What is a rosary?

  • Thread starter Thread starter greeny93
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
G

greeny93

Guest
I still don’t understand. Can someone explain thoroughly but clearly to an atheist who knows nothing about Catholicism, or religion rather?
 
greeny93 said:
I still don’t understand. Can someone explain thoroughly but clearly to an atheist who knows nothing about Catholicism, or religion rather?
Click to expand...
A rosary is literally a set of prayers that acts as a tool to aid in meditation upon the mysteries of the life of Christ.

You know how when you are trying hard to concentrate on one topic and your mind just spontaneously wanders to something else and you have those moment of “wait, what was I supposed to be thinking about?” The Rosary, in a sense, combats that.

The rosary is also used to refer to the set of beads which act as an aid to counting where you are in this set of prayers.

Blessed (so nice to be able to write that!!!) Pope John Paul II wrote a great document regarding this found here:

newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02rd.htm
 
The Rosary is a Scriptural retelling of the life and mission of Jesus Christ as seen through His Mother’s eyes. Salvation history is categorized in four sets of Mysteries: Glorious, Luminous, Joyful and Sorrowful and the readings come from the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

scripturalrosary.org/annunciation.html

With added knowledge about salvation history - which comes through an understanding of Sacred Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments and the history of the ancient Jewish people - the Rosary Mysteries will take on more and more fullness.

Another form of envisioning Jesus’ and our relationship with Him is through Lectio Divina meditation.

catholicnews-tt.net/lectiodivina/
 
greeny93 said:
I still don’t understand. Can someone explain thoroughly but clearly to an atheist who knows nothing about Catholicism, or religion rather?
Click to expand...
The rosary is a meditative prayer. Rosary beads are used to keep track of where you are in the prayer (like a bookmarker). There are 59 beads (plus a crucifix at the end) and each one is assigned a specific prayer. The beads are arranged in 5 groups of 10 (called a decade). Each decade is dedicated to a specific event (taken from the Bible) in the life of Jesus Christ or his mother, Mary, to be reflected or meditated on while reciting the prayers, these are refered to as “mysteries”. There are four groups, of five mysteries each, (for a total of 20) and usually only one group of five is prayed at one time. You pray a rosary by reciting the specific prayers on each bead and meditating on each mystery, per decade, at the same time; it usually takes about 20 minutes to pray a rosary. (It is a little like singing the National Anthem at a baseball game. You know the words, you sing along, but you are really thinking about how the home team is gonna stomp 'em.) It sounds complicated, and there may be some confusion in the begining, but most people get the hang of it right away and are hooked! If prayed regularly, the rosary is really a wonderful connection to heaven.
 
As Padre Pio used to say, the rosary is a weapon.

Bring me my weapon!
 
The prayer or the beads?
the prayer is actually a lot of prayers, and we use the beads to keep up with the “Hail Mary’s” “our Father’s” and “Glory Be’s”

the prayer is about meditating on five “mysteries”, normally of Jesus’ life.
while you meditate on each mystery, you say 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Mary’s, one Glory Be, and the "Oh my Jesus, forgive us of our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls ot Heaven especially thos in most need of thy mercy. Amen."prayer(I don’t know what that one’s called)

Hope I helped lol
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top