Praying the Rosary

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50 vs 150 rosary. I usually pray the 150. Is there a correct definition of what the original rosary was and how it should be prayed. I know it has evolved over the centuries. I am really interested in the original rosary. There is info published in some of those heritic websites that I do not trust and do not want to mention their names. Any info is appreciated. Thanks
 
The primary purpose of the rosary is to meditate on the mysteries. The request to pray the rosary daily can be fulfilled by praying at least 1/3 (in other words 5 mysteries) daily, however it is preferred to pray the full 15 decades. If you are praying and not meditating on the mysteries, and just rattling off Hail Marys, you are missing the point of the Rosary.

It’s about meditation, and if you aren’t able to pray the full 15 while being meditative, it’s better to do 5 decades correct. 5 good decades will outweigh 15 half-hearted ones. Obviously, I’m not saying this is how you pray or not, I just wanted to extend fair warning to you.
 
I learn something new here every day. 🙂

I pray the 50, I suppose, which to me is the standard Rosary of today. I had heard that people used to pray the 150 but didn’t know the history until now.
 
Traditionaly, the Rosary is attributed to St. Dominic; most scholars agree however that this is a myth, as there are examples of Christian prayer beads/ropes dating from long before this time.

The generally accepted theory is that it originated in the Desert Fathers, as a way to count the 150 psalms. During the days of the Desert Fathers, monks were expected to know all 150 psalms by heart and to recite them every day. This used to be done by counting pebbles, but eventually they got the idea of making beads or ropes for it. Eventually, as they realized just how unrealistic this prayer rule was, they changed the expectation to reciting the entire psalter over the course of a week (hence the one-week psalter that was used in the pre-Vatican II era, and is still used today by the Orthodox). The prayer beads stuck around, however, and they became beads that they would substitute the daily 150 psalms on by repeating 150 short prayers. In the East, this developed into the Komboskini, on which the Jesus Prayer is said. In the West, it developed into the Hail Mary.

FYI this is all off the top of my head, so excuse me if there’s any errors.
 
Yes, there were forms of prayer ropes and prayer beads before the Rosary was given to St. Dominic. However, Our Lady personally gave the Rosary to St. Dominic in a similar form that we have now. It is no myth. The Dominican prayers of the Rosary are probably the most ancient, and can be found here. It is good that you are praying the Rosary every day. It is what Our Lady also asked us to do when She appeared at Fatima.

rosaryconfraternity.org/the-rosary/how-to-pray-the-rosary/
 
AsceticHermit said:
Yes, there were forms of prayer ropes and prayer beads before the Rosary was given to St. Dominic. However, Our Lady personally gave the Rosary to St. Dominic in a similar form that we have now. It is no myth. The Dominican prayers of the Rosary are probably the most ancient, and can be found here. It is good that you are praying the Rosary every day. It is what Our Lady also asked us to do when She appeared at Fatima.

rosaryconfraternity.org/the-rosary/how-to-pray-the-rosary/
Click to expand...
Perhaps a history lesson is in store here. Every single legend about St. Dominic receiving the Rosary can be traced back to single man known as Alanus de Rupe, who lived about 250 years after St. Dominic. He spread the story extensively, and yet, quite surprisingly, no mention of the St. Dominic reception of the Rosary has ever been found that predates Alanus, not even a small passing reference in a book. The story just didn’t exist until Alanus. And, both in centuries past and today, not a single shred of evidence has been found supporting the St. Dominic theory. I don’t think he had bad intentions - it may have been a legend floating around the Dominican circles. But if the legend did exist, it seems to me that an order almost exclusively focused on preaching would not have kept it secret for two centuries.

I’d like to believe the St. Dominic story too, but the history just doesn’t add up. It makes for a beautiful bedtime story, but that’s about it. No one at all in the academic world has ever seriously considered St. Dominic to be the origin of the Rosary, neither today nor in ages past.
 
With all due respect, no one “gives a history lesson” without quoting sources. I have an extensive library, none of my sources say that the story is a fairy tale as you have insisted on here. For example, a prudent modern historian, Kevin Johnson says that there is no surviving written evidence before the 1400s. But notice, being prudent, he never says that the story is a fabrication. Going to traditional Dominican sources, they all take it as a given that the story is true. For example, the monthly journal on the Rosary under the direction of Dominican scholars printed for many years also took the story as being true. One point of mention. Just because written evidence is not available to corroborate a claim does not make it false. It might also be added that several popes have also quoted the story over the centuries. Credible, prudent Catholic historians do not make the claim you are making.
 
More sources for the skeptics.

Pope Leo XIII: Encyclical Octobri mense.

“we may well believe that the Queen of Heaven herself has granted an especial efficacy to this mode of supplication, for it was by her command and counsel that the devotion was begun and spread abroad by the holy Patriarch Dominic as a most potent weapon against the enemies of the faith at an epoch not, indeed, unlike our own, of great danger to our holy religion.”

I could site many more sources, but I think I have made my point. It is not prudent to dismiss this story as a “bedtime story.”
 
AsceticHermit said:
Yes, there were forms of prayer ropes and prayer beads before the Rosary was given to St. Dominic. However, Our Lady personally gave the Rosary to St. Dominic in a similar form that we have now. It is no myth. The Dominican prayers of the Rosary are probably the most ancient, and can be found here. It is good that you are praying the Rosary every day. It is what Our Lady also asked us to do when She appeared at Fatima.

rosaryconfraternity.org/the-rosary/how-to-pray-the-rosary/
Click to expand...
A point to remember, when assuming that the rosary is of ancient origin - the Hail Mary as we know it today did not exist until the Council of Trent in the 16th century, when the invocation ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God…’ was added to the simple scriptural quotations of the Angel’s greeting and the words of St. Elizabeth.

In other words, even if the Rosary was given to/ inspired St. Dominic, it wasn’t the Rosary of today, as itt only took half the time.
 
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