But, tonight (Sunday) I saw on the rosary pamphlet that I use when I pray the rosary that the Sorrowful Mystery is to be prayed on Sundays during lent. I also saw that the Glorious Mystery is to be prayed on Sundays. I decided to pray the Glorious Mystery.
So only Sundays are usually changed for the season?
I have been wondering about this too.
I have been praying the sorrowful mysteries only on weekdays too now for Lent…
Here we probably have examples of a few different customs. (As people have posted already in this thread, there is no “regulation” that defines precisely what mysteries we may or may not use on a given day.)
The difference mentioned in
Cupcake143’s quotation is probably related to the difference in several popular schemes of arranging the mysteries for the days of the week, if one were praying only five decades.
The
first that I’ll mention seems to have become a normative way of arranging the mysteries prior to the suggestion of the luminous mysteries. I’ll start with Monday because the differences between this scheme and another (see the “third” one later in this post) may look clearer this way:
Monday: Joyful
Tuesday: Sorrowful
Wednesday: Glorious
Thursday: Joyful
Friday: Sorrowful
Saturday: Glorious
Sunday: [variable]
The variable Sunday is largely as
Jared2914’s post describes:
It’s up to you. I follow the normal schedule except I change Sunday based on the season.
Lent - Sorrowful Mysteries
Advent to the Sunday before Ash Wednesday - Joyful Mysteries
Easter Sunday through Ordinary Time to Advent - Glorious Mysteries
(What’s the “normal schedule”? I’d suppose that it’s what I’m calling the “third” scheme below, but inform me if it’s something else.)
The
second that I’ll mention is almost like the first, except that Sunday is always for the glorious mysteries. I haven’t seen it very much. It does appear in
Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the 2002 Apostolic Letter that’s probably most famous nowadays for introducing the luminous mysteries:
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”.
Since my experience has been primarily American, I’ve wondered if this “current practice” has been largely European; of course, I wouldn’t say so without actual evidence.
The
third that I’ll mention is proposed right after:
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”.
In other words, with changes from the “first” scheme indicated in bold,
Monday: Joyful
Tuesday: Sorrowful
Wednesday: Glorious
Thursday:
Luminous
Friday: Sorrowful
Saturday:
Joyful
Sunday:
Glorious
(There is no difference on Sunday between the “second” and the “third” schemes.)
I haven’t heard of too much variation on this scheme–so far. One that I can imagine is like what
Jared2914 mentioned, an influence from the other schemes.
In a few places online, I’ve also heard of a custom of praying
the sorrowful mysteries daily during Lent. As I wrote above, doing so is not “against the rules,” as if the rosary were regulated this way.
(I can see myself doing praying the sorrowful mysteries daily in Lent, though especially if I were praying the other mysteries as well at some point during Lent. In other words, I can see myself praying the sorrowful mysteries daily in Lent, but I don’t see myself praying
only the sorrowful mysteries in Lent. Again, though, what I just said does not mean that praying only the sorrowful mysteries in Lent is somehow wrong.)
