Receiving the Graces of the Rosary

[SanRafael1102]

I don’t intend to go into lengthy detail of different Catholic Saints and/or Mystics who have received advice, guidance, promises, etc., in the forms of apparitions or other mediums. Most Catholics have heard the classic 15 promises of the Rosary. These promises were purportedly given to St. Dominic by the Blessed Virgin. Besides these 15, others have been promised particular graces, etc. if they faithfully pray the rosary every day. The Blessed Mother also spoke to the Fatima visionaries about reciting the rosary and its graces. I could list others, but that’s not my point.

My question is this: What constitutes the daily Rosary. I’ll make my question more specific. In order to gain the particular graces promised to different Saints, would it not make sense that the promise was made concerning the way that the faithful were encouraged to pray the rosary in their time?

So, when St. Dominic was alive, was it normal to say a 5 decade rosary to fulfill this instruction, or was it a 15 decade prayer. If this is the case, when did the common ‘say a 5-decade every day, with the day of the week determining the mysteries upon which you meditate’ style become commonplace?

I’m not trying to create a strict, ‘if you don’t do it my way…’ list of rules. I’m just curious as to whether or not these promises were understood in a certain way. Personally, I try to say a 20-decade when I can, but at least get a 5-er in each day. I realize that I fall short a lot, and I’m not the most reflective person–I get easily distracted. I just think that if the Madonna took the time to present us with a, when you think about it, easy way to receive God’s graces, that it might be important to ponder these things.

Thoughts?

~Pax

 

[Vico]

I don’t intend to go into lengthy detail of different Catholic Saints and/or Mystics who have received advice, guidance, promises, etc., in the forms of apparitions or other mediums. Most Catholics have heard the classic 15 promises of the Rosary. These promises were purportedly given to St. Dominic by the Blessed Virgin. Besides these 15, others have been promised particular graces, etc. if they faithfully pray the rosary every day. The Blessed Mother also spoke to the Fatima visionaries about reciting the rosary and its graces. I could list others, but that’s not my point.

My question is this: What constitutes the daily Rosary. I’ll make my question more specific. In order to gain the particular graces promised to different Saints, would it not make sense that the promise was made concerning the way that the faithful were encouraged to pray the rosary in their time?

So, when St. Dominic was alive, was it normal to say a 5 decade rosary to fulfill this instruction, or was it a 15 decade prayer. If this is the case, when did the common ‘say a 5-decade every day, with the day of the week determining the mysteries upon which you meditate’ style become commonplace?

I’m not trying to create a strict, ‘if you don’t do it my way…’ list of rules. I’m just curious as to whether or not these promises were understood in a certain way. Personally, I try to say a 20-decade when I can, but at least get a 5-er in each day. I realize that I fall short a lot, and I’m not the most reflective person–I get easily distracted. I just think that if the Madonna took the time to present us with a, when you think about it, easy way to receive God’s graces, that it might be important to ponder these things.

Thoughts?

~Pax

The Rosary predates St. Dominic. A specific request to use it is from Fatima. The five Saturdays devotion was stated by Bishop Giuseppe Alves Correia da Silva of Fatima in 1940:

It consists in going to Confession, receiving Communion, reciting five decades of the Rosary and meditating for a quarter of an hour on the mysteries of the Rosary on the first Saturday of five consecutive months. The Confession may be made during the eight days preceding or following the first Saturday of each month, provided that Holy Communion be received in the state of grace. Should one forget to form the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it may be formed at the next Confession, occasion to go to confession being taken at the first opportunity.

Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII (eleven on the Rosary) available online at: papalencyclicals.net

Rosary documents: gcatholic.org/documents/tag/rosary.htm

Catholic Enclyopedia

In any case it is certain that in the course of the twelfth century and before the birth of St. Dominic, the practice of reciting 50 or 150 Ave Marias had become generally familiar. The most conclusive evidence of this is furnished by the “Mary-legends”, or stories of Our Lady, which obtained wide circulation at this epoch. The story of Eulalia, in particular, according to which a client of the Blessed Virgin who had been wont to say a hundred and fifty Aves was bidden by her to say only fifty, but more slowly, has been shown by Mussafia (Marien-legenden, Pts I, ii) to be unquestionably of early date. Not less conclusive is the account given of St. Albert (d. 1140) by his contemporary biographer, who tells us: “A hundred times a day he bent his knees, and fifty times he prostrated himself raising his body again by his fingers and toes, while he repeated at every genuflexion: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb’.” This was the whole of the Hail Mary as then said, and the fact of all the words being set down rather implies that the formula had not yet become universally familiar. Not less remarkable is the account of a similar devotional exercise occurring in the Corpus Christi manuscripts of the Ancren Riwle. This text, declared by Kölbing to have been written in the middle of the twelfth century (Englische Studien, 1885, P. 116), can in any case be hardly later than 1200. The passage in question gives directions how fifty Aves are to be said divided into sets of ten, with prostrations and other marks of reverence. … To sum up, we have positive evidence that both the invention of the beads as a counting apparatus and also the practice of repeating a hundred and fifty Aves cannot be due to St. Dominic, because they are both notably older than his time.
…
Impressed by this conspiracy of silence, the Bollandists, on trying to trace to its source the origin of the current tradition, found that all the clues converged upon one point, the preaching of the Dominican Alan de Rupe about the years 1470-75. He it undoubtedly was who first suggested the idea that the devotion of “Our Lady’s Psalter” (a hundred and fifty Hail Marys) was instituted or revived by St. Dominic.

Thurston, H., & Shipman, A. (1912). The Rosary. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/13184b.htm