Minimum Definition of "Rosary"

[Rainaldo]

What is the bare minimum that constitutes a rosary?

Different forms have different beginning and ending prayers and prayers inserted in between, but one thing they all seem to have in common is five sets of one Our Father and ten Hail Marys.

So if I want to say a rosary and keep it to the bare minimum, would it be just that plus meditations on the mysteries? Have any popes “defined” the rosary?

The reason I ask is because I’m in a bit of a kerfluffle at the moment involving people who want to add their personal favorite extras to rosaries said in groups, everything from brief prepared reflections on the mysteries before each decade to appending longer and longer prayers at the end like the Hail Holy Queen plus O God Whose Only Begotten Son plus the Litany of Loreto and what used to be a 15 minute devotion turns into a commitment of half an hour or more.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for praying, but the extra prayers threaten to become a tedious burden and when you think about it they are really just extra decoration that ultimately comes from personal preference, and in religious matters this often ends up becoming a case of more is better, which just isn’t true.

 

[Khalid]

The signum crucis, the (Apostles’ or Nicene?) Credo, the Paternoster, three Ave Marias, a Lesser Doxology (Gloria Patri), and five decades of Ave Marias interspersed with Lesser Doxologies every decade. Only one or two Paternosters (I think you can say one on the large bead/icon that connects the three points): the beads in between the decades are for Lesser Doxologies, or so I’ve believed.

 

[BigdogAman]

Its funny khalid you bring up latin on this rosary thread i was just thinking to myself “man how cool would it be for me to say the rosary in latin”.

 

[Zundrah]

I’m sure the starting sections and then proceed to say one decade. Then finish as if you have completed 5 decades.

Am I wrong?

 

[Khalid]

I learned Latin before English, although by now, my English has far surpassed my Latin.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae
Et in Iesum Christum, Filium Eius unicum, Dominum nostrum
Qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine
Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus
Descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis
Ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Patris omnipotentis
Inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos.
Credo in Spiritum Sanctum.
Credo in sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam, sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem, vitam aeternam. Amen.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Ave Maria,
Gratia plena.
Dominus tecum.

Benedictus tu in mulieribus
Et benedictus fructus ventris tui,
Iesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

There you go. Pray away.

 

[Rainaldo]

I’m sure the starting sections and then proceed to say one decade. Then finish as if you have completed 5 decades.

Am I wrong?

I’m pretty sure at least five decades is necessary.

 

[Zundrah]

I’m pretty sure at least five decades is necessary.

But there are those little rosaries that go around the wrist. They are meant for short devotion.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

When I was a kid, while I’m sure they taught us the basics of the Rosary (I remember a work sheet where we colored in the beads), we never actually said it. It was one of those, “Here you go! Now it’s up to your parents to do it at home” kind of things. I just started saying it back in November or December and learned it from the virtual rosary you can get for the Kindle, and the EWTN website.

That being said, while I’ve wondered the same thing, the only form I’m familiar with is:

Sign of the Cross
Apostles Creed
Our Father
Hail Mary x3
Glory Be

Then five decades of:
Mystery
Our Father
Hail Mary x 10
Glory Be
Fatima Prayer (O, my Jesus, forgive us our sins…)

Then finish it up with the Hail Holy Queen, the Rosary Prayer (O God, whose only begotten son…), and the Sign of the Cross.

We’ve been adding in the extra Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for the intentions of the Holy Father, as well as a Lenten devotion of 3 Our Fathers our girls’ teachers told them to do, plus a few other occasional prayers, but the prayers above are the basics we go by.

 

[Alfonsus]

The minimum, I believe is the mysteries itself (mystery, our father, a decade of hail marys and glory be).

The opening varies. The most common one is: apostle creed, our father, 3 hail marys and glory be.
But the Dominicans themselves, open it differently. It is opened like an Office:

V. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
R. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
V. O Lord, open my lips.
R. And my tongue will proclaim your praise.
V. O God come to my assistance.
R. O Lord, make haste to help me.
V. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Alleluia.

Then straight to first mystery.

Pope John Paul II, when he wrote his encyclical “Rosarium Virginis Mariae” acknowledge the may ways of opening and ending the Rosary:

The opening and closing

37.At present, in different parts of the Church, there are many ways to introduce the Rosary. In some places, it is customary to begin with the opening words of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me”, as if to nourish in those who are praying a humble awareness of their own insufficiency. In other places, the Rosary begins with the recitation of the Creed, as if to make the profession of faith the basis of the contemplative journey about to be undertaken. These and similar customs, to the extent that they prepare the mind for contemplation, are all equally legitimate. The Rosary is then ended with a prayer for the intentions of the Pope, as if to expand the vision of the one praying to embrace all the needs of the Church. It is precisely in order to encourage this ecclesial dimension of the Rosary that the Church has seen fit to grant indulgences to those who recite it with the required dispositions.

If prayed in this way, the Rosary truly becomes a spiritual itinerary in which Mary acts as Mother, Teacher and Guide, sustaining the faithful by her powerful intercession. Is it any wonder, then, that the soul feels the need, after saying this prayer and experiencing so profoundly the motherhood of Mary, to burst forth in praise of the Blessed Virgin, either in that splendid prayer the Salve Regina or in the Litany of Loreto? This is the crowning moment of an inner journey which has brought the faithful into living contact with the mystery of Christ and his Blessed Mother.

In short, just choose one form you find most familiar for you.

 

[Rainaldo]

But there are those little rosaries that go around the wrist. They are meant for short devotion.

Pardon my cynicism but I thought those, along with the so-called rosary rings that are either beaded washers or two-part finger rings with beaded sliding inserts, were invented by trinket peddlers to make money, like DeBeers invented the diamond engagement ring, or the marketing genius who invented the wedding Unity Candle.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Devotional objects like the five-fold scapular or the four-way medal seem to me to have arisen logically and naturally, but somehow I can’t see Our Lady appearing to a nun in an obscure European convent and showing her an elastic bracelet with a different religious image on each panel. (Although during a religious ecstasy I did have a fearsome vision of Hillary Clinton sporting one in Philadelphia during the Pennsylvania presidential primary election on April 22, 2008, evidently to help her get the Catholic vote, and it evidently worked.)

Although I am aware of Irish penal rosaries with one Our Father bead and ten Hail Mary beads, an unlooped chain with a finger-ring on one end and a crucifix on the other, it was inevitable that someone would make bracelets out of these and sell them on a rack by the cash register next to the 25-cent aluminum patron saint medals so you could make your own rosary/charm bracelet, a must accessory for any Catholic schoolgirl … or boy, if it’s masculinely strung on hemp cord or a leather thong.

But the straight-chain 11-bead Irish penal rosaries were meant to be a practical workaround taking advantage of a loophole in the British Penal Laws against owning a looped 59-bead rosary - you just number the decades by transferring the ring from one finger to the next. The same sort of workaround used by Connecticut ninepin bowlers when the game was outlawed - they just added a pin and modern tenpin bowling was born.

I am also aware of St Therese of Lisieux’s sarifice beads, also sold as bracelets, that happen to have the same 1+10 beads like the Irish penal rosary.

 

[Rainaldo]

When I was a kid, while I’m sure they taught us the basics of the Rosary (I remember a work sheet where we colored in the beads), we never actually said it. It was one of those, “Here you go! Now it’s up to your parents to do it at home” kind of things. I just started saying it back in November or December and learned it from the virtual rosary you can get for the Kindle, and the EWTN website.

That being said, while I’ve wondered the same thing, the only form I’m familiar with is:

Sign of the Cross
Apostles Creed
Our Father
Hail Mary x3
Glory Be

Then five decades of:
Mystery
Our Father
Hail Mary x 10
Glory Be
Fatima Prayer (O, my Jesus, forgive us our sins…)

Then finish it up with the Hail Holy Queen, the Rosary Prayer (O God, whose only begotten son…), and the Sign of the Cross.

We’ve been adding in the extra Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for the intentions of the Holy Father, as well as a Lenten devotion of 3 Our Fathers our girls’ teachers told them to do, plus a few other occasional prayers, but the prayers above are the basics we go by.

That’s the same tradition that was passed down to me through the old missals, although because of a simplification on my mom’s part or a memory lapse on my part, I said only 1 OF + 3 HM + (1 OF + 10 HM + 1 GB)x5 with no creed, meditation, gloria, Fatima, or appendices when I was very young.

Someone told me the Litany of Loreto + Hail Holy Queen + V/ Pray for us O holy Mother of God, R/ That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Let us pray + OGWOBS was never intended to be an appendix to the rosary, but was merely the program following the rosary during Benediction, that somehow caught on in private practice. OGWOBS by the way happens to be the collect for the Feast of the BVM of the Rosary (EF, at any rate); collects are rarely imported into private practice because it’s bad form to appropriate missal texts normally said by the priest alone, plus apart from the OF there are hardly any normally private prayers in the liturgy, and so I believe he was right, that all the appendices are not really part of the rosary.

Not that there’s anything wrong with adding them. But like I said in my OP, I disdain devotional bloat.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

Not that there’s anything wrong with adding them. But like I said in my OP, I disdain devotional bloat.

I can definitely understand that. For me, though, growing up the only prayer we had at home was Grace before meals. I spent a few months debating whether to even try doing the Rosary as a family since it was a completely foreign thing to me. Once we got into it, though, it quickly became a joyous, peaceful period of pure, faith-filled family time. I don’t mind adding a few extras since it extends that family time a bit; although I’m also mindful of not dragging it out too far and turning the family off to the practice.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Pardon my cynicism but I thought those, along with the so-called rosary rings that are either beaded washers or two-part finger rings with beaded sliding inserts, were invented by trinket peddlers to make money, like DeBeers invented the diamond engagement ring, or the marketing genius who invented the wedding Unity Candle.

Actually it is my understanding that they were created in areas where being a Catholic in the open could get you killed. Like during certain times in England.

The ring rosary and the one decade rosary were easy to hide even while using it.

 

[gh4]

I’ve always thought that the rosary was a personal devotion and you could pretty much say it any way you want to say it. You can do the extra prayers or not. You can look on line and find hundreds of ways to say it, another hundred ways for different rosaries for different devotions to different saints. There’s always the different ways the different nuns have. I don’t think God/Mary care if you say 5 decades or one, or you use the luminous mysteries or not. Or even if you make up your own mysteries/devotions. The idea is that you are praying. And one prayerful Hail Mary has to be better than one million that are not prayerfully said.
I was just at a cursillo from heck, and the leader said her Hail Mary’s this way: Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your wound, Jesus. Everyone but me seemed to be ok with it, I’ve never heard that, I’ve always said womb, since that’s where babies come from, but hey, whatever makes her happy.
In the parish I used to go to, they would argue about where the ‘oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins’ went after the first 3 hail mary’s and glory be, or not. I finally got sick and tired of that and just made sure I didn’t participate in the rosary before mass, I just did it at home.
Don’t worry about what someone else thinks, just say it the way it works best for you and the way you are most comfortable with. Jesus and Mary understand.

 

[Zundrah]

Pardon my cynicism but I thought those, along with the so-called rosary rings that are either beaded washers or two-part finger rings with beaded sliding inserts, were invented by trinket peddlers to make money, like DeBeers invented the diamond engagement ring, or the marketing genius who invented the wedding Unity Candle.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Devotional objects like the five-fold scapular or the four-way medal seem to me to have arisen logically and naturally, but somehow I can’t see Our Lady appearing to a nun in an obscure European convent and showing her an elastic bracelet with a different religious image on each panel. (Although during a religious ecstasy I did have a fearsome vision of Hillary Clinton sporting one in Philadelphia during the Pennsylvania presidential primary election on April 22, 2008, evidently to help her get the Catholic vote, and it evidently worked.)

Although I am aware of Irish penal rosaries with one Our Father bead and ten Hail Mary beads, an unlooped chain with a finger-ring on one end and a crucifix on the other, it was inevitable that someone would make bracelets out of these and sell them on a rack by the cash register next to the 25-cent aluminum patron saint medals so you could make your own rosary/charm bracelet, a must accessory for any Catholic schoolgirl … or boy, if it’s masculinely strung on hemp cord or a leather thong.

But the straight-chain 11-bead Irish penal rosaries were meant to be a practical workaround taking advantage of a loophole in the British Penal Laws against owning a looped 59-bead rosary - you just number the decades by transferring the ring from one finger to the next. The same sort of workaround used by Connecticut ninepin bowlers when the game was outlawed - they just added a pin and modern tenpin bowling was born.

I am also aware of St Therese of Lisieux’s sarifice beads, also sold as bracelets, that happen to have the same 1+10 beads like the Irish penal rosary.

Wow, well I wasn’t expecting such a history lesson. I did enjoy it though.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I was just at a cursillo from heck, and the leader said her Hail Mary’s this way: Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your wound, Jesus. Everyone but me seemed to be ok with it, I’ve never heard that, I’ve always said womb, since that’s where babies come from, but hey, whatever makes her happy.

That’s hilarious! It also gave me a huge flashback. I can’t remember who it was, but someone in grade school taught us that it was wound and not womb. I’m sure it was a teacher, but I can’t recall which one. All I can figure is that they didn’t think us kids were old enough to be hearing about wombs. Maybe the lady leading your cursillo had the same teacher, lol.

 

[dchris]

Curious, does anyone pray the Franciscan Crown Rosary? If so, do you pray it with the traditional Rosary or in place of it?

It seems like it is a simpler prayer, as you just pray the Our Father’s and Hail Marys, and meditate only on the seven joys of Mary.

Peace!

 

[Khalid]

Actually it is my understanding that they were created in areas where being a Catholic in the open could get you killed. Like during certain times in England.

The ring rosary and the one decade rosary were easy to hide even while using it.

Yeah, called “the Recusancy”. When Elizabeth I (the one who history should have named “Bloody”, not her half-sister Mary I) took the throne, everything I’ve read says that 4 out of 5 people or more in England were still Catholic. By the time she died 45 years later, less than 1 in 8 were (More Catholics in the North, less in the South).

 

[Rainaldo]

Actually it is my understanding that they were created in areas where being a Catholic in the open could get you killed. Like during certain times in England.

The ring rosary and the one decade rosary were easy to hide even while using it.

The fact they seemed to appear out of nowhere in the 1980s led me to believe otherwise, though. Do you or your parents remember seeing them earlier?

 

[Rainaldo]

In the parish I used to go to, they would argue about where the ‘oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins’ went after the first 3 hail mary’s and glory be, or not.

Oh don’t get me started on the O My Jesus. There are more English versions of it than there are words in the prayer. Plus at least two Portuguese originals.