praises that ask Mary to rejoice because God has favored her.

  A long novena dates from 1884, when Fortuna Agrelli in Naples reported a private revelation. The 54-day Rosary Novena has two phases of 27 days each. Five decades are prayed daily, first in petition and then in thanksgiving, and the second phase continues whether or not the petition was granted. The Peace Rosary, also called the Workers' Rosary or Peace Chaplet, is popular with devotees of Our Lady of Medjugorje.

  Other Christians keep their own bead traditions. These are usually called chaplets. The Eastern Orthodox use the prayer rope, and some traditions call their beads the Chotki. Among Lutherans, a minority pray the Catholic format but replace each Hail Mary with the Jesus Prayer. The Lutheran Church of Sweden has the Wreath of Christ, which is often used for reflection in Confirmation classes.

  In Anglicanism, the Rosary is fairly common among Anglo-Catholics, and manuals such as Saint Augustine's Prayer Book include it. Anglicans who pray it tend to skip the Luminous Mysteries and the Fatima decade prayer. Separately, the Anglican prayer beads were created in the 1980s. They have four "weeks" of seven beads, divided by single cruciform beads, and no Marian focus or appointed meditations.

  From the sixteenth century onward, Rosary recitation often involved "picture texts" that supported meditation. The rosary entered Catholic Marian art in the same century. One notable example is Caravaggio's oil painting Madonna of the Rosary in Vienna. Churches around the world carry the name too, including the Shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei in Italy and Our Lady of the Rosary Basilica in Rosario province, Argentina.

  The devotion has grown beyond the pews in some places. In Brazil, two million men take part in a movement called Terço dos Homens, or Men's Rosary, with weekly meetings to pray a set of mysteries. Neighboring Hispanic countries know the movement as Rosario de Hombres Valientes.

  Technology has joined the tradition. Audio recordings help people with pacing and memorization, and some add commentary. In 2008, Vatican Radio released a four-CD set of Pope Benedict XVI praying the Rosary in Latin. The broadcaster said it chose Latin because it is the universal language of the Church.

  In October 2019, the Vatican launched an electronic rosary. It has ten black agate and hematite beads and a metal cross that detects movement. It links to the Click to Pray eRosary app, which is designed to help users pray for world peace. The device can be worn as a bracelet, and making the sign of the cross activates it.

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