I have just started saying the Rosary and try to follow along with one of the EWTN programs. I especially like the Holy Land Rosary with Father Mitch. However, since this is still new to me, I am not familiar with what mysteries go with what days. I am wondering if it’s okay to say the Rosary without the mysteries. I do have a pamphlet that I look at, but when I am not home, in my car, for example, can I just say the Our Father, and Hail Marys, Glory be and the Fatima prayer?
Thank you!
When John Paul II proclaimed the new Luminous Mysteries,
he wrote this:
**Distribution over time **
- The Rosary can be recited in full every day, and there are those who most laudably do so. In this way it fills with prayer the days of many a contemplative, or keeps company with the sick and the elderly who have abundant time at their disposal. Yet it is clear – and this applies all the more if the new series of mysteria lucis is included – that many people will not be able to recite more than a part of the Rosary, according to a certain weekly pattern. This weekly distribution has the effect of giving the different days of the week a certain spiritual “colour”, by analogy with the way in which the Liturgy colours the different seasons of the liturgical year.
According to current practice, Monday and Thursday are dedicated to the “joyful mysteries”, Tuesday and Friday to the “sorrowful mysteries”, and Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday to the “glorious mysteries”. Where might the “mysteries of light” be inserted? If we consider that the “glorious mysteries” are said on both Saturday and Sunday, and that Saturday has always had a special Marian flavour, the second weekly meditation on the “joyful mysteries”, mysteries in which Mary’s presence is especially pronounced, could be moved to Saturday. Thursday would then be free for meditating on the “mysteries of light”.
This indication is not intended to limit a rightful freedom in personal and community prayer, where account needs to be taken of spiritual and pastoral needs and of the occurrence of particular liturgical celebrations which might call for suitable adaptations. What is really important is that the Rosary should always be seen and experienced as a path of contemplation. In the Rosary, in a way similar to what takes place in the Liturgy, the Christian week, centred on Sunday, the day of Resurrection, becomes a journey through the mysteries of the life of Christ, and he is revealed in the lives of his disciples as the Lord of time and of history.
So even though the Church gives us some guidance as to which Mysteries to pray on which day, it’s not some sort of morally binding obligation. So if you forget which set to pray on a given day, you can feel free to just pick one.
I would say that it gets easier to remember the more times you pray it. I was raised Catholic but never really prayed the rosary until my later college years. I am fairly good at memorization, but I was getting the Mysteries confused for an embarassingly long time.
(And I only had 3 sets of Mysteries to worry about at that time!
) So don’t worry if it takes some time. That’s okay.
What helped me the most was to realize that they’re all in chronological order.
I would definitely recommend meditating on the Mysteries each time you pray the Rosary. But, in the absence of a “cheat sheet”, there’s no saying you can’t use the beads to pray an Our Father, 10 Hail Mary’s, and a Glory Be.
It’s certainly better than not praying at all!
You can get them for free or with a small donation if you wish.