The Rosary is a meditation on the Scriptures. Our Lady asks members of all faiths to pray it. True devotees of the Rosary find that praying to Mary brings them closer to Jesus. When Catholics pray to Mary (or, more accurately, through her), we are asking her to ask her Son for us. It is a matter of Mary taking our place before Christ.
When the Rosary is well said, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious for the soul than any other prayer. But it is also the hardest prayer to say well and to persevere in, owing especially to the distractions which almost inevitably attend the constant repetition of the same words.
Being human, we easily become tired and slipshod, but the devil, who never tires of trying to distract us and keep us from praying, makes these difficulties worse when we are saying the Rosary. There is more merit in praying when it is hard than when it is easy.
You can't complete a rosary without involuntary distractions. It is even difficult to finish one Hail Mary without your imagination rushing to bring something to your attention. The rosary's repetition of the same prayer makes the avoidance of distraction particularly difficult. Keep on to the end even if your whole rosary is filled with "extravagant thoughts" that you did your best to chase away. Your prayer will be all the more meritorious.
Before making the Sign of the Cross to start the rosary, say a prayer to the Holy Spirit that you may recite the rosary well and put yourself in the presence of God. Before beginning the decade, pause a moment to consider the mystery you are celebrating in the decade; and ask for one of the virtues which shines out in the mystery or the virtue of which you have most need.
The Rosary is the embodiment of the important events in the lives of Jesus and Mary. Their love for us did not end when they went to heaven, and this prayer is a constant reminder of their love.
The Rosary, is a simple prayer. It's a prayer we can all say together with her, the Mother of God. With the Hail Mary, we invite Her to pray for us. Our Lady always hears our request. She joins Her prayer to ours. Therefore it becomes ever more useful, because Jesus can never say no to His Mother. In every apparition, the heavenly Mother has invited us to pray the Rosary as a powerful weapon against evil, to bring us to true peace.
The Rosary is made up of both mental and Vocal prayer. In the Holy Rosary mental prayer is none other than meditation of the chief mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ and of His Blessed Mother. While the Vocal prayer consists in saying twenty decades of the Hail Mary, each decade headed by an Our Father, while at the same time meditating and contemplating the fifteen principal virtues which Jesus and Mary Practiced in the twenty mysteries of the Holy Rosary.
The idea of the rosary is to "keep Jesus and Mary company" as we meditate on their lives. The Rosary said without meditating on the sacred mysteries of our salvation would be almost like a body without a soul: excellent matter but without the form which is meditation--this latter being that which sets it apart from all other devotions.
The first part of the Rosary contains five Joyful mysteries: the first is the Annunciation of the Archangel Saint Gabriel to Our Lady; the second, the Visitation of Our Lady to her cousin Saint Elizabeth; the third, the Nativity of Jesus Christ; the fourth, the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple and the Purification of Our Lady; and the fifth, the Finding of Jesus in the Temple among the doctors.
These are called the JOYFUL MYSTERIES because of the joy which they gave to the whole universe. Our Lady and the angels were overwhelmed with joy the moment when the Son of God was incarnate. Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist were filled with joy by the visit of Jesus and Mary. Heaven and earth rejoiced at the birth of Our Savior. Holy Simeon felt great consolation and was filled with joy when he took the Holy Child in his arms. The doctors were lost in admiration and wonderment at the answers which Jesus gave -- and how could anyone describe the joy of Mary and Joseph when they found the Child Jesus after He had been lost for three days?
The LUMINOUS MYSTERIES include the mysteries of Christ's public ministry between his Baptism and his Passion. The Baptism in the Jordan is first... Here, as Christ descends into the waters, the innocent one who became "sin" for our sake (cf. 2Cor 5:21), the heavens open wide and the voice of the Father declares him the beloved Son (cf. Mt 3:17 and parallels), while the Spirit descends on him to invest him with the mission which he is to carry out.
Christ changes water into wine and opens the hearts of the disciples to faith, thanks to the intervention of Mary, the first among believers.the preaching by which Jesus proclaims the coming of the Kingdom of God, calls to conversion (cf. Mk 1:15) and forgives the sins of all who draw near to him in humble trust (cf. Mk 2:3-13; Lk 7:47- 48): the inauguration of that ministry of mercy which he continues to exercise until the end of the world, particularly through the Sacrament of Reconciliation
The glory of the Godhead shines forth from the face of Christ as the Father commands the astonished Apostles to "listen to him" (cf. Lk 9:35 and parallels) and to prepare to experience with him the agony of the Passion, so as to come with him to the joy of the Resurrection and a life transfigured by the Holy Spirit. A final mystery of light is the institution of the Eucharist, in which Christ offers his body and blood as food under the signs of bread and wine, and testifies "to the end" his love for humanity (Jn 13:1), for whose salvation he will offer himself in sacrifice. ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
The third part of the Rosary is also composed of five mysteries which are called the SORROWFUL MYSTERIES because they show us Our Lord weighed down with sadness, covered with wounds, laden with insults, sufferings and torments. The first of these mysteries is Jesus' Prayer and Agony in the Garden of Olives; the second, His Scourging; the third, His Crowning with Thorns; the fourth, Jesus carrying His Cross; and the fifth, His Crucifixion and Death on Mount Calvary.
The fourth part of the Rosary contains five other mysteries which are called the GLORIOUS MYSTERIES when we say them we meditate on Jesus and Mary in their triumph and glory. The first is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; the second, His Ascension into heaven; the third, the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles; the fourth, Our Lady's glorious Assumption into heaven; and the fifth, her Crowning in Heaven.
These are the twenty fragrant flowers of the Mystical Rose Tree; devout souls fly to them like wise bees, so as to gather their nectar and make the honey of a solid devotion.
The daily Rosary has so many enemies that the grace of persevering in it until death is one of the greatest favours God can give us. If we persevere in it, our fidelity will be rewarded with the wonderful crown which is prepared for us in heaven. If we are faithful until death, God will give us the "crown of life."
WHY THE DAILY ROSARY?
*Our Lady has 117 titles. She selected this title at Fatima: "I am
the Lady of the Rosary."
*St. Thomas Aquinas preached 40 straight days in Rome Italy on
just the Hail Mary.
*St. John Vianney, patron of priests, was seldom seen without a
rosary in his hand.
*"The rosary is the scourge of the devil" -- Pope Adrian VI
*"The rosary is a treasure of graces" -- Pope Paul V
*Padre Pio the stigmatic priest said:
"The Rosary is THE WEAPON"
*Pope Leo XIII wrote 9 encyclicals on the rosary.
*Pope John XXIII spoke 38 times about Our Lady and the Rosary...
He prayed 15 decades daily.
*St. Louis de Montfort wrote: "The rosary is the most powerful
weapon to touch the Heart of Jesus, Our Redeemer, who so loves
His Mother." He said,
"The Holy Rosary is not just a conglomeration of
our Fathers and Hail Marys, but on the contrary
it is a Divine summary of the Mysteries of the Life,
Passion, Death, and Glory of Jesus and Mary."
If you cannot find the time to say five decades all together, say a decade here and a decade there; you will thus be able, in spite of your work and the calls upon your time, to complete the whole Rosary before going to bed.
If it is impossible to say the Rosary on a particular day, Our Lady asks us to say the "Lord's Prayer", the "Hail Mary", and the "Glory be" at least seven times each.
If you do not have Rosary beads, it is perfectly okay to count with your fingers. Counting beads frees your mind to help you meditate on the mysteries.
WONDERS OF THE ROSARY
Script for Side A (opposite the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary
from The Rosary with Scripture and Religious Reflections)
The word Rosary means "Crown of Roses". Our Lady has revealed to several people that each time we pray a Hail Mary we are giving her a beautiful rose and that each complete Rosary makes her a crown of roses.*The Holy Rosary website
Every time people pray the Rosary devoutly, they place a crown of one hundred and fifty-three red roses and sixteen white roses upon the heads of Jesus and Mary. Being heavenly flowers these roses will never fade or lose their exquisite beauty. *DeMontfort, Secret of the Rosary.
The rose is the queen of flowers, and so the Rosary is the rose of all devotions and it is therefore a most important one. The Holy Rosary is considered a perfect prayer because within it lies the awesome story of our salvation.
In the dark ages of ninth century Ireland, the Monks recited or chanted the 150 Psalms of David dayafterday as a community prayer or "Praise to the Lord". The local peasants outside the monastery wanted to join in with the brothers in Christ in this praise, but they could neither read nor write so they would instead recite the Lord's Prayer or the greeting of the Angel Gabriel when he announced to Mary that she was chosen to be the Mother of the Son of God. (The greeting is now called the "Hail Mary".) As peasants moved away from the monastery, they wished to continue this practice and so they would kneel in prayer and say 50 or 150 Our Fathers or Hail Mary's and count these prayers by small stones in a pouch or by knots on a string. In this way, they were joining in a "community of prayer" no matter where they were.
It is believed by most Catholics that in A 13th-century tale explains the origins of the Rosary and its association with roses. A young man each day offered the Virgin 150 roses (the number of Hail Mary beads on a 15-decade rosary) which he wove into a garland to place on her altar. Later, when he had become a monk, he lamented to his abbot that he lacked time to practice
such devotions. "Say 150 Aves to Our Lady," the abbot replied, "which she will find just as acceptable as the roses." Each day, then, the monk knelt at her altar and said his Hail Marys. One day while traveling through a dark wood, the monk knelt down to say his prayers, and robbers beset him. Suddenly, a woman appeared amid the robbers. Reaching down, she pulled from the monk's still-praying lips 150 roses and wove them together. As the garland grew, the roses decreased in size until they were no larger than rosary beads. This vision was so miraculous, the story goes, the robbers renounced their sins and eventually became monks themselves. . *The Catholic Digest, May 1998
The well-known Jesuit, Brother Alphonsus Rodriguez, used to say his Rosary with such fervor that he often saw a red rose come out of his mouth at each Our Father and a white rose at each Hail Mary. The red and white roses were equal in beauty and fragrance, the only difference being in their color.
These accounts differ from another more famous story of the origin of the Rosary. In 1206, St. Dominic was struggling to teach the illiterate of Europe the prayers of the Church. The Virgin appeared to him, this account says, and gave him the rosary to help the ignorant pray and mediate on the life of Christ. *The Catholic Digest, May 1998 To this day, the Catholic Church looks to the Dominicans as the official promoters of the rosary.
WHY PRAY THE ROSARY?
Sister Lucia of Fatima
writes:
"the Rosary is the prayer of
the poor and the rich, of the
wise and the ignorant.
To uproot this devotion from
souls is to deprive them of
their daily spiritual bread.
The Rosary helps to preserve
that flickering flame of faith that has not yet been completely extinguished from many consciences.
Even for those souls who pray without meditating, the simple act of taking the beads in hand to pray is already a remembrance of God - of the supernatural."
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Sister Lucia speaking to Father Fuentes:
"Look, Father, the Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given new efficacy in the recitation of the Holy Rosary.
She has given this efficacy 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, of the families in the world, or of the religious communities,or even of the life of peoples and nations that cannot be solved by the Rosary.
There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot solve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.
With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls."
Popes and Saints love the rosary:
"Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer
the world," said Pope St. Pius X!
"Give me one million families praying the Rosary and the world is saved," said Pope Pius IX!
In his book Visits to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Alphonsus de Liguori says "Nothing can set hearts ablaze with love for God like the Blessed Sacrament;" and, the Blessed Virgin, through Her Rosary is the Treasure of Grace" that gently leads us to her Son.
"No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary either he will give up sin or he will give up the Rosary." Said Bishop Hugh Boyle.
St. Francis de Sales said the greatest method of praying
