Do you use the Luminous mysteries, what's your opinion on them?

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I’m sort of torn. On one hand, I do enjoy meditating on the Luminous Mysteries and I did regularly when I first started praying the Rosary, before I was even really seriously considering becoming Catholic. On the other hand, I’m a bit of a traditional fellow the traditional cycle for going through the mysteries each week is much more… organized, I guess I’d say. Going through the three groups of mysteries in order twice a week, with Sunday as sort of an extra day, compared to the Glorious-Joyful-Sorrowful-Glorious-Luminous-Sorrowful-Joyful arrangement, which seems almost random. I know St. John Paul wanted the Luminous mysteries said on Corpus Christi and Maundy Thursday and it makes sense to keep the Sorrowful mysteries on Friday, but again, it’s just not ordered very well. So right now I just use the traditional three, but I’ve been toying around with some ideas for how to add the Luminous mysteries into a weekly cycle without disrupting the order. The one I’ve come up with that I might actually use:

Joyful on Sunday and Wednesday
Sorrowful on Monday and Friday
Luminous on Thursday
Glorious on Tuesday and Saturday

But anyway.
 
Confiteor_Deo said:
I also used to say the luminous mysteries, but I grew fond of the traditional order of days and dropped the luminous mysteries. I found myself always looking forward to the other sets of mysteries yet never wanting to say the luminous mysteries. For me, I prefer the old set of mysteries since it is the original set (which corresponds to the 150 Psalms) and it has writings from many saints, including my patron.

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This is exactly how I feel also. I rarely say the luminous mysteries. I prefer the older way of saying the rosary.
 
To those who say the “traditional” Rosary was perfect and didn’t need “fixing”, are you aware that there are various forms of the Rosary? The Rosary is a private devotion and evolved organically over centuries. Yes, I fully believe that Our Lady inspired it, but there have always been various cultural and regional variants of this particular devotion. The “traditional” Rosary is the Dominican Rosary (the Rosary as it came to be said and promoted by the Dominicans). The Carmelites, for example, if memory serves, have among their Rosary mysteries the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.
Not many people, including Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Christians, are aware of this, but there is also the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos in the Byzantine Tradition. This Prayer Rule is strikingly similar to the Rosary yet predates the Dominican Rosary by centuries…but is not quite the same.
No one is required to pray the Luminous mysteries- the traditional Dominican Rosary is totally fine of course - but Pope St. John Paul certainly didn’t err in introducing another way of approaching the Rosary.
 
twf said:
To those who say the “traditional” Rosary was perfect and didn’t need “fixing”, are you aware that there are various forms of the Rosary? The Rosary is a private devotion and evolved organically over centuries. Yes, I fully believe that Our Lady inspired it, but there have always been various cultural and regional variants of this particular devotion. The “traditional” Rosary is the Dominican Rosary (the Rosary as it came to be said and promoted by the Dominicans). The Carmelites, for example, if memory serves, have among their Rosary mysteries the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.
Not many people, including Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Christians, are aware of this, but there is also the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos in the Byzantine Tradition. This Prayer Rule is strikingly similar to the Rosary yet predates the Dominican Rosary by centuries…but is not quite the same.
No one is required to pray the Luminous mysteries- the traditional Dominican Rosary is totally fine of course - but Pope St. John Paul certainly didn’t err in introducing another way of approaching the Rosary.
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I agree and had heard of some of this before. The Rosary does have different forms that are said by different communities and it isn’t wrong to include or not include the luminous mysteries or other mysteries. That is a personal choice for each individuals devotion.

The reason I choose to say the traditional Dominican Rosary is because that is how I was taught the Rosary, I like the way the timeline flows and I feel that when I pray it in this form and I am connecting to something so beautiful, ancient and timeless.
 
LOVE the Luminous mysteries. The other 3 seem incomplete without them.
 
Magdalena59 said:
I agree and had heard of some of this before. The Rosary does have different forms that are said by different communities and it isn’t wrong to include or not include the luminous mysteries or other mysteries. That is a personal choice for each individuals devotion.

The reason I choose to say the traditional Dominican Rosary is because that is how I was taught the Rosary, I like the way the timeline flows and I feel that when I pray it in this form and I am connecting to something so beautiful, ancient and timeless.
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That’s exactly how I feel at this point. 👍
 
Remember my fellow Catholics the Most Holy Rosary is a private devotion and has been said differently though out the history of the Church. The Luminous Mysteries are not required to be said however since The Holy Ghost inspired them and St. John Paul II recommended them maybe we should pray them anyway.
 
Yes, I say the Luminous Mysteries every Thursday.

However I can’t see why anyone would get annoyed with the fact that some people don’t say the Luminous Mysteries, or on the other hand get annoyed that others do.

The Rosary is the Rosary and although it is traditional to say certain mysteries on certain days, it doesn’t actually matter what mysteries you say. I’m sure satan hates all of them regardless of what mysteries are said or on what day.
 
Thursday is my Luminous mystery day --I say the Rosary every day – not all at one time – one decade when I walk to public transportation – one decade when I walk to Church – then my last decade I say before I turn out the light at night. It’s one of the things that keeps me going. I have a beautiful Rosary that my granddaughter sent to me from Paris, France when she was studying there – it’s BEAUTIFUL!!!
 
They came at a time when my memory stopped withholding. Although I do like to pray them, (if I have a handbook of what they are) if it’s Thursday, and I’m somewhere where I don’t have help remembering, I just revert to the traditional mysteries. It’s been forever, and I still have trouble remembering the order, and the mysteries. Although I always remember the Baptism of Christ, and then the Wedding at Cana… it trails off there for me.
 
I pray them every Thursday. I began praying the rosary daily a few years ago, and so never knew a time when they were not an option. The fruits of these mysteries are for me, like those of the others, ones of which I am in dire need!
 
I use them once in awhile. I don’t habitually use them but I have no problem with those who wish to do so.
 
Marie5890 said:
LOVE the Luminous mysteries. The other 3 seem incomplete without them.
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That was my response too. I never thought the other 3 felt incomplete before the Luminous were introduced. But since then, I feel I could never not include them in the cycle.

The only thing that I do differently to the new cycle is that I prefer to keep Saturday for the Luminous Mysteries. Thursday and Friday have always been the Joyful and Sorrowful and they don’t feel right being usurped especially since Friday relates to Good Friday, a most sorrowful day. Saturday and Sunday were always a double up of the Glorious Mysteries and of course Sunday is a most ‘glorious’ day for the Church. Saturday in the shadow of Sunday, seems like the rightful place for the mysteries of ‘light’ to me. That’s my little twist that sets everything right for me.
 
Mystrx said:
What’s everyone’s opinion on the Luminous mysteries from a traditional point of view?

I’m just curious because the luminous mysteries are great and I used to say them in my daily rotation throughout the week. However lately the classic Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious rotation seems to work best for me.
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In my view the Luminous Mysteries complete the Rosary. The public ministry of Jesus was missing and now its not!
 
2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

2110 The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.

Superstition

2111 Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.41

I never found the rosary particularly useful as a form of prayer until a few years ago. I particularly like the luminous mysteries and contemplating how Christ reveals Himself to us in His ministry and each of the mysteries. From us joining Him and coming to know Him in baptism through Him revealing Himself and us coming to know Him through the Eucharist. In the gospel revealing Himself as a loving God who has in fact prepared a kingdom He invites us to join.

So, I’ve gone from not praying the rosary at all to praying all 4 sets of mysteries at one time 5-6 days a week. Like others, it would seem odd not to contemplate His ministry.

But- whatever assists one in raising their heart and mind to God is effective prayer.
 
I personally love the Luminous Mysteries and think they are a great addition but because it is a private devotion it is really up to you. I like to follow along with the Rosary Album from Angelus Press but it only contains the Classic Mysteries so I don’t pray them often. I pray the rosary once a week and usually choose Friday so the Sorrowful Mysteries are what I reflect on the most.
 
I started praying the Rosary in 2011, just
before I joined the Catholic Church, so I
am used to the Luminous Mystery on
Thursdays.
 
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