Article: "Does the Rosary Have to Be Said in a Certain Way To Be Effective?"

[mdgspencer]

A priest gives a to-the-point answer to a question many Catholics sometimes wonder about.
see www.catholic.com/quickquestions/does-the-rosary-have-to-be-said-in-a-certain-way-to-be-effective

 

[DesertSister62]

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Does the rosary have to be said in a certain way to be effective?**

Full Question

***Sometimes I mix the mysteries of the rosary and meditate on different parts of Jesus’ life, not necessarily on the prescribed day. I never thought about it until someone said it was disrespectful. Does the rosary have to be said in a certain way to be effective?

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Answer

When you are praying the rosary privately, you can mix and match. The object of the rosary is prayer. If you want to pray five decades, meditating on one mystery, it’s fine. There is absolutely nothing disrespectful in this.

Answered by: Fr. Vincent Serpa O.P.

Personally, I found this to be very interesting and helpful. I hadn’t realized that we could do this.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

When i saw this thread’s question, I immediately thought about the children at Fatima, how they were praying their rosary really quickly and somewhat in sloppy fashion by only saying the phrase “Hail Mary” and “Our Father” instead of the whole words of the prayer. This was right before the first apparition’s appearance, so I would say it must not really matter! I think they were just saying it to get it over and done with so that they could play while they stayed with the sheep. Perhaps The Blessed Virgin got a chuckle out of that, but also decided to do a spiritual act of mercy in instructing them a bit.

I would suppose it was better than not saying their rosary, which they could have opted to do instead.