37. BITESIZE CATECHISM: OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY & CHRISTIAN PRAYER

APPETIZER:  Through his Word, God speaks to man. By words, mental or vocal, our prayer takes flesh. Yet it is most important that the heart should be present to him to whom we are speaking in prayer: Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our souls. Vocal prayer is an essential element of the Christian life. To his disciples, drawn by their Master's silent prayer, Jesus teaches a vocal prayer, the Our Father. He not only prayed aloud the liturgical prayers of the synagogue but, as the Gospels show, he raised his voice to express his personal prayer, from exultant blessing of the Father to the agony of Gesthemane.  The need to involve the senses in interior prayer corresponds to a requirement of our human nature. We are body and spirit, and we experience the need to translate our feelings externally. We must pray with our whole being to give all power possible to our supplication.  Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him. (CCC2700-2702) 

MAIN COURSE: The dedication of the month of October to the Rosary was officially established by Pope Leo XIII in 1884. The name “rosary” comes from the Latin “rosarium” which means “rose garden.” A rosary is spiritually considered a gift of mystical roses to Our Blessed Mother in heaven. The rosary has had a long history and gone through many stages of development. The use of prayer beads is a widespread practice found in several religions of the world. Hindus use them to help keep track of prayers said throughout the day. Muslims use them to recite the 99 Names of God. Buddhists use them for repetition of their individual mantras. 

In the Christian tradition, the seed of rosary-prayer can be traced back to ancient monks who would pray all 150 Psalms of the Old Testament daily. But books were rare to possess, and many could not read them anyway, so most monks memorized the Psalms and used 150 pebbles in a small pouch in order to keep track. This later developed into a string with 150 knots or a rope with 150 beads. Many lay people who did not know the Psalms by heart but wanted to have a comparable version of this practice, began substituting 150 “Our Fathers”, 1 for each Psalm. They used a string of knots or beads to keep track of their prayers just as the monks did. And so the physical form of the rosary began to take shape and spread. Over time, the words of the Archangel Gabriel and of St. Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary were either added to or substituted for the “Our Fathers”. And so, the popular “Hail Mary” prayer began to evolve. At first it was composed of just the two greetings found in Luke’s Gospel: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” (Luke 1:26,42). 

It is said that in the year 1214, Mary appeared to St. Dominic and encouraged him to spread devotion to the rosary. She promised him that if he did so, he would be successful in converting people alienated from the Church and that his religious order (the “Order of Preachers”, aka “Dominicans”) would prosper. He spent the rest of his life encouraging others to pray the Rosary and founded a Rosary Confraternity to aid in this task. One hundred years later, the Dominican priest, Blessed Alan de la Roche, picked up where Dominic’s left off. He divided the rosary into “decades” (groups of 10) of “Hail Marys” with each decade preceded by the “Our Father.” In the 16th century, Pope St. Pius V (also a Dominican) added the mysteries of the rosary to this devotion. This gave people an opportunity to reflect on Scripture while offering up their prayers. Also, at this time, the phrase, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death” was added giving us the form of this prayer that we are most familiar with today. However, Easter Rite Catholics still use a shorter version and anyone is free to use any form of the scriptural “Hail Mary” in private recitation of the rosary. 

The story of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary also came about in the 16th century. Europe and Christianity were threatened by the Ottoman Turks who were Muslims. After months of disagreements and bickering, Pope St. Pius V was able to unite Spain, Venice, and the States of the Church in a naval expedition to fight the Turks. The two navies fought each other in the Gulf of Lepanto in Greece on October 7, 1571. On the same day, the Rosary Confraternity of Rome was meeting at the Dominican headquarters there. The group recited the Rosary for the special protection and triumph of the far outnumbered Christian battle fleet. The Christians won a spectacular and unexpected victory. The Holy Father believed it was the intercessory power of the Blessed Virgin and so he dedicated the day as one of thanksgiving to Our Lady of Victory. Pope Gregory XIII later changed the name to the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary that we still celebrate today, almost 500 years later. 

The story of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary focuses on the intercessory power of Mary by virtue of her role and mission as the Immaculate Mother of God and our spiritual mother. It shows that when Christians are in danger, we can go to Mary. When we are in pain, discouragement, or confusion, we can go to Mary. She will pray to her Son for us and for all who call upon her. 

Mary encouraged praying the Rosary in her apparitions. It is interesting to note that in all of the Church-approved apparitions of the 20th century, the Blessed Mother has encouraged the frequent recitation of the rosary and the her appearances were almost always preceded by or accompanied by the visionaries praying the rosary. This should make us really stop and think. It should move us to evaluate what place the rosary devotion has in our own personal prayer life.

It is important to realize that unlike the Liturgy and Sacraments which are the actions and worship of the Risen Christ through his Body which is the Church, the rosary is called a private devotion. This means that even if prayed aloud in a group, it is not an official function of the Church regulated by regulations of worship and ritual. As the modern popes have pointed out, this means that a person is free to pray the rosary in whatever form he or she wishes and find meaningful. And this can be especially helpful when choosing to make the rosary a part of one's spiritual exercises.

Most people probably take up the rosary devotion as it is, as we have come to know it. But both Pope St. Paul VI and Pope St. JohnPaul II taught that when we pray the rosary as individuals, we are free to make up and meditate upon our own sets of mysteries. We are also free to tailor the Hail Mary in a way that is meaningful to us. Some people add to it a clause that reminds them of what mystery they are pondering.  Others find that using the ancient shorter form of the Hail Mary (using just the verses from Luke's Gospel) enables them to pray it more frequently and meditatively.  The bottom line is this: how can you best embrace the devotion of the rosary in a form that speaks to who you are and how you pray?

DOGGIE-BAG: A little something to take with you for spiritual snacking...

Rosary Quotes...

“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.” (Lucia do Santos, Fatima visionary)

"Your rosary is like a ladder that you climb together, step by step, drawing closer to our Lady, which means finding Christ. For the most important and beautiful feature of the rosary is that, through Mary, it leads us to Christ. Christ is the goal of this long, repeated invocation to Mary. We speak to Mary in order to reach Christ. She is our Lord’s mother and brought him into the world. And she brings us to him if we are devoted to her.” (Pope St. Paul VI) 

"Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words’ (Mt 6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are disclosed.” (Pope St. Paul VI)

If you would like to learn more about the rosary, get books about its mysteries and meditations, or join the Rosary Confraternity of the Dominican Order,  go to: https://www.rosarycenter.org.

The rosary can be made in various sizes and styles as an aid to 

keeping track of our prayers. Here are 4 from my own collection.

From Left to Right: 10-decade rosary, 1-decade Irish Penal Rosary,

Traditional-style rosary & Eastern Orthodox rope rosary.