Meaning, history, teaching
What Is the Rosary?
The Rosary is a prayer of the Catholic Church in which we meditate on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the company of Mary, his Mother. Pope Saint Paul VI called it “the epitome of the whole Gospel”, and the Catechism repeats his words (CCC 971).
A prayer centred on Christ
The Rosary is addressed in large part to Mary, but its centre is Jesus. Saint John Paul II wrote that the Rosary, though Marian in character, is at heart a Christ-centred prayer (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, no. 1). The centre of gravity of each Hail Mary is the name of Jesus, the “fruit of thy womb” (no. 33). The twenty mysteries are a path through the Gospel: his birth, his public ministry, his Passion, and his glory.
Mary’s part is to lead us to her Son. At Cana she said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). The Church honours her with a special devotion, which the Catechism describes as intrinsic to Christian worship and, at the same time, essentially different from the adoration that is given to God alone (CCC 971).
Vocal prayer and meditation together
The Rosary joins two kinds of prayer. With the voice, we say the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be. With the mind and heart, we consider a mystery of Christ. The Catechism lists the Rosary among the methods of Christian meditation, a prayer that engages thought, imagination, emotion and desire (CCC 2708). Without this meditation, Paul VI warned, the Rosary is a body without a soul (Marialis Cultus, no. 47).
A short history
The Rosary grew slowly. In the early Middle Ages, monks prayed the 150 Psalms. Lay people who could not read began to say 150 Our Fathers, and later 150 Hail Marys, and they counted them on strings of beads. The Catechism notes that, in the West, the Rosary developed as a popular substitute for the Liturgy of the Hours (CCC 2678).
A long tradition connects the Rosary with Saint Dominic (died 1221) and with the preaching of the Dominican Order, which did much to spread it. In the fifteenth century, the practice of meditating on the mysteries became fixed. In 1569, Pope Saint Pius V gave the Rosary its standard form.
After the victory at Lepanto on 7 October 1571, which Pius V attributed to the prayer of the Rosary, a feast of Our Lady was placed on that day. It is now the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, and October is kept as the month of the Rosary. Pope Leo XIII wrote a series of encyclicals on the Rosary at the end of the nineteenth century.
At Fatima in 1917, Our Lady asked the three children to pray the Rosary every day for peace. In 2002, Saint John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light and declared a Year of the Rosary.
Why Catholics pray it
It teaches the Gospel. A person who prays all four sets of mysteries in a week has considered the main events of the life of Christ.
It is a prayer for peace and for the family. Saint John Paul II gave these two intentions particular emphasis (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, nos. 40 and 41).
It is simple. A child can pray it, and so can a person who is ill or tired. It needs no book once the prayers are known.
The Church attaches an indulgence to it. According to the Manual of Indulgences, a plenary indulgence is granted, under the usual conditions, to those who devoutly pray five decades of the Rosary in a church or oratory, in a family, or in a religious community or association of the faithful. In other circumstances the indulgence is partial.
The beads
A rosary that has been blessed by a priest or deacon is a sacramental. Sacramentals are sacred signs that prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it (CCC 1667 and 1670). The beads are an aid to prayer. They have no power of their own.
Sources: Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 971, 1667–1670, 2678, 2708; Paul VI, Marialis Cultus (1974); John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002); Manual of Indulgences, grant 17.