Closing a rosary

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I enjoy doing the rosary. It helps me feel closer to God, but I get hung up on the closing of the rosary with the Hail, Holy Queen. Are there any acceptable replacement prayers to close a rosary with?
 
I enjoy doing the rosary. It helps me feel closer to God, but I get hung up on the closing of the rosary with the Hail, Holy Queen. Are there any acceptable replacement prayers to close a rosary with?
Hail Holy Queen is appropriate always, but you could also add after whatever you want. Prayer is prayer. throw in a Hail Mary for the Church… pray a Glory Be for the clergy or your Parish or the Holy Father’s Intentions for the Month.

The point is build up your prayer how you feel comfortable.
 
Hail holy queen is so beautiful and the perfect way to end the rosary. Why not simply learn it?
 
The rosary has gone through many changes over the years. For all I know, Hail Holy Queen might have been considered a novelty when it was first introduced. 🙂

Our little group at chuch prays the rosary before Mass. If we start early enough - or if Father is late - we add the prayer to St. Michael at the end.

I like several of the chaplets. I pray the Chaplet for World Peace regularly - tho not daily. Considering the shape the world is in, I should pray it daily. I think I’ll go pray it now.
 
Just out of curiosity, what is the hang up with the Hail, Holy Queen prayer?
 
I will humbly admit that I have the same problem. I love the Hail Holy Queen. I think it is one of the most beautiful prayers ever, and I have been praying the rosary since childhood. But for whatever reason, I always stumble on the last line of the prayer if I don’t have a card to read it. I am so ashamed of my inadequacy, but I just can’t seem to memorize it! And I am a memorizer! I can listen to a song once and know all of the lyrics, but I can’t get this most magnificent prayer down!!

It can be a problem if I decide to pray the rosary on a whim, which is often. I will begin the prayer knowing it the whole way through, but I get to one part and my mind goes completely blank. I will try to start the prayer over, the same thing will happen. It often ends with me literally blushing and saying, “I am so deeply sorry, Mary.” and I will try to close it out as best as I can.

😊
 
Another prayer, that is additional but helps “balance” the Hail Holy Queen, is this one:

“O God, whose only begotten Son hath purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, Grant we beseech Thee that by meditating upon these mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The rosary is praying to God through Mary’s intercession and seeing the Gospel, the life, death and resurrection of her Son, through her eyes. We ask her, in prayer, to aid us in “this valley of tears” because we are the Church Militant that is still under attack by the enemy of our souls. We call her “our life” because through her we attained Christ, who is “the life” of our souls, we call her “our sweetness” because she is sweet to us in praying for us and loving us, we call her “our hope” because we see in her the promise fulfilled of us being united in heaven with God. Understanding this, there is nothing to fear in praying the Hail, Holy Queen.
 
Another prayer, that is additional but helps “balance” the Hail Holy Queen, is this one:

“O God, whose only begotten Son hath purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, Grant we beseech Thee that by meditating upon these mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”
I lead the Rosary Sunday mornings before Mass. At the request of an older parishioner, with Father’s OK, we added the above prayer to the end. Father said the above prayer, after the Hail Holy Queen, is a traditional closing to the Rosary.
 
When I close my rosary I say:
Hail Holy Queen…
Pray for us Holy Mother of God…
Oh God whose only Begotten Son…
May the Divine Assistance…
May the Souls of the faithful deceased…
1 Our Father, 1 Glory be and 1 Hail Mary for the protection and intentions of the Holy Father
St. Michael the Arch Angel…

And if I haven’t said a decade of my rosary for my priest,
I say an extra Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be for my Priest, to keep him holy, healthy and happy etc. and so forth.

It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. 🙂
 
“O God, whose only begotten Son hath purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, Grant we beseech Thee that by meditating upon these mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”
I had forgotten this prayer. It’s one of many that I don’t have memorized, & apparently others are in the same boat. Our prayer leader says this one by herself.

I’ll copy it & start praying it with her.
 
Sorry about the delay. Between work and school I have been burning the candle at both ends.

My particular hang up on the Hail Holy Queen is that I don’t feel that it is explicitly focused on Christ. I am ok with praising Mary in prayer, for her part in God’s plan in bringing Jesus into the world for example, and prayers like the Hail Mary because I do think she can intercede on our behalf as one Christian can intercede in prayer for another.

Referring to her has “our life, our sweetness and our hope” and “Turn then, most gracious
advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary” in particular get me. I understand that someone can pray that with a clear conviction, and I am not knocking that, it is just I feel uneasy about it, and I would like to know an alternative that I could feel more comfortable with.

I hope that made sense.
 
Sorry about the delay. Between work and school I have been burning the candle at both ends.

My particular hang up on the Hail Holy Queen is that I don’t feel that it is explicitly focused on Christ. I am ok with praising Mary in prayer, for her part in God’s plan in bringing Jesus into the world for example, and prayers like the Hail Mary because I do think she can intercede on our behalf as one Christian can intercede in prayer for another.

Referring to her has “our life, our sweetness and our hope” and “Turn then, most gracious
advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary” in particular get me. I understand that someone can pray that with a clear conviction, and I am not knocking that, it is just I feel uneasy about it, and I would like to know an alternative that I could feel more comfortable with.

I hope that made sense.
Perhaps you missed reading my previous post, but I did explain the “our life, our sweetness, and our hope” part of the prayer. St. Alphosus de Liguori did a beautiful job of explaining this prayer in his book: The Glories of Mary.

Mary is our advocate with her Son, and so are all the saints in heaven. This is the Communion of Saints. She does have mercy towards us because she loves us, and she will show us Jesus here on earth and one day in heaven.

Clement merely means “inclined to mercy”, and Mary is inclined to pity us poor sinners. Remember, she is human just like us and knows our trails and tribulations.

And of course, she’s “sweet” because in her we see what we can be–holy and in complete union with God’s will. This is the sweet promise Christ made to us–that we can be freed from our sins and be holy as the Father is holy.

Mary personifies all that we can be in Christ if we cooperate with God’s grace. There is nothing contrary to Church teaching in any part of the Hail, Holy Queen prayer.

I want to assure you that you need have no scruples about praying to Mary in this way. The problem is we moderns simply don’t talk like this, so it sounds odd to our ears. But if we break it down and see what each phrase means, spiritually and theologolically, we see that this prayer is Christ centered because Mary is all the things the prayer describes, not through her own merits but because she fully cooperated with the graces God gave her. I hope that helps you. 🙂
 
I always end my rosary with the following prayers:
  • Hail Holy Queen
  • Memorare
  • Litany of Loretto
  • Prayer for the pope
  • One Our Father and One Hail Mary for my bishop’s intentions
  • A short litany of saints that I often invoke closed by the prayer to St. Michael
If I have time I insert a Divine Mercy Chaplet after the Litany.
 
It has been a long time since I have read de Liguori’s “The Glories of Mary”.

Della, you’re probably right on it sounding odd because we don’t talk like that in this day and age. Thank you for your explanation, because personally it does help to give a Christocentric light to it.

And thank you for sharing the other prayer earlier as well.
 
There are some prayers over here

theholyrosary.org/rosaryprayers

I usually pray the sacred heart of Jesus prayer and prayer to the immaculate heart. The prayers are present in the above link

The Daily Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Oh Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and suffering of this day in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world. I offer them for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart: the salvation of souls, reparation for sins, the reunion of all Christians; I offer them for the intentions of our Bishops and of all Apostles of Prayer and in particular for those recommended by our Holy Father this month.

Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
I give myself and consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, my person and my life, my actions, pains and sufferings, so that I may be unwilling to make use of any part of my being other than to honor, love and glorify the Sacred Heart. This is my unchanging purpose, namely, to be all His, and to do all things for the love of Him, at the same time renouncing with all my heart whatever is displeasing to Him. I therefore take You, O Sacred heart, to be the only object of my love, the guardian of my life, my assurance of salvation, the remedy of my weakness and inconstancy, the atonement for all the faults of my life and my sure refuge at the hour of death.

Be then, O Heart of goodness, my justification before God the Father, and turn away from me the strokes of his righteous anger. O Heart of love, I put all my confidence in You, for I fear everthing from my own wickedness and frailty, but I hope for all things from Your goodness and bounty.Remove from me all that can displease You or resist Your holy will; let your pure love imprint Your image so deeply upon my heart, that I shall never be able to forget You or to be separated from You.

May I obtain from all Your loving kindness the grace of having my name written in Your Heart, for in You I desire to place all my happiness and glory, living and dying in bondage to You. Amen
 
It has been a long time since I have read de Liguori’s “The Glories of Mary”.

Della, you’re probably right on it sounding odd because we don’t talk like that in this day and age. Thank you for your explanation, because personally it does help to give a Christocentric light to it.

And thank you for sharing the other prayer earlier as well.
You’re welcome. :tiphat: Actually, everything the Church teaches, in its prayers and practices concerning Mary, are meant to teach us something about Christ. I know it can be hard to see that with all the flowery language, but the Incarnation is the key to all Marian teaching and devotion. It’s helpful to keep that in mind when offering prayers and devotion to Mary, who turns right around and offers it all to her Son on our behalf. 🙂
 
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