Praying a Rosary during Mass

  • Thread starter Thread starter irishcolleen45
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I’m saying the Mass is just as valid if not. The priest is doing the sacrifice not us. Our participation is not necessary at all. Especially seeing as I don’t even go to an OF Mass. I go and the altar servers do the reciting and we all watch in solemn silence at the sacrifice and reverence.
 
Well, I pray the Sorrowful mysteries every day. They tend to focus me on Jesus’ sacrifice. In fact, any of the Rosary mysteries do that. The thing is, a person saying a rosary during a Low Mass (and it would be a low Mass, not a High Mass) would not sit there for an hour and ‘just’ say a rosary. He or she would say a rosary, meditating on Christ. . .while also listening to the readings, following along in the missal, adoring Christ on the Cross, contemplating Him in silence, lifting up mind and heart, seeing the stained glass, smelling the incense, hearing the ‘still small voice’, touching the missal and holy cards, feeling the pressure on the kneeler, etc. It is a deeply individual and personal and yet a very ‘community’ kind of worship, called by one who participated in it, "simultaneously growing both roots and wings’.
 
AGAIN< you all are talking around me.
I go to the OF, and the priest would really chew us out of we prayed the rosary during Mass. Before? wonderful, get everyone to join in!
After, worthy.
During. no.

I have no idea what goes on in the EF, and I’m not particularly interested, as I prefer to see and hear everything clearly. I’m out.
 
I am sorry you feel that way. I am not talking about the OF, and neither was the original poster. You don’t go to the EF, you go to the OF, and so you think that since praying a rosary during the OF would be ‘wrong’, it must be wrong at the EF as well. But it would not be, and it would not be taking away the focus from Jesus.

You know quite a lot and much of what you speak of is extremely helpful. But there are a couple of areas where you have a little less experience and this is one of them.
 
Fine. The EF is perfectly clear but it’s just a different style. But just as I would not presume to tell somebody attending the OF that they should not respond loudly to “Dominus Vobiscum” (because an OF can indeed use Latin!) because in a low Mass EF one does not respond loudly, and if that’s the way it is at the EF it ‘should be that way at the OF’, I would expect that a person who attends an OF would not presume to tell somebody attending an EF that “we don’t say rosaries during our Mass so you shouldn’t say them during yours”.
 
I don’t see how it’s inappropriate to pray the rosary during mass, because essentially, it is focusing on Jesus’s passion.

We all pray interiorly during the mass anyway, why would it be wrong to just count your prayers on beads?
 
Not appropriate necessarily at an OF.
Perfectly appropriate at an EF in a "low Mass’ as a form of contemplative prayer in accordance with the liturgy. . .or so my 88-year-old mother says. . .
 
I had always heard descriptions of those speaking ill of the EF mass before Vatican II, that the women would be saying rosaries and the men would be trying to get some sleep and it put the rosary-during mass-thing in a bad light for me.

I have had issues with saying the rosary and issues with distractions during the EF mass and being at a loss of what to say to Jesus with my own words. I think, perhaps, I will try to incorporate the rosary into my EF mass going, meditating on His Passion, and see what happens.
 
There’s nothing wrong with saying the rosary at Mass. There’s a few people at my church that do it.
 
Why do people want to do so many things at once these days? People try to talk on their cell phone and drive. It’s crazy. Just enjoy the Mass and then enjoy the Rosary afterwards. And be present in the moment.
 
Kathleen18 said:
You could stay after MASS and say your Rosary then. 😊
Click to expand...
I note that for many Masses in USA, especially the ones other than Sunday, this is not possible. You are expected to leave the church within a very short time of the Mass ending and the priest locks the door. If you wish to pray a Rosary outside of Mass time, it must be done before the Mass as usually the church will be unlocked about a half hour early.
 
This question has come up before. If you pray the rosary during Mass, you are basically substituting a lesser prayer for a greater one.
 
There have been a number of threads on CAF about this before. I could have predicted based on those the response you would get.

Back in the pre-Vatican II days, people did frequently say the Rosary during the Latin Mass and this practice was permitted and some Popes even encouraged it, partly because it kept people engaged with the Mass during parts they could not see or understand (due to Mass being in Latin). After Vatican II, saying the Rosary during Mass was discouraged because of the idea that people should be participating in the Mass itself. Some older people continued to say their Rosaries during Mass because it’s what they had always done, and it wasn’t an uncommon sight when I was little. At this point, those folks have generally passed away and it is rare to see somebody saying Rosary during Mass, and most people who attend OF strongly disapprove of the practice.

The EF Masses are a bit of a different story since many of the people who attend them are trying to more or less go back to a past era. So you will see some people saying their Rosaries during those Masses, and the practice doesn’t get as much of a fisheye as it would during the OF.

As for whether you personally should say it during EF, if you’re finding it hard to do so during the Mass, I’d say don’t force it. Some people find it easy to concentrate on two things at once, and likely your mom had many years of “practice” in doing so, in an environment where nobody got upset that she was praying a Rosary during a Latin Mass. If you’re not finding this so easy and/or the practice is being discouraged, then it’s probably easier to say the Rosary before the Mass (or after if you do not have the problem I posted above where the priest is chasing everyone out of the church 10 minutes after he leaves the altar).
 
Last edited:
According to multiple priests I’ve met, praying the Rosary during Mass is not appropriate. The Holy Mass is the highest prayer of the Church.
 
stpurl said:
Not appropriate necessarily at an OF.

Perfectly appropriate at an EF in a "low Mass’ as a form of contemplative prayer in accordance with the liturgy. . .or so my 88-year-old mother says. . .
Click to expand...
No…it is not appropriate. It is never appropriate in the aftermath of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Even when people are using the vetus ordo, their mandate still applies:
  1. The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God’s word and be nourished at the table of the Lord’s body; they should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him , they should learn also to offer themselves.
The rosary or other pious exercises have no place, in view in the judgement of the ecumenical council, at the Mass itself. Laity, who are part of the liturgical assembly, are to be occupied with the texts of the liturgical actions. Not their private devotions.

This is the fruit of the liturgical movement, which came to fruition in and after the council but which spanned practically the whole of the 20th century.
 
I wasn’t discussing the validity of the Mass. It isn’t a question of validity. It is a question of what is more beneficial for the laity, I.e. what helps us to respond more to the graces of the Mass.
 
Father, with deepest respect, I do not believe praying the rosary at an EF makes one a stranger, a silent spectator, or not participating with devotion and full collaboration. Sacrosanctum Concillium does not forbid people saying the rosary during the EF as part of their devotion, collaboration, or offering of the Immaculate Victim. Your interpretation is that 'as of SC" praying the rosary at the then ONLY Mass (now the EF) was forbidden. But I do not believe (again, with deepest respect) that this ‘forbidding’ is what the documents said.

However, this is a good example of how one priest (or bishop) could read the documents and interpret them to say X is not permitted and another could look at the same documents and say X is permitted.

Apparently the bishops where my parents (and also my grandparents) lived in the 1960s did NOT interpret SC as making the rosary inappropriate during Mass. . .
 
Don_Ruggero said:
No. It is not appropriate.
Click to expand...
I once heard a priest say the same thing in the course of his homily. “You can pray at home, you don’t need to come to Mass to do that,” or words to that effect. (It was several years ago.) I was a bit taken aback at the time, but I realized later that it makes sense.

BTW, the preacher was a Franciscan. Would that make a difference?
 
Last edited:
BartholomewB said:
You can pray at home, you don’t need to come to Mass to do that
Click to expand...
This is not strictly correct. There are certain prayers that, in order to obtain the benefit under the Enchiridion, must be said in a church. There are also some prayers that have options of saying them in a church or under other circumstances for the full benefit, but the “other circumstances” may not be possible for a person, so saying them in a church is the best or only option.

I myself endeavor to not say the Rosary during Mass, but once in a while I find it necessary for the reason above. In those instances I try to sit away from the priest and everyone else and I ask God and Mary to please accept my prayer even though it is controversial. I do try to avoid the situation by coming to church at another time, such as before the Mass begins or at a time set aside for group rosary prayer in churches that offer this, but sometimes it is just not possible.

It is bothersome to me that the churches are locked so soon after the Mass in most parts of USA; it also interferes with “making a visit” to the Church which is a practice I was brought up to do, but now it’s impossible unless the Church has some type of adoration chapel that is open all day, and even in that case it is rare to find one in USA that is open every day of the week as opposed to just certain days that one must keep track of. And of course, you cannot do praying “out loud”, or moving around saying the Stations, in an adoration chapel environment.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top