The Rosary
The word Rosary comes from the Latin word Rosarium, a rose garden. The Rosary is a garden filled with lovingly repeated invocations to Our Lady, God the Father and the Blessed Trinity.
The Rosary of Our Lady consists of fifteen decades dedicated to fifteen mysteries in the lives of Jesus and Mary.
It is customary to recite one third of the Rosary daily (five decades). On Monday and Thursday the Joyful Mysteries are said; on Tuesday and Friday the Sorrowful Mysteries; and on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday the Glorious Mysteries.
It is piously believed that the Rosary was given to St. Dominic by Our Lady while he was combating the Albigensian heresy in the south of France, early in the thirteenth century. It is also believed that the Rosary was in use long before that time as “a poor man’s Psalter,” the 150 Hail Marys taking the place of the 150 Psalms.
Whatever its origin, the Rosary has proved to be a powerful weapon against evil, and as Pope Leo XIII declared, the best and most fruitful means of invoking Our Lady. Mary herself has called for its recitation many times, most notably at Fatima in 1917.
St. Louis De Montfort, the great and extraordinary preacher of the Rosary said: “Let me place the Rosary around a sinner’s neck and he will not escape me.” St. Dominic, great promoter of the Rosary said: “A day will come when Our Lady will save the world by the Rosary.”
The Fifteen Promises of Mary Most Holy
to Those Who Pray the Rosary:
- Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive single graces.
- I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.
- The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell; it will destroy vice, decrease sin and defeat heresy.
- It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means!
- The soul that recommends itself to me by recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.
- Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune: if he be a sinner; he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God. He shall become worthy of eternal life.
- Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
- Those who are faithful to the recitation of the Rosary shall have during their life and their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces. At the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.
- I shall deliver from Purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
- The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.
- You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
- All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.
- I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.
- All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my son, Jesus Christ.
- Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.
The Five First Saturdays
“Look, my daughter, my Heart is all pierced with thorns, which men drive into it every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Do you at least seek to console me, and let men know that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who on the first Saturday of five consecutive months will:
1. go to confession and receive Holy Communion.
2. recite the Rosary.
3. and keep me company during a quarter of an hour, meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation.”*
The Sacrament of Penance must be received within an eight-day period before or after Communion. The fifteen-minute meditation may be on all or on one special mystery. The Rosary and meditation may be combined by thinking on each mystery a few minutes before or after reciting the decade. A sermon for the occasion may be substituted for the meditation.
*Words of Our Lady to Sr. Lucia.
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I was fortunate to receive a copy of the book, My Other Self, by Clarence J. Enzler. This book is written in similar fashion as that of The Imitation of Christ, in that, the author has Christ speaking directly to the reader, whom He refers to as ‘My other self’. Below is an excerpt from My Other Self on how to pray, especially the Rosary.
“Do you ask Me, as My disciples did, “Lord, teach us to pray”? I will teach you how to pray in all that you think, say, or do. Do not worry about methods. Leave your prayer in My hands. I will give you the way of prayer that is best for you, changing it as you progress, a way that unites your will most firmly with Mine.
When you pray, will to give Me all of yourself: all of your attention, all of your memory, all of your love. Will to keep nothing back. Whether or not you succeed in giving Me all of your attention and memory is not important; the willing of it is the core of all true prayer.
Now let Me tell you how you may say some of the prayers that are especially dear to My heart:
When you say the Rosary or any other formal prayer, do not race. Pray calmly, meditatively, maintaining yourself in peace and serenity. So many of My friends rush through the Rosary as though it were a foreign language, full of strange words and queer phrases.
There is no such word as ‘wombjesus,’ My other self.
When in the ‘Hail Mary,’ you say, “pray for us sinners,” you ask My Mother to pray not only in your favor but in your stead. You ask her to make your prayer her prayer. Realize that My Mother prays with and for you, making up what your prayer lacks, and unites your prayer with hers.
When you pray the Rosary, unite yourself with its mysteries. Remember that you share in whatever I did as if you had done it yourself. Join yourself to Me in My agony; make it your agony. Make My scourging your scourging, My crowning with thorns your crowning, My carrying the cross your carrying the cross, My crucifixion your crucifixion. Join yourself to Me in all these mysteries, attaching your sufferings, mortifications, pains, and sorrows to Mine, so that our sacrifice may become one sacrifice, one act of love utterly pleasing to the Trinity.
So, too, unite yourself with Me in My Resurrection and Ascension. As I gave glory to the Trinity through them, so you also give glory to the Triune God by sharing in them, making them yours as though you had done them yourself. Unite yourself with the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit. Join yourself to My Mother in her acceptance of the eternal will and plan. Say with her, “Behold the servant of the Lord; be it done according to Your will.” Make her fiat your fiat. Unite yourself with her as she visits Elizabeth in charity, and her visit becomes your visit. Unite yourself with Mary in her Assumption and Coronation. As she gave glory to the Trinity through them, so you also give glory to God by sharing in them as though you had experienced them yourself.
Do this in serenity. Pray easily, calmly, not trying to force yourself to ‘feel’ anything, but maintaining a simple peaceful desire to pray the prayer I gave you at this and every moment.
Should you be inadvertently distracted, do not fret. Pray more slowly if you wish. A single ‘Our Father’ prayed slowly and with abandonment is far better than many said quickly and carelessly. I do not tally up the number of your prayers. Concentrate on a word or phrase. Take the ‘Our Father,’ for example, and draw all the meaning you can out of the word ‘Father’ or the word ‘our’ or the word ‘heaven.’ Or take such a phrase as ‘Thy will be done,’ and penetrate to its hidden depths of meaning.
If the distractions persist, simply unite your will with Mine in abandonment, submission, and humility and offer your distractions to Me. Say that you would rather be distracted, since it appears to be My will for you at that moment, than to enjoy the greatest possible concentration and consolation.
Unite your abandonment to your distracted prayer with My abandonment to the will of My Father, with Mary’s fiat, with the abandonment of all the saints, and all holy souls, past, present, and to come.
Unite your submission with My submission in becoming man and in obeying faithfully those whom the Father placed over Me in the natural order.
Unite your humility with My humility when I accepted the sentence of death from Pilate; with My humility when I took up the cross and when I fell to the ground to be beaten, kicked, and cursed; with My humility in being driven like an animal through the streets of Jerusalem under the eyes of My own Mother; with My humility in accepting the help of Simon and in making no attempt to hide My tortured face, but gratefully receiving the ministrations of Veronica; with My humility in consoling the holy women; with My humility in being stripped and crucified.
When you pray, whether it be the Rosary, the Way of the Cross, or any other prayer, unite yourself with Me as a victim, perfectly abandoned and obedient to the will of My Father, perfectly humble in being the person He wishes you to be, perfect in love.”
THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES
(Monday and Thursday; and the Sundays from 1st Sunday of Advent until Lent.):
1. The Annunciation
2. The Visitation
3. The Nativity
4. The Presentation
5. The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
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THE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES
(Tuesday and Friday; and the Sundays of Lent.):
1. The Agony in the Garden
2. The Scourging at the Pillar
3. The Crowning with Thorns
4. The Carrying of the Cross
5. The Crucifixion
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THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES
(Wednesday and Saturday; and the Sundays from Easter until Advent.):
1. The Resurrection
2. The Ascension
3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit
4. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
5. The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Suggested Reading
April 07 2009 10:10 am
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