The Rosary

The rosary is one of the many devotional prayers that we have in our Church, and is a beautiful one to pray. It is primarily a prayer of meditation and a guide to other prayers. It is similar to a mantra prayer, in which we pray something over and over again and the purpose of the prayer is to focus ourselves to something else.

We sometimes get into the idea that it is just “getting in” the prayers, but the rosary is much more than just praying the Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s repeatedly, it is spending time with God and bringing your thanksgiving and needs to Him. One of the things we should remember as we pray the rosary is that we should also be asking for something within the prayer.

There are many ways of praying the rosary, most commonly the rosary is prayed on its own, but it can also be prayed as a part of a larger prayer like a novena which is a series of prayers that is based on the number nine or three times three. This means that we pray for nine days, weeks, or months in a row for a specific purpose or indulgence.

Tradition holds that St. Dominic was the one to devise the rosary, but other sources hint that it was prayed before St Dominic’s time, and given to him by Blessed Alan de la Roche. It is clear, however, that St. Dominic did use the prayer for the brothers in the Dominican order. All priests and religious, even to this day, make a promise to pray a prayer called the Liturgy of the Hours. In the time of St. Dominic, the priest or religious would pray through all 150 Psalms each week through this prayer set, it has been shortened in more recent times to pray them over 4 weeks with other meditations added to the Psalms. In the time of St. Dominic, books were large, heavy, and expensive and Dominic wanted the men of his order to basically be traveling preachers, so they needed a more convenient way fulfill their promise. One theory is that Dominic recommended praying the rosary while the priests were traveling because they could do so while walking.

No matter who or how it started, we know that the rosary is a powerful prayer and has been a comfort to many people throughout the ages. In 1566 Pope Pius V asked that everyone pray the rosary because Europe was open to attack. A Christian fleet met a much larger Turkish fleet off Lepanto and destroyed most of it. This victory was attributed to the daily prayer of the rosary. In Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary told the three children, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta, to pray the rosary for peace since World War I was going on. This prayer is a powerful one, and it is a prayer that reminds us that we are not alone. Jesus has people, including His mother, interceding for us.

God bless,
Fr. Ken