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Churchman25
Guest
I just prayed the rosary waited to say the 5 mysteries after I had finished the chaplet. Is this a normal thing that people do when they are saying it without any other person in the room?
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djames99
Guest
That’s great, a new warrior against the works of the devil.
Welcome to Our Lady’s prayer groups.Each of the 10 beads is a decade, which is from the latin meaning ten. So you say 10 Hail Mary’s. Between the decades is the Our Father. So Before you enter the decade, you pause to contemplate the mystery for that decade. Then you remember to take the message that decade is sending you. After you complete a decade, the Holy Mother receives from you a bouquet of roses in heaven.
Before saying the rosary, one should look to scripture to read the mysteries. I think this is a great start point for new people. (In the NAB bible, there are footnotes there may be footnotes to explain the mystery your reading.)
or…:
theholyrosary.org/gloriousmysteries
I used to say your Benedictine Rosary also, it’s very beautiful, but since 5 years I say the Crown Rosary as appropriate for my order.
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thistle
Guest
This is the way to pray the Rosary:
rosary-center.org/howto.htm#loaded
If its not prayed the way it was meant to be prayed you are not praying the Rosary. You are simply using the beads for prayer.
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otjm
Guest
The rosary is a private devotion; it is in no way a liturgy of the Church. The Church has not stated how it is to be said, as there are a number of different versions. While the citation is one of the ways of saying the rosary, it is not the only one, and the site is not an official function of the Church.
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otjm
Guest
No, it may not be the “normal” way of saying the rosary. That does not make it wrong in the least way, but if you were to say it together with others in that way, you would probably upset some people.
The purposes of the rosary are to pray, to honor Mary, often to petition, and to meditate on the various mysteries presented to us in the Gospels. And I presume others could add more purposes.
What is important is to pray. If the Church has attached certain indulgences in praying the rosary in a certain way, and if that is also part of your intent, then you should say it in that fashion. If that is not an issue, then following a certain format is less important than praying - something that most of us need to do more.
I recently attended a funeral, and a family member lead the rosary. It was clear that they were not particularly familiar with saying it, as a bit of it was disjointed. I suspect that Christ and His mother were honored, even if it was not perfectly to “form”.
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thistle
Guest
Read my post. I did not say it was an official Church position.
However, the Rosary (a private devotion) was given to the world to be prayed in a certain way. In my view changing it makes a mockery of it.
You can use the beads to say other prayers, e.g. the Divine Mercy, but that is NOT praying the Rosary.
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otjm
Guest
I don’t know anyone in their right mind who would suggest that saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet was saying the rosary.
There are two 7 decade rosaries. The Franciscan rosary, called the Franciscan Crown, and has an addition 2 Hail Mary beads, so 72 beads. It is a meditation on the seven joys of Mary: the Annunciation, Visitation to Elizabeth; Nativity; Epiphany; Presentation of Jesus, the Resurrection; and the Assumption and coronation.
The Servites rosary, of the seven sorrows of Mary, consists of seven sets of seven beads, and focus on: the prophecy of Simeon; flight into Egypt, loss of Jesus in the Temple, meeting Jesus of the road to Calvary; crucifixion; Taking Jesus down from the cross, and placing Him in the tomb.
All can be called chaplets; all are called rosaries, they are different, and the bottom line is that while there are traditional ways of saying the rosary, it is a persona prayer, and comments about “simply using the beads for prayer” are unnecessary. I seriously doubt that if someone says the rosary such as the OP suggested, that either Mary or her Son are going to be offended.
If the OP’s method is done by someone actually saying the prayers out loud, it is going to sound an awful lot like a rosary; the OP intends it to be a rosary; there are other methods of saying prayers involving the Hail Mary which had long histories of being called a rosary; and the bottom line is that it is all personal private prayer and devotion. Perhaps we don’t need to cite a source of how to say it and then comment that anything other than that exact format is “just saying prayers on beads”? Giving someone a bit of slack isn’t exactly a moral wrong, and neither is saying the rosary in what is clearly an unusual way.
Your view is a bit rigid; one can only make a mockery if one is intending to do so. As noted, it is not liturgy, and how it is said has changed over the centuries.
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thistle
Guest
I refer to post #3. The Rosary was given to the world to be prayed that way.
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otjm
Guest
The rosary was not “given”; that myth has long been laid to rest. The likely start was with the uneducated laity who said 150 Pater Nosters, in imitation of the monks who said 150 psalms. New Advent has an article on it, showing the extensive research that has been done; it appears that it was a later Dominican who worked to make the rosary popular. Look it up.
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landon13
Guest
I’m sorry…calling a message from the Blessed Virgin a “myth” is not a very Catholic position to hold.
The rosary is my favorite personal devotion, but there is a right way and a wrong way to pray the rosary.
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paperwight66
Guest
You do realise that the rosary has undergone changes and developments over the centuries? It wasn’t ‘given’ as a complete and finished devotion.
One huge change came after the Council of Trent in the 16th Century, as it was Trent which added the second half of the Hail Mary as we say it today. Up until then, the Hail Mary was just the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel i.e. only half the length we say today.
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landon13
Guest
Oh I do. But to suggest that it wasn’t given by the Virgin at all and that it was a complete myth is wrong.
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Barb3
Guest
I love the Rosary – the one I use mainly was sent to me by my grandaughter from Paris --I say the first two decades with my first cup of coffee – a decade on my way to Church – a decade on my way to public transportation and the last decade I save and say before I turn out the light at night – I couldn’tget through the day without my rosary!!!
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otjm
Guest
If you have not read what I referenced, then perhaps you should.
And besides you and other individuals, who is it that is saying the rosary has only one way of being said?
The myth that I am referring to is the myth that Mary presented the rosary to St. Dominic. Even the Dominicans don’t hold that.
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pianistclare
Guest
I seem to remember that Brother JREducation has an excellent post on the “mythical” versions of the origins of the Rosary.It’s a beautiful devotion.
I’ll see if I can find it and link it here…
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Don_Ruggero
Guest
As with each of the sacramentals, what makes it valued is that it is the gift of the Church to the faithful.
As Pope Saint John Paul II wrote in Rosarium Virginis Mariae
w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20021016_rosarium-virginis-mariae.html
1. The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. /…/
Given the state of historical scholarship, a sacramental’s legendary association with private revelations (which, of course, no Catholic is required to believe in any event) is de-emphasised in favour of the status that the Church accords the sacramental.
Thus the story concerning Saint Dominic tends to be passed over in documents from the Holy See, preferring rather more oblique references that are less problematic historically, such as: “The history of the Rosary shows how this prayer was used in particular by the Dominicans at a difficult time for the Church due to the spread of heresy.” There is a preference for referring to more contemporary figures, like Blessed Bartolo Longo, than figures more historically remote, like Saint Dominic or Blessed Alan de la Roche.
The preference, as with the above quote, is also to underscore the role of the Church. (The same is true of the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; its origins have been reconsidered in the light of historical scholarship, of which Carmelites have led the way in terms of historical study and in terms of articulating their vision for this very cherished sacramental.)
All sacramentals exist because of the Church. The Church has always the power to create, to refine, to reform and to suppress sacramentals…thus the Mysteries of Light are to be embraced and seen to be as much a part of the Dominican Rosary as the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries. They are made legitimate and of value by the Church…not because of some possible supernatural origin.
And, of course, what is being referred to here as the Rosary is the form that the Dominicans have used and taught. There is the Franciscan Rosary as well as the Servite Rosary and the Brigittine Rosary to name but three…each being their own unique form of this devotion with its own adherents…and in every way legitimate rosaries that are approved and used within the Church.
Pope Saint John Paul II spoke of the diversities of using a devotion like the Rosary when he wrote:
37. At present, in different parts of the Church, there are many ways to introduce the Rosary. In some places, it is customary to begin with the opening words of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me”, as if to nourish in those who are praying a humble awareness of their own insufficiency. In other places, the Rosary begins with the recitation of the Creed, as if to make the profession of faith the basis of the contemplative journey about to be undertaken. These and similar customs, to the extent that they prepare the mind for contemplation, are all equally legitimate. The Rosary is then ended with a prayer for the intentions of the Pope, as if to expand the vision of the one praying to embrace all the needs of the Church. It is precisely in order to encourage this ecclesial dimension of the Rosary that the Church has seen fit to grant indulgences to those who recite it with the required dispositions.
So, as the Pope says, one must take account of and allow for the legitimate diversities the Church admits in the use of this and all sacramentals.
As Pope Saint John Paul II wrote in Rosarium Virginis Mariae
w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20021016_rosarium-virginis-mariae.html
1. The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. /…/
Given the state of historical scholarship, a sacramental’s legendary association with private revelations (which, of course, no Catholic is required to believe in any event) is de-emphasised in favour of the status that the Church accords the sacramental.
Thus the story concerning Saint Dominic tends to be passed over in documents from the Holy See, preferring rather more oblique references that are less problematic historically, such as: “The history of the Rosary shows how this prayer was used in particular by the Dominicans at a difficult time for the Church due to the spread of heresy.” There is a preference for referring to more contemporary figures, like Blessed Bartolo Longo, than figures more historically remote, like Saint Dominic or Blessed Alan de la Roche.
The preference, as with the above quote, is also to underscore the role of the Church. (The same is true of the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; its origins have been reconsidered in the light of historical scholarship, of which Carmelites have led the way in terms of historical study and in terms of articulating their vision for this very cherished sacramental.)
All sacramentals exist because of the Church. The Church has always the power to create, to refine, to reform and to suppress sacramentals…thus the Mysteries of Light are to be embraced and seen to be as much a part of the Dominican Rosary as the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries. They are made legitimate and of value by the Church…not because of some possible supernatural origin.
And, of course, what is being referred to here as the Rosary is the form that the Dominicans have used and taught. There is the Franciscan Rosary as well as the Servite Rosary and the Brigittine Rosary to name but three…each being their own unique form of this devotion with its own adherents…and in every way legitimate rosaries that are approved and used within the Church.
Pope Saint John Paul II spoke of the diversities of using a devotion like the Rosary when he wrote:
37. At present, in different parts of the Church, there are many ways to introduce the Rosary. In some places, it is customary to begin with the opening words of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me”, as if to nourish in those who are praying a humble awareness of their own insufficiency. In other places, the Rosary begins with the recitation of the Creed, as if to make the profession of faith the basis of the contemplative journey about to be undertaken. These and similar customs, to the extent that they prepare the mind for contemplation, are all equally legitimate. The Rosary is then ended with a prayer for the intentions of the Pope, as if to expand the vision of the one praying to embrace all the needs of the Church. It is precisely in order to encourage this ecclesial dimension of the Rosary that the Church has seen fit to grant indulgences to those who recite it with the required dispositions.
So, as the Pope says, one must take account of and allow for the legitimate diversities the Church admits in the use of this and all sacramentals.
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sirach2v4
Guest
OUCH!
from the Catholic Encyclopedia on this website:
catholic.com/encyclopedia/rosary
It is in any case certain that at the close of the fifteenth century the utmost possible variety of methods of meditating prevailed, and that the fifteen mysteries now generally accepted were not uniformly adhered to even by the Dominicans themselves. (See Schmitz, “Rosenkranzgebet”, p. 74; Esser in “Der Katholik” for 1904-6.) 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. Further, we are assured that the meditating upon the mysteries was not introduced until two hundred years after his death.
My point: the definition of “rosary” has changed over time and meditations were not considered from the beginning. There are a lot of variations of the Rosary explained in this entry in the Encyclopedia.
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