Where did the Rosary come from?

[Apryl]

I apologize if this is in the wrong forum, but where did we get the Rosary?

I understand that St. Dominic was inspired by the Blessed Virgin to instruct others to pray the Rosary, but I also got the impression from some of my reading that the Rosary existed before that.

I also was taught that the Hail Marys (of the 3 Older Mysteries) represented each of the 150 Psalms.

When I started saying the Rosary, it was

The Apostle’s Creed
The Lord’s Prayer
The Hail Mary (3x)
(Announce the Mystery)
The Hail Mary (10x)
The Gloria Patri
The Fatima Prayer
(Repeat for the other four Mysteries)
… Amen

Then, when saying the Rosary at work, I learned to offer Intentions before we started.

When saying the Rosary at the Shrine, after each Fatima Prayer, we’d say
"My God, I believe, I adore, I trust in you. I ask pardon on those who do not believe, or adore, or trust in you. "

and

“Oh Sacrament Most Holy, Oh Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine”

followed by

“Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse”

After the Mysteries were done, we’d say the Regina Prayer and Doxology, and the St. Michael Prayer.

The additional prayers, just thinking of them, give me such a feeling of peace and comfort! But why do we say all these various prayers, and are there others that I should be using?

I do understand that the children at Fatima taught us some prayers, but why were they accepted by the church?

Ok, that’s a lot of questions, but I think you get my gist: where do we get the Rosary, and how do we know what other prayers we should be saying?

If I do the Memorare prayer, when is it typically done when doing a Rosary?

 

[Madia]

Maybe this link will help:
newadvent.org/cathen/13184b.htm

 

[Apryl]

Madia:

Maybe this link will help:
newadvent.org/cathen/13184b.htm

Thank you. I have actually read that before.

I also have several books on the Rosary. … I guess there will never be a difinitive answer on exactly where, as it seems I have heard more than one story, and not claims to be the ‘there is no other possible way’ answer, either.

 

[thistle]

Apryl:

I apologize if this is in the wrong forum, but where did we get the Rosary?

I understand that St. Dominic was inspired by the Blessed Virgin to instruct others to pray the Rosary, but I also got the impression from some of my reading that the Rosary existed before that.

I also was taught that the Hail Marys (of the 3 Older Mysteries) represented each of the 150 Psalms.

When I started saying the Rosary, it was

The Apostle’s Creed
The Lord’s Prayer
The Hail Mary (3x)
(Announce the Mystery)
The Hail Mary (10x)
The Gloria Patri
The Fatima Prayer
(Repeat for the other four Mysteries)
… Amen

Then, when saying the Rosary at work, I learned to offer Intentions before we started.

When saying the Rosary at the Shrine, after each Fatima Prayer, we’d say
"My God, I believe, I adore, I trust in you. I ask pardon on those who do not believe, or adore, or trust in you. "

and

“Oh Sacrament Most Holy, Oh Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine”

followed by

“Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse”

After the Mysteries were done, we’d say the Regina Prayer and Doxology, and the St. Michael Prayer.

The additional prayers, just thinking of them, give me such a feeling of peace and comfort! But why do we say all these various prayers, and are there others that I should be using?

I do understand that the children at Fatima taught us some prayers, but why were they accepted by the church?

Ok, that’s a lot of questions, but I think you get my gist: where do we get the Rosary, and how do we know what other prayers we should be saying?

If I do the Memorare prayer, when is it typically done when doing a Rosary?

I also heard that the 150 Hail Marys represented the Psalms but (prior to the Luminous Mysteries of course) there are 153 Hail Marys if you include the three at the start of the Rosary. I heard that the 153 represented the 153 large fish caught by the disciples in John 21:11.

 

[Aureole]

I’ve heard that the Rosary stemmed from penances.

Apparently priests used to give much harsher penances than they do now, things like “You must make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land”. Obviously peasants wouldn’t be able to make the trip so the penances slowly became lighter, something like “You must go to so-and-so church”. Some still couldn’t make that so the penances got even lighter “You must pray 150 Our Father’s”. Then slowly the practice was taken up by monks to pray 150 Our Father’s anyway, using rocks to count the prayers so they don’t short change the Lord. Eventually someone decided to use Hail Mary’s instead of Our Father’s, then the mysteries were added, etc. until we have the Rosary we pray today.

Of course I could be wrong and am likely mixing more than one thing together. This is what I remember, but if you want to know where I got it from it’s from this book. I found out loads of wonderful information from it.

 

[Della]

From my researches when I put together a 7 day rosary booklet, I learned that the rosary began as a grassroots devotion by those who wished to participate in the prayers of the religious who recited the 150 Psalms in Latin. The ordinary people were illiterate in their own languages let alone in Latin, so they began praying 150 Hail Marys as a way of joining their prayers to those of the religious monks and nuns. In time the Our Fathers were added at the beginning of each decade and then the Glory be. Other prayers cited by the OP came much later. The Irish call these added prayers “embroideries”–a term I thought so typically Irish and so apt since all one needs to pray are the Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and Glory bes to pray the rosary properly.