St. Dominic and the Rosary

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So, I am Orthodox, but I remember from my years in Catholic School that the Rosary has different mysteries, like the Glorious Mysteries, the Sorrowful mysteries, the luminous mysteries, etc. And each mystery has different meditations based on scripture to meditate on, one for each of the 5 decades of the Rosary. I was wondering id all these things were revealed to St. Dominic as part of that apparition of St. Mary, or if the tied mysteries/meditations were later on?
 
Like CJ said,

I think the Rosary was already being practiced to some extent before Our Lady appeared to St. Dominic. When specifically, the meditations were included, I have not yet determined.
"In the Christian tradition, early monastic orders would pray the 150 psalms daily. At first they would use 150 pebbles in a small pouch in order to keep track. This later developed into a string with 150 knots and finally a rope with 150 wooden beads. Members of the laity who did not necessarily know the psalms by heart wanted to have a comparable version of this practice and so the tradition of praying 150 “Our Fathers” each day was born. A similar string of beads was used to keep track of this as well. In time, the “angelic salutation” of Gabriel was added before each “Our Father”: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Later on, Elizabeth’s greeting was added to this: “Blessed are you among women.” Still later, the prayer of “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death” was added and the “Hail Mary” as we know it was developed.

Meanwhile, in the year 1214, Mary appeared to St. Dominic and encouraged him to spread devotion to the rosary. She promised him that if he did so, he would be successful in converting the Albigensians and that his religious order that he founded would prosper…"

 
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Who dreamed those up, anyways??

j.k.

Oh, that’s right, a saint dreamed them up. A hyper-Marian saint. I really like these mysteries.
 
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I “discovered” them in 2016…somehow I had managed to spend so many years not praying Rosaries or going to church that I was unaware of their invention. I was like, what is this Luminous Mysteries booklet and who made that up? But my mom who prayed the Rosary all the time at home didn’t know about them either, so I didn’t feel so bad.
 
It seems that In the past there was more, or at least equal devotion to the Lord’s Prayer and to the Hail Mary. When/why did the Rosary change to be more focused on the Hail Mary?
 
And let me just add to this awesome response, ad a laisse-faire Catholic turning over a new leaf, with no particilar bond with our Blessed Mother, I ask St Dominic every night at the start of the Rosary to help me stay focused and devoted. He has not failex me. And thru my revitilized affection for the Rosary I feel a true Spiritual Bond with Our Lady. Life is good
You may also read St Louis de Montfort book on the Rosary and the Contemplative Rosary by St Teresa of Avila and St JPII
 
I think a good rosary should be focused on both equally as fair as intentionality goes, structure / quantiative-wise, however, I just don’t know, better read the book. 🙂 Or better yet, have Bear read the book and she can tell you. 😉
 
I have a book with meditations on the mysteries of the rosary written by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in the 17th century. The mysteries she writes about do not correspond to the mysteries as we know them.
 
@poche Interesting. Can you elaborate?
 
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Considering how Sor Juana lived her life bending all sorts of rules, I wouldn’t be surprised if she made up her own Rosary mysteries too. So what were hers? I tried Googling, but could only find articles on her erotic poetry.
 
I read a book on the history of the Rosary a while back and it is actually unclear what Our Lady actually taught to St. Dominic if anything (she may have just encouraged the Marian Psalter which already was practiced at the time):

The first documented mysteries to be associated with the Marian Psalter (150 aves), which went back a lot farther, was in about 1275 and the mysteries were three in number: Annunciation, Nativity, Assumption–that’s it. Additional mysteries then developed–all joyously themed. These mysteries are mostly found in the modern non-sorrowful mysteries, but there were others like the adoration of the Magi or more heavenly Marian ideas, like her being given the role of Illuminatrix, or having her wishes united to Christ’s and answered by Christ (ie her role as Mediatrix), or her eternal joy.

The next development was the addition of the Pater Nosters in the 1400s. I forget the name of the person who spread this, but he suggested meditating on the Passion of Christ on the Paters. This is when roses became more formally associated with the Marian Psalter–he said the prayers were like Roses sent to the Blessed Mother, Aves were white roses and the Paters (with Passion meditations) were red roses. The Sorrowful meditations were pretty much identical to the Sorrowful mysteries now in most versions of the Psalter back then, but one less popular version had more Marian-themed sorrows (similar to the seven Dolors we recognize today). The number of mysteries still varied though. Some had more general themes, rather than specific mysteries (ie “heavenly joys of Mary”), some versions had ten total mysteries, some had sets of seven (not sure how that worked), one had ninteen (I can see how these odd ones didn’t stick as long!), etc…

This was also when the Psalter began to be reduced to only 50 Aves per day in many areas. The Vita Christi Rosary spread by Dominic of Prussia (50 Aves, but with 50 mysteries on the life of Christ; although supposedly he had a 150 mystery version too) became the most popular (more on its origins below). At the time, some condemned this as destroying the Psalter (including Bl. Alan de Rupe, who first related the idea that St. Dominic was taught the Marian Psalter by Our Lady).

This is when Bl. Alan de Rupe wrote his work on the Marian Psalter in order to return to the more authentic version as he saw it. He supported only praying the 150 a day and refused to call it the “Rosary” and forbade others from calling it that too, since he saw what was called the Rosary at the time (the fifty per day) as a corruption of the Psalter. His mysteries had three groups, they were general and not specificly listed except for the last group. His general themes were: Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection (which included the Resurrection, Ascension, Holy Spirit’s descent, Glorification of Christ, Final Judgment).

continued…
 
…continued from above.

The Dominic of Prussia Vita Christi Rosary and Bl. Alan de Rupe’s version were the most popular and seemed to morph into generally what we have today (witha few changes to the mysteries here and there) as people embraced parts of each (50 Aves per day, with five set mysteries for each day).

So, where does St. Dominic’s experience fit in? It is also around this time that St. Dominic’s experience is first mentioned (or at least of where the earliest evidence of it is). Bl. Alan says the Blessed Virgin appeared to himself and told him (Alan) to pray according to the method she said taught St. Dominic, which she said consisted of meditiating on “the life and passion” of her Son (no specifics on the mysteries are mentioned). The reference to “life and passion” makes it sound like the Vita Christi method, but Bl. Alan on the other hand didn’t seem to take it that way. On the other hand, a prominant handbook of the same period which listed various methods (the Ulm handbook), the method listed as the “method of St. Dominic” is the a variation on the Vita Christi rather then the de Rupe method. This book also contains a picture of the Rosary very similar to what became the more uniform version, with only the last mystery different (Final Judgment rather than Coronation). So it’s tough to say what St. Dominic’s method really was, other than it doesn’t seem to be what we have today–it seems it’s either Bl. Alan’s method or the Vita Christi method.

This brings us to the 16th century. At this time, while what we all think of as the Rosary was the most common (including the shift to the Coronation as the final mystery beginning to take hold), there was still a lot of variation into the 17th century. However, it was in the 17th and 18th centuries in response to the Reformation that Rome began issuing a lot of legislative documents regulating and promoting Marian devotions, etc.–which, like the liturgy, led to more uniformity.
 
The rosary has changed over time. The rosary most are familiar with today is the Dominican rosary. As Fr John Walsh OP remarked in a superb talk on the rosary, the rosary wasn’t founded by St Dominic but was given to him as a gift by Our Lady in a time of trouble in order to teach and preach the truth of the Gospel.
 
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