Eastern Catholicism and the rosary

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So I’m new here and I am not sure where to ask this, but I figured this will be just as good a place as any to ask. I’ve been attending a melkite catholic church recently and learned that the rosary is technically excluded from their and most other eastern catholic church devotions. One of the messages left by of Our Lady of Akita stated

“Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms that will remain for you will be the Rosary and Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests.”

or something like that
So my question is, because the rosary is such a highly regarded devotion with tremendous power and seems to be backed up by a marian apparition deemed worthy of belief, are Eastern Catholics missing out?

Thanks a bunch!
 
Short answer no and they’d very much deny it. Longer answer is it’s mosty cultural and we could see rough analogy in the veneration of the Icon of the Theotokos, which is a title I’ve always loved.
 
mpham said:
So I’m new here and I am not sure where to ask this, but I figured this will be just as good a place as any to ask. I’ve been attending a melkite catholic church recently and learned that the rosary is technically excluded from their and most other eastern catholic church devotions. One of the messages left by of Our Lady of Akita stated

“Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms that will remain for you will be the Rosary and Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests.”

or something like that
So my question is, because the rosary is such a highly regarded devotion with tremendous power and seems to be backed up by a marian apparition deemed worthy of belief, are Eastern Catholics missing out?

Thanks a bunch!
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The rosary is older in the East than it is in the West.

taylormarshall.com/2013/08/does-the-rosary-predate-saint-dominic.html

But generally, Eastern prayer focuses on emptying the mind and opening the spirit in its void. Western prayer concentrates the spirit by way of intense meditation on the visual, and other vivid senses.

No one way is better than another. The best prayer is the prayer we pray.
 
mpham said:
So I’m new here and I am not sure where to ask this, but I figured this will be just as good a place as any to ask. I’ve been attending a melkite catholic church recently and learned that the rosary is technically excluded from their and most other eastern catholic church devotions. One of the messages left by of Our Lady of Akita stated

“Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms that will remain for you will be the Rosary and Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the pope, the bishops, and the priests.”

or something like that
So my question is, because the rosary is such a highly regarded devotion with tremendous power and seems to be backed up by a marian apparition deemed worthy of belief, **are Eastern Catholics missing out? **

Thanks a bunch!
Click to expand...
Whoa, don’t know what it is like in the Melkite church but in the Maronite church there is a massive devotion to the rosary.

The Maronite church I attend engages in the following:
  • A monthly rosary at a local parishoners house (different home every month) where a priest brings a large statue of Our lady of Grace and they say the rosary. Usually followed by a short homily and hymms.
  • Rosary in front of the Exposed blessed sacrament on Monday nights (at the church ofcourse 😃 )
  • Rosary almost every other night conducted by the youth.
  • If you ever have the ooportunity to go to a Maronite mass you will see almost every second person saying the Rosary either before mass or after.
And that’s what I see when I go, I mostly attend latin rite mass.
 
Many Eastern Catholics of the various churches pray the rosary as a private devotion.
 
Among Eastern Catholics in the Middle East specially the Syriac Catholic and Maronite Churches, the Rosary is part of the Tradition. It is prayed daily and specially focused on during the months of May, August and October.
 
Louie1983 said:
Whoa, don’t know what it is like in the Melkite church but in the Maronite church there is a massive devotion to the rosary.

The Maronite church I attend engages in the following:
  • A monthly rosary at a local parishoners house (different home every month) where a priest brings a large statue of Our lady of Grace and they say the rosary. Usually followed by a short homily and hymms.
  • Rosary in front of the Exposed blessed sacrament on Monday nights (at the church ofcourse 😃 )
  • Rosary almost every other night conducted by the youth.
  • If you ever have the ooportunity to go to a Maronite mass you will see almost every second person saying the Rosary either before mass or after.
And that’s what I see when I go, I mostly attend latin rite mass.
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Yes, this is true. 👍
 
Louie1983 said:
Whoa, don’t know what it is like in the Melkite church but in the Maronite church there is a massive devotion to the rosary.

The Maronite church I attend engages in the following:
  • A monthly rosary at a local parishoners house (different home every month) where a priest brings a large statue of Our lady of Grace and they say the rosary. Usually followed by a short homily and hymms.
  • Rosary in front of the Exposed blessed sacrament on Monday nights (at the church ofcourse 😃 )
  • Rosary almost every other night conducted by the youth.
  • If you ever have the ooportunity to go to a Maronite mass you will see almost every second person saying the Rosary either before mass or after.
And that’s what I see when I go, I mostly attend latin rite mass.
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Well I’m not a Maronite and I don’t’ pretend to speak for all of them but from what I’ve read on here all these things mentioned are HUGE latinizations. I’m not familiar with traditional syriac practices but I don’t think the Rosary is a traditional practice for them.

Now, that being said, like other posters have stated, there is nothing wrong with an Eastern Christian (Catholic or Orthodox) saying the rosary as a private devotion, just as there is nothing wrong with a Latin Catholic saying the Jesus Prayer on a prayer rope. However the Rosary shouldn’t’ take the place of the traditional group devotions and liturgies such as Vespers or Matins…this sadly isn’t followed in the Eastern Catholic churches very well 😦
 
Angel_Gabriel said:
Well I’m not a Maronite and I don’t’ pretend to speak for all of them but from what I’ve read on here all these things mentioned are HUGE latinizations. I’m not familiar with traditional syriac practices but I don’t think the Rosary is a traditional practice for them.

Now, that being said, like other posters have stated, there is nothing wrong with an Eastern Christian (Catholic or Orthodox) saying the rosary as a private devotion, just as there is nothing wrong with a Latin Catholic saying the Jesus Prayer on a prayer rope. However the Rosary shouldn’t’ take the place of the traditional group devotions and liturgies such as Vespers or Matins…this sadly isn’t followed in the Eastern Catholic churches very well 😦
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Indeed the rosary is not a traditional Syriac practice by any stretch of the imagination. It is a latinization, and one of rather long standing. And the practices mentioned in the previous post are, as you say, **huge **latinizations.

Personally, I have no problem with the rosary as a private devotion. There’s certainly nothing “wrong” with it, provided it doesn’t supplant traditional practices. Unfortunately, that’s what happens. It’s much more common in Maronites churches to find public recitation of the rosary than it is to find Safro (aka “Matins” aka the morning office) before Mass.
 
malphono said:
Indeed the rosary is not a traditional Syriac practice by any stretch of the imagination. It is a latinization, and one of rather long standing. And the practices mentioned in the previous post are, as you say, **huge **latinizations.

Personally, I have no problem with the rosary as a private devotion. There’s certainly nothing “wrong” with it, provided it doesn’t supplant traditional practices. Unfortunately, that’s what happens. It’s much more common in Maronites churches to find public recitation of the rosary than it is to find Safro (aka “Matins” aka the morning office) before Mass.
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This isn’t just an Eastern / Oriental problem. In my opinion it is also a Western / Latin problem. Don’t get me wrong - as a Latin I fully support the public, even daily, recitation of the holy rosary as you find in many parishes…what concerns me is the total absense, in the vast majority of parishes, of the divine office. The Second Vatican Council clearly taught that the office, especially Sunday Vespers, should be recited in the parish churches. There certain are parishes that do this, some even have daily lauds before or after the morning mass, but they are definitely in the minority.
 
twf said:
This isn’t just an Eastern / Oriental problem. In my opinion it is also a Western / Latin problem. Don’t get me wrong - as a Latin I fully support the public, even daily, recitation of the holy rosary as you find in many parishes…what concerns me is the total absense, in the vast majority of parishes, of the divine office. The Second Vatican Council clearly taught that the office, especially Sunday Vespers, should be recited in the parish churches. There certain are parishes that do this, some even have daily lauds before or after the morning mass, but they are definitely in the minority.
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Yes, but let’s face it: what Sacrosactum Concilium may have suggested for the Latin Church has been perverted in so very many ways that it’s of little or no practical consequence.

Anyway, in the non-latinized East, particularly though not necessarily exclusively, among the Orthodox, one is likely to find Matins (or its equivalent) before the principal Sunday liturgy. I’ve yet to see a Maronite church do that. If they do anything, it’s a communal rosary or, in some cases, “Benediction” which is even more bizarre. :rolleyes: And I suspect that if one did do Safro, it would be recited according to stripped-down version. IOW, why bother. 🤷

The idea of a communal rosary, particularly in church as almost a para-liturgical service, is absolutely alien to any Oriental tradition. Ditto the idea of “Benediction” or other “devotions” before Mass.
 
Since the Divine Liturgy is chock-full of prayers to the Theotokos, while the Mass barely mentions her, are the Latin Rite Catholics missing out? :rolleyes:
 
mpham said:
or something like that
So my question is, because the rosary is such a highly regarded devotion with tremendous power and seems to be backed up by a marian apparition deemed worthy of belief, are Eastern Catholics missing out?

Thanks a bunch!
Click to expand...
I do both the rosary and divine mercy chaplet at home, yeah i think others who dont are indeed missing out

as far as public recitation, my parish does not (none of the roman catholic churches near me do it either). not directed at anyone in particular but if older people have been doing it at their eastern catholic parish and have been for as long as they can remember who is anyone to tell them to stop because it is “un-eastern”?
 
magyar88 said:
I do both the rosary and divine mercy chaplet at home, yeah i think others who dont are indeed missing out

as far as public recitation, my parish does not (none of the roman catholic churches near me do it either). not directed at anyone in particular but if older people have been doing it at their eastern catholic parish and have been for as long as they can remember who is anyone to tell them to stop because it is “un-eastern”?
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On the other hand, if they haven’t, who is anyone to tell them they MUST prey it or be “un-Catholic”?
:rolleyes:
 
Thanks for the replies everyone, I really appreciate it! From what I gathered the divine liturgy prayers to Mary and other eastern devotionals are equivalent to the rosary in terms of spiritual practice. One of the reasons I started attending divine liturgy was that novus ordo just wasn’t doing justice in terms of reverence.

But my fundamental concern remains. What do Eastern Catholics make of the Marian apparitions advocating for the the prayer of the rosary in the western church? Are there two standards for two different rites?

Someone may have answered this already, but I’m a student and I got a mountain of text books I have to read critically and pretend to understand 😃
 
Not all Byzantines are alike. Certain Slavic Byzantines (as distinct from Greek Byzantines) would not look at the Rosary as a “Latinization,” but consider it part of their Slavic Tradition, instituted before “uniatism” took place.

Blessings,
Marduk
 
magyar88 said:
the Mother of God seems to request this devotion quite a bit
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those requests seem to be aimed at Lain Catholics. And that’s fine…it’s a Latin devotion. The same can be said of the Western Marian Apparitions…aimed at Latin Catholics with Latin theology at the heart of them.
 
mpham said:
But my fundamental concern remains. What do Eastern Catholics make of the Marian apparitions advocating for the the prayer of the rosary in the western church? Are there two standards for two different rites?

Someone may have answered this already, but I’m a student and I got a mountain of text books I have to read critically and pretend to understand 😃
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I don’t claim to understand Marian apparition, so who knows other than God?

However, while the Eastern Catholic Churches do not miss out from not saying the rosary since we have many devotions amongst ourselves, I think the Latin Church (by overstating the rosary) harms itself by lack of the office, the second highest form of worship. The attitude I’ve gotten from Latins (who even know what the office is) is it (i.e. the office) seems a bit unnecessary with all these wonderful promises in private revelation related to the rosary. Truly a deficient understanding of liturgy and devotion.
 
magyar88 said:
the Mother of God seems to request this devotion quite a bit
Click to expand...
Did you know that no Catholic is required to pray the Rosary at all? It’s a personal devotion. And a very nice one, at that. But still, we are perfectly free to pray it or not pray it as we wish.

When was the last time you prayed the Akathist to the Theotokos? Some of us believe she likes that devotion as well. 😉
 
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