The Rosary

The word rosary comes from Latin and means a garland of roses, the rose being one of the
flowers used to symbolize the Virgin Mary. If you were to ask what object is most emblematic
of Catholics, people would probably say, “The rosary, of course.”
After Vatican II the rosary fell into relative disuse. The same is true for Marian devotions as a
whole. But in recent years the rosary has made a comeback, and not just among Catholics.
Many Protestants now say the rosary, recognizing it as a truly biblical form of prayer—after all,
the prayers that compose it come mainly from the Bible.
The rosary is a devotion in honor of the Virgin Mary. It consists of a set number of specific
prayers. First are the introductory prayers: one Apostles’ Creed (Credo), one Our Father
(the Pater Noster or the Lord’s Prayer), three Hail Mary’s (Ave’s), one Glory Be (Gloria Patri).
The Apostles’ Creed
The Apostles’ Creed is so called not because it was composed by the apostles themselves, but
because it expresses their teachings. The original form of the creed came into use around A.D.
125, and the present form dates from the 400s. It reads this way:
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only
Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he
arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the
Father. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of
the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.”
Traditional Protestants are able to recite the Apostles’ Creed without qualms, though to some
lines they must give meanings different from those given by Catholics, who composed the
creed. For instance, we refer to “the holy Catholic Church,” meaning a particular, identifiable
Church on earth. Protestants typically reinterpret this to refer to an “invisible church”
consisting of all “true believers” in Jesus. This is despite the fact that the term “Catholic” was
already used to refer to a particular, visible Church by the second century and had already lost
its broader meaning of “universal.”
The Lord’s Prayer
The next prayer in the rosary—the Our Father or Pater Noster (from its opening words in Latin),
also known as the Lord’s Prayer—is even more acceptable to Protestants because Jesus himself
taught it to his disciples.
It is given in the Bible in two slightly different versions (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). The one
given in Matthew is the one all Christians say.
The Hail Mary
The next prayer in the rosary, and the one that is really at the center of the devotion, is the Hail
Mary. Since the Hail Mary is a prayer to Mary, many Protestants assume it’s unbiblical. Quite
the contrary—let’s look at it.
The prayer begins, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” This is nothing other than
the greeting the angel Gabriel gave Mary in Luke 1:28 (Confraternity Version). The next part
reads this way:
“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” This was exactly
what Mary’s cousin Elizabeth said to her in Luke 1:42. The only thing that has been added to
these two verses are the names “Jesus” and “Mary,” to make clear who is being referred to. So
the first part of the Hail Mary is entirely biblical.
The second part of the Hail Mary is not taken straight from Scripture, but it is entirely biblical in
the thoughts it expresses. It reads:
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
Some Protestants do object to saying “Holy Mary” because they claim Mary was a sinner like
the rest of us. But Mary was a Christian (the first Christian, actually, the first to accept Jesus; see
Luke 1:45), and the Bible describes Christians in general as holy. In fact, they are called saints,
which means “holy ones” (Eph. 1:1, Phil. 1:1, Col. 1:2). Furthermore, as the mother of Jesus
Christ, the incarnate Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Mary was certainly a very holy
woman.
Some Protestants also object to the title “Mother of God,” but the title doesn’t mean Mary is
older than God; it means the person who was born of her was a divine person, not a human
person. (Jesus is one person, the divine, but has two natures, the divine and the human.) The
denial that Mary had God in her womb is a heresy known as Nestorianism (which claims that
Jesus was two persons, one divine and one human), which has been condemned since the early
400s and which the Reformers and Protestant Bible scholars have always rejected.
Another Mediator?
The most problematic line for non-Catholics is usually the last: “pray for us sinners, now and at
the hour of our death.” Many non-Catholics think such a request denies the teaching of 1
Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus.” But in the preceding four verses (1 Tim. 2:1-4), Paul instructs Christians to pray for
each other, meaning it cannot interfere with Christ’s mediatorship: “I urge that prayers,
supplications, petitions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone. . . . This is good, and pleasing
to God our Savior.”
We know this exhortation to pray for others applies to the saints in heaven who, as Revelation
5:8 reveals, intercede for us by offering our prayers to God: “The twenty-four elders fell down
before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the
prayers of the saints.”
The Glory Be
The fourth prayer found in the rosary is the Glory Be, sometimes called the Gloria or Gloria
Patri. The last two names are taken from the opening words of the Latin version of the prayer,
which in English reads:
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is
now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” The Gloria is a brief hymn of praise in which
all Christians can join. It has been used since the fourth century (though its present form is from
the seventh) and traditionally has been recited at the end of each Psalm in the Divine Office.
The Closing Prayer
We’ve covered all the prayers of the rosary except the very last one, which is usually the Hail
Queen (Salve Regina), sometimes called the Hail Holy Queen. It’s the most commonly recited
prayer in praise of Mary after the Hail Mary itself, and was composed at the end of the eleventh
century. It generally reads like this (there are several variants):
“Hail holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry,
poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this
vale of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this
our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin
Mary.”
So those are the prayers of the rosary. Between the introductory prayers and the concluding
prayer is the meat of the rosary: the decades. Each decade—there are fifteen in a full rosary
(which takes about forty-five minutes to say)—is composed of ten Hail Marys. Each decade is
bracketed between an Our Father and a Glory Be, so each decade actually has twelve prayers.
Each decade is devoted to a mystery regarding the life of Jesus or his mother. Here the word
mystery refers to a truth of the faith, not to something incomprehensible. The fifteen mysteries
are divided into three groups of five: the Joyful, the Sorrowful, the Glorious. When people
speak of “saying the rosary” they usually mean saying any set of five (which takes about fifteen
minutes) rather than the recitation of all fifteen mysteries. Let’s look at the mysteries.
Meditation the Key
When Catholics recite the twelve prayers that form a decade of the rosary, they meditate on
the mystery associated with that decade. If they merely recite the prayers, whether vocally or
silently, they’re missing the essence of the rosary. Critics, not knowing about the meditation
part, imagine the rosary must be boring, uselessly repetitious, and meaningless. Christ forbade
meaningless repetition (Matt. 6:7), but the Bible itself prescribes some prayers that involve
repetition. Look at Psalms 136, which is a litany (a prayer with a recurring refrain) meant to be
sung in the Jewish Temple. In the psalm the refrain is “His mercy endures forever.” Sometimes
in Psalms 136 the refrain starts before a sentence is finished, meaning it is more repetitious
than the rosary, though this prayer was written directly under the inspiration of God.
It is the meditation on the mysteries that gives the rosary its staying power. The Joyful
Mysteries are these: the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), the Visitation (Luke 1:40-56), the Nativity
(Luke 2:6-20), the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:21-39), and the Finding of the
Child Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41-51).
Then come the Sorrowful Mysteries: the Agony in the Garden (Matt. 26:36-46), the Scourging
(Matt. 27:26), the Crowning with Thorns (Matt. 27:29), the Carrying of the Cross (John 19:17),
and the Crucifixion (Luke 23:33-46).
The final Mysteries are the Glorious: the Resurrection (Luke 24:1-12), the Ascension (Luke
24:50-51), the Descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4), the Assumption of Mary into Heaven (Rev.
12), and her Coronation (cf. Rev. 12:1).
With the exception of the last two, each mystery is explicitly scriptural. True, the Assumption
and Coronation of Mary are not explicitly stated in the Bible, but they are not contrary to it, so
there is no reason to reject them out of hand.
The Origins of the Rosary
It’s commonly said that St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans),
instituted the rosary. Not so. Certain parts of the rosary predated Dominic; others arose only
after his death.
Centuries before Dominic, monks had begun to recite all 150 psalms on a regular basis. As time
went on, it was felt that the lay brothers, known as the conversi, should have some form of
prayer of their own. They were distinct from the choir monks, and a chief distinction was that
they were illiterate. Since they couldn’t read the psalms, they couldn’t recite them with the
monks. They needed an easily remembered prayer.
The prayer first chosen was the Our Father, and, depending on circumstances, it was said either
fifty or a hundred times. These conversi used rosaries to keep count, and the rosaries were
known then as Paternosters (“Our Fathers”).
The rosaries that originally were used to count Our Fathers came to be used, during the twelfth
century, to count Hail Marys—or, more properly, the first half of what we now call the Hail
Mary. (The second half was added some time later.)
Both Catholics and non-Catholics, as they learn more about the rosary and make more frequent
use of it, come to see how its meditations bring to mind the sweet fragrance not only of the
Mother of God, but of Christ himself.
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

Rosary: History of the Rosary

Rosary, THE.—I. IN THE WESTERN CHURCH.—”The Rosary”, says the Roman Breviary, “is a
certain form of prayer wherein we say fifteen decades or tens of Hail Marys with an Our Father
between each ten, while at each of these fifteen decades we recall successively in pious
meditation one of the mysteries of our Redemption.” The same lesson for the Feast of the Holy
Rosary informs us that when the Albigensian heresy was devastating the country of Toulouse,
St. Dominic earnestly besought the help of Our Lady and was instructed by her, “so tradition
asserts”, to preach the Rosary among the people as an antidote to heresy and sin. From that
time forward this manner of prayer was “most wonderfully published abroad and developed
[promulgari augerique coepit] by St. Dominic whom different Supreme Pontiffs have in various
passages of their apostolic letters declared to be the institutor and author of the same
devotion.” That many popes have so spoken is undoubtedly true, and amongst the rest we have
a series of encyclicals, beginning in 1883, issued by Pope Leo XIII, which, while commending this
devotion to the faithful in the most earnest terms, assumes the institution of the Rosary by St.
Dominic to be a fact historically established. Of the remarkable fruits of this devotion and of the
extraordinary favors which have been granted to the world, as is piously believed, through this
means, something will be said under the headings Rosary, Feast of, and Rosary, Confraternities
of. We will confine ourselves here to the controverted question of its history, a matter which
both in the middle of the eighteenth century and again in recent years has attracted much
attention.
Let us begin with certain facts which will not be contested. It is tolerably obvious that whenever
any prayer has to be repeated a large number of times recourse is likely to be had to some
mechanical apparatus less troublesome than counting upon the fingers. In almost all countries,
then, we meet with something in the nature of prayer-counters or rosary beads. Even in ancient
Nineveh a sculpture has been found thus described by Layard in his “Monuments” (I, plate 7):
“Two winged females standing before the sacred tree in the attitude of prayer; they lift the
extended right hand and hold in the left a garland or rosary.” However this may be, it is certain
that among the Mohammedans the Tasbih or bead-string, consisting of 33, 66, or 99 beads, and
used for counting devotionally the names of Allah, has been in use for many centuries. Marco
Polo, visiting the King of Malabar in the thirteenth century, found to his surprise that that
monarch employed a rosary of 104 (? 108) precious stones to count his prayers. St. Francis
Xavier and his companions were equally astonished to see that rosaries were universally
familiar to the Buddhists of Japan. Among the monks of the Greek Church we hear of the
kombologion, or komboschoinion, a cord with a hundred knots used to count genuflexions and
signs of the cross. Similarly, beside the mummy of a Christian ascetic, Thaias, of the fourth
century, recently disinterred at Antinoe in Egypt, was found a sort of cribbage-board with holes,
which has generally been thought to be an apparatus for counting prayers. Still more primitive
is the device of which Palladius and other ancient authorities have left us an account. A certain
Paul the Hermit, in the fourth century, had imposed upon himself the task of repeating three
hundred prayers, according to a set form, every day. To do this, he gathered up three hundred
pebbles and threw one away as each prayer was finished (Palladius, “Hist. Laus.”, xx; Butler, II,
63). It is probable that other ascetics who also numbered their prayers by hundreds adopted
some similar expedient. (Cf. “Vita S. Godrici”, cviii.) Indeed when we find a papal privilege
addressed to the monks of St. Apollinaris in Classe requiring them, in gratitude for the pope’s
benefactions, to say Kyrie eleison three hundred times twice a day (see the privilege of Hadrian
I, A.D. 782, in Jaffe-Lowenfeld, n. 2437), one would infer that some counting apparatus must
almost necessarily have been used for the purpose.
But there were other prayers to be counted more nearly connected with the Rosary than Kyrie
eleisons. At an early date among the monastic orders the practice had established itself not
only of offering Masses, but of saying vocal prayers as a suffrage for their deceased brethren.
For this purpose the private recitation of the 150 psalms, or of 50 psalms, the third part, was
constantly enjoined. Already in A.D. 800 we learn from the compact between St. Gall and
Reichenau (“Mon. Germ. Hist.: Confrat.”, Piper, 140) that for each deceased brother all the
priests should say one Mass and also fifty psalms. A charter in Kemble (Cod. Dipl., I, 290)
prescribes that each monk is to sing two fifties (twa fiftig) for the souls of certain benefactors,
while each priest is to sing two Masses and each deacon to read two Passions. But as time went
on, and the conversi, or lay brothers, most of them quite illiterate, became distinct from the
choir monks, it was felt that they also should be required to substitute some simple form of
prayer in place of the psalms to which their more educated brethren were bound by rule. Thus
we read in the “Ancient Customs of Cluny”, collected by Udalrio in 1096, that when the death of
any brother at a distance was announced, every priest was to offer Mass, and every non-priest
was either to say fifty psalms or to repeat fifty times the Paternoster (“quicunque sacerdos est
cantet missam pro eo, et qui non est sacerdos quinquaginta psalmos aut toties orationem
dominicam”. P.L., CXLIX, 776). Similarly among the Knights Templars, whose rule dates from
about 1128, the knights who could not attend choir were required to say the Lord’s Prayer 57
times in all and on the death of any of the brethren they had to say the Pater Noster a hundred
times a day for a week.
To count these accurately there is every reason to believe that already in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries a practice had come in of using pebbles, berries, or discs of bone threaded on
a string. It is in any case certain that the Countess Godiva of Coventry (c. 1075) left by will to the
statue of Our Lady in a certain monastery “the circlet of precious stones which she had
threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her
prayers exactly” (Malmesbury, “Gesta Pont.”, Rolls Series 311). Another example seems to
occur in the case of St. Rosalia (A.D. 1160), in whose tomb similar strings of beads were
discovered. Even more important is the fact that such strings of beads were known throughout
the Middle Ages—and in some Continental tongues are known to this day—as “Paternosters”.
The evidence for this is overwhelming and comes from every part of Europe. Already in the
thirteenth century the manufacturers of these articles, who were know as “paternosterers”,
almost everywhere formed a recognized craft guild of considerable importance. The “Livre des
metiers” of Stephen Boyleau, for example, supplies full information regarding the four guilds of
patenotriers in Paris in the year 1268, while Paternoster Row in London still preserves the
memory of the street in which their English craft-fellows congregated. Now the obvious
inference is that an appliance which was persistently called a “paternoster”, or in Latin fila de
paternoster, numeralia de paternoster, and so on, had, at least originally, been designed for
counting Our Fathers. This inference, drawn out and illustrated with much learning by Father T.
Esser, O.P., in 1897, becomes a practical certainty when we remember that it was only in the
middle of the twelfth century that the Hail Mary came at all generally into use as a formula of
devotion. It is morally impossible that Lady Godiva’s circlet of jewels could have been intended
to count Ave Marias. Hence there can be no doubt that the strings of prayer beads were called
“paternosters” because for a long time they were principally employed to number repetitions
of the Lord’s Prayer.
When, however, the Hail Mary came into use, it appears that from the first the consciousness
that it was in its own nature a salutation rather than a prayer induced a fashion of repeating it
many times in succession, accompanied by genuflexions or some other external act of
reverence. Just as happens nowadays in the firing of salutes, or in the applause given to a public
performer, or in the rounds of cheers evoked among school-boys by an arrival or departure, so
also then the honor paid by such salutations was measured by numbers and continuance.
Further, since the recitation of the Psalms divided into fifties was, as innumerable documents
attest, the favorite form of devotion for religious and learned persons, so those who were
simple or much occupied loved, by the repetition of fifty, a hundred, or a hundred and fifty
salutations of Our Lady, to feel that they were imitating the practice of God‘s more exalted
servants. In any case it is certain that in the course of the twelfth century and before the birth
of St. Dominic, the practice of reciting 50 or 150 Ave Marias had become generally familiar. The
most conclusive evidence of this is furnished by the “Mary-legends”, or stories of Our Lady,
which obtained wide circulation at this epoch. The story of Eulalia, in particular, according to
which a client of the Blessed Virgin who had been wont to say a hundred and fifty Aves was
bidden by her to say only fifty, but more slowly, has been shown by Mussafia (Marien-
legenden, Pts I, II) to be unquestionably of early date. Not less conclusive is the account given of
St. Albert (d. 1140) by his contemporary biographer, who tells us: A hundred times a day he
bent his knees, and fifty times he prostrated himself raising his body again by his fingers and
toes, while he repeated at every genuflexion: `Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,
blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb’. “This was the whole of
the Hail Mary as then said, and the fact of all the words being set down rather implies that the
formula had not yet become universally familiar. Not less remarkable is the account of a similar
devotional exercise occurring in the Corpus Christi MS. of the Ancren Riwle (q.v.). This text,
declared by Kolbing to have been written in the middle of the twelfth century (Englische
Studien, 1885, p. 116), can in any case be hardly later than 1200. The passage in question gives
directions how fifty Aves are to be said divided into sets of ten, with prostrations and other
marks of reverence. (See The Month, July, 1903.) When we find such an exercise recommended
to a little group of anchoresses in a corner of England, twenty years before any Dominican
foundation was made in this country, it seems difficult to resist the conclusion that the custom
of reciting fifty or a hundred and fifty Aves had grown familiar, independently of, and earlier
than, the preaching of St. Dominic. On the other hand, the practice of meditating on certain
definite mysteries, which has been rightly described as the very essence of the Rosary devotion,
seems to have only arisen long after the date of St. Dominic’s death. It is difficult to prove a
negative, but Father T. Esser, O.P., has shown (in the periodical “Der Katholik”, of Mainz,
October, November, December, 1897) that the introduction of this meditation during the
recitation of the Aves was rightly attributed to a certain Carthusian, Dominic the Prussian. 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. What then, we are compelled to ask, is
there left of which St. Dominic may be called the author?
These positive reasons for distrusting the current tradition might in a measure be ignored as
archaeological refinements, if there were any satisfactory evidence to show that St. Dominic
had identified himself with the pre-existing Rosary and become its apostle. But here we are met
with absolute silence. Of the eight or nine early Lives of the saint, not one makes the faintest
allusion to the Rosary. The witnesses who gave evidence in the cause of his canonization are
equally reticent. In the great collection of documents accumulated by Fathers Balme and
Lelaidier, O.P., in their “Cartulaire de St. Dominique” the question is studiously ignored. The
early constitutions of the different provinces of the order have been examined, and many of
them printed, but no one has found any reference to this devotion. We possess hundreds, even
thousands, of manuscripts containing devotional treatises, sermons, chronicles, Saints’ lives,
etc., written by the Friars Preachers between 1220 and 1450; but no single verifiable passage
has yet been produced which speaks of the Rosary as instituted by St. Dominic or which even
makes much of the devotion as one specially dear to his children. The charters and other deeds
of the Dominican convents for men and women, as M. Jean Guiraud points out with emphasis
in his edition of the Cartulaire of La Prouille (I, cccxxviii), are equally silent. Neither do we find
any suggestion of a connection between St. Dominic and the Rosary in the paintings and
sculptures of these two and a half centuries. Even the tomb of St. Dominic at Bologna and the
numberless frescoes by Fra Angelico representing the brethren of his order ignore the Rosary
completely.
Impressed by this conspiracy of silence, the Bollandists, on trying to trace to its source the
origin of the current tradition, found that all the clues converged upon one point, the preaching
of the Dominican Alan de Rupe about the years 1470-75. He it undoubtedly was who first
suggested the idea that the devotion of “Our Lady’s Psalter” (a hundred and fifty Hail Marys)
was instituted or revived by St. Dominic. Alan was a very earnest and devout man, but, as the
highest authorities admit, he was full of delusions, and based his revelations on the imaginary
testimony of writers that never existed (see Quetif and Echard, “Scriptores O.P.”, I, 849). His
preaching, however, was attended with much success. The Rosary Confraternities, organized by
him and his colleagues at Douai, Cologne, and elsewhere had great vogue, and led to the
printing of many books, all more or less impregnated with the ideas of Alan. Indulgences were
granted for the good work that was thus being done and the documents conceding these
indulgences accepted and repeated, as was natural in that uncritical age, the historical data
which had been inspired by Alan’s writings and which were submitted according to the usual
practice by the promoters of the confraternities themselves. It was in this way that the tradition
of Dominican authorship grew up. The first Bulls speak of this authorship with some reserve:
“Prout in historiis legitur” says Leo X in the earliest of all, “Pastoris aeterni” 1520; but many of
the later popes were less guarded.
Two considerations strongly support the view of the Rosary tradition just expounded. The first
is the gradual surrender of almost every notable piece of evidence that has at one time or
another been relied upon to vindicate the supposed claims of St. Dominic. Touron and Alban
Butler appealed to the Memoirs of a certain Luminosi de Aposa who professed to have heard
St. Dominic preach at Bologna, but these Memoirs have long ago been proved to be a forgery.
Danzas, Von Loe and others attached much importance to a fresco at Muret; but the fresco is
not now in existence, and there is good reason for believing that the rosary once seen in that
fresco was painted in at a later date (“The Month” February 1901, p. 179). Mamachi, Esser,
Walsh, and Von Loe quote some alleged contemporary verses about St. Dominic in connection
with a crown of roses; but the original manuscript has disappeared, and it is certain that the
writers named have printed Dominicus where Benoist, the only person who has seen the
manuscript, read Dominus. The famous will of Anthony Sers, which professed to leave a
bequest to the Confraternity of the Rosary at Palencia in 1221, was put forward as a conclusive
piece of testimony by Mamachi; but it is now admitted by Dominican authorities to be a forgery
(“The Irish Rosary,” January, 1901, p. 92). Similarly, a supposed reference to the subject by
Thomas A Kempis in the “Chronicle of Mount St. Agnes” is a pure blunder (“The Month”,
February, 1901, p. 187). With this may be noted the change in tone observable of late in
authoritative works of reference. In the “Kirchliches Handlexikon” of Munich and in the last
edition of Herder‘s “Konversationslexikon” no attempt is made to defend the tradition which
connects St. Dominic personally with the origin of the Rosary. Another consideration which
cannot be developed here is the multitude of conflicting legends concerning the origin of this
devotion of Our Lady’s Psalter which prevailed down to the end of the fifteenth century, as well
as the early diversity of practice in the manner of its recitation. These facts agree ill with the
supposition that it took its rise in a definite revelation and was jealously watched over from the
beginning by one of the most learned and influential of the religious orders. No doubt can exist
that the immense diffusion of the Rosary and its confraternities in modern times and the vast
influence it has exercised for good are mainly due to the labors and the prayers of the sons of
St. Dominic, but the historical evidence serves plainly to show that their interest in the subject
was only awakened in the last years of the fifteenth century.
That the Rosary is preeminently the prayer of the people adapted alike for the use of simple
and learned is proved not only by the long series of papal utterances by which it has been
commended to the faithful but by the daily experience of all who are familiar with it. The
objection so often made against its “vain repetitions” is felt by none but those who have failed
to realize how entirely the spirit of the exercise lies in the meditation upon the fundamental
mysteries of our faith. To the initiated the words of the angelical salutation form only a sort of
half-conscious accompaniment, a bourdon which we may liken to the “Holy, Holy, Holy” of the
heavenly choirs and surely not in itself meaningless. Neither can it be necessary to urge that the
freest criticism of the historical origin of the devotion, which involves no point of doctrine, is
compatible with a full appreciation of the devotional treasures which this pious exercise brings
within the reach of all.
As regards the origin of the name, the word rosarius means a garland or bouquet of roses, and
it was not unfrequently used in a figurative sense—e.g. as the title of a book, to denote an
anthology or collection of extracts. An early legend which after traveling all over Europe
penetrated even to Abyssinia connected this name with a story of Our Lady, who was seen to
take rosebuds from the lips of a young monk when he was reciting Hail Marys and to weave
them into a garland which she placed upon her head. A German metrical version of this story is
still extant dating from the thirteenth century. The name “Our Lady’s Psalter” can also be
traced back to the same period. Corona or chaplet suggests the same idea as rosarium. The old
English name found in Chaucer and elsewhere was a “pair of beads”, in which the word beads
(q.v.) originally meant prayers.
HERBERT THURSTON.

II. IN THE GREEK CHURCH, UNIAT AND SCHISMATIC.—The custom of reciting prayers upon a
string with knots or beads thereon at regular intervals has come down from the early days of
Christianity, and is still practiced in the Eastern as well as in the Western Church. It seems to
have originated among the early monks and hermits who used a piece of heavy cord with knots
tied at intervals upon which they recited their shorter prayers. This form of rosary is still used
among the monks in the various Greek Churches, although archimandrites and bishops use a
very ornamental form of rosary with costly beads. The rosary is conferred upon the Greek monk
as a part of his investiture with the mandyas or full monastic habit, as the second step in the
monastic life, and is called his “spiritual sword”. This Oriental form of rosary is known in the
Hellenic Greek Church as kombologion (chaplet), or komboschoinion (string of knots or beads),
in the Russian Church as vervitza (string), chotki (chaplet), or liestovka (ladder), and in the
Rumanian Church as meltanie (reverence). The first use of the rosary in any general way was
among the monks of the Orient. Our everyday name of “beads” for it is simply the Old Saxon
word bede (a prayer) which has been transferred to the instrument used in reciting the prayer,
while the word rosary is an equally modern term. The intercourse of the Western peoples of
the Latin Rite with those of the Eastern Rite at the beginning of the Crusades caused the
practice of saying prayers upon knots or beads to become widely diffused among the monastic
houses of the Latin Church, although the practice had been observed in some instances before
that date. On the other hand, the recitation of the Rosary, as practiced in the West, has not
become general in the Eastern Churches; there it has still retained its original form as a
monastic exercise of devotion, and is but little known or used among the laity, while even the
secular clergy seldom use it in their devotions. Bishops, however, retain the rosary, as indicating
that they have risen from the monastic state, even though they are in the world governing their
dioceses.

The rosary used in the present Greek Orthodox Church—whether in Russia or in the East—is
quite different in form from that used in the Latin Church. The use of the prayer-knots or prayer
beads originated from the fact that monks, according to the rule of St. Basil, the only monastic
rule known to the Greek Rite, were enjoined by their founder to “pray without ceasing” (I
Thess., v, 17; Luke, xviii, 1), and as most of the early monks were laymen, engaged often in
various forms of work and in many cases without sufficient education to read the prescribed
lessons, psalms, and prayers of the daily office, the rosary was used by them as a means of
continually reciting their prayers. At the beginning and at the end of each prayer said by the
monk upon each knot or bead he makes the “great reverence” (Greek: e megale metanoia)
bending down to the ground, so that the recitation of the rosary is often known as a metania.
The rosary used among the Greeks of Greece, Turkey, and the East usually consists of one
hundred beads without any distinction of great or little ones, while the Old Slavic, or Russian,
rosary generally consists of 103 beads, separated in irregular sections by four large beads, so
that the first large bead is followed by 17 small ones, the second large bead by 33 small ones,
the third by 40 small ones, and the fourth by 12 small ones, with an additional one added at the
end. The two ends of a Russian rosary are often bound together for a short distance, so that the
lines of beads run parallel (hence the name ladder used for the rosary), and they finish with a
three-cornered ornament often adorned with a tassel or other finial, corresponding to the cross
or medal used in a Latin rosary.

The use of the Greek rosary is prescribed in Rule 87 of the “Nomocanon“, which reads: “The
rosary should have one hundred [the Russian rule says 103] beads; and upon each bead the
prescribed prayer should be recited.” The usual form of this prayer prescribed for the rosary
runs as follows: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son and Word of the living God, through the intercessions
of thy immaculate Mother [Greek: tes panachrantou sou Metros] and of all thy Saints, have
mercy and save us.” If, however, the rosary be said as a penitential exercise, the prayer then is:
“O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” The Russian rosary is divided by
the four large beads so as to represent the different parts of the canonical Office which the
recitation of the rosary replaces, while the four large beads themselves represent the four
Evangelists. In the monasteries of Mount Athos, where the severest rule is observed, from
eighty to a hundred rosaries are said daily by each monk. In Russian monasteries the rosary is
usually said five times a day, while in the recitation of it the “great reverences” are reduced to
ten, the remainder being simply sixty “little reverences” (bowing of the head no further than
the waist) and sixty recitations of the penitential form of the prescribed prayer.

Among the Greek Uniats the rosary is but little used by the laity. The Basilian monks make use
of it in the Eastern style just described and in many cases use it in the Roman fashion in some
monasteries. The more active life prescribed for them in following the example of Latin monks
leaves less time for the recitation of the rosary according to the Eastern form, whilst the
reading and recitation of the Office during the canonical Hours fulfils the original monastic
obligation and so does not require the rosary. Latterly the Melchites and the Italo-Greeks have
in many places adopted among their laity a form of rosary similar to the one used among the
laity of the Roman Rite, but its use is far from general. The Ruthenian and Rumanian Greek
Catholics do not use it among the laity, but reserve it chiefly for the monastic clergy, although
lately in some parts of Galicia its lay use has been occasionally introduced and is regarded as a
latinizing practice. It may be said that among the Greeks in general the use of the rosary is
regarded as a religious exercise peculiar to the monastic life; and wherever among Greek Uniats
its lay use has been introduced, it is an imitation of the Roman practice. On this account it has
never been popularized among the laity of the peoples, who remain strongly attached to their
venerable Eastern Rite.
—ANDREW J. SHIPMAN.

BREVIARY HYMNS OF THE ROSARY.—The proper office granted by Leo XIII (August 5, 1888) to
the feast contains four hymns which, because of the pontiff’s great devotion to the Rosary and
his skillful work in classical Latin verse, were thought by some critics to be the compositions of
the Holy Father himself. They have been traced, however, to the Dominican Office published in
1834 (see Chevalier, “Repertorium Hymnologicum”, under the four titles of the hymns) and
were afterwards granted to the Dioceses of Segovia and Venice (1841 and 1848). Their author
was a pious client of Mary, Eustace Sirena. Exclusive of the common doxology (Jesu tibi sit
gloria, etc.) each hymn contains five four-lined stanzas of classical dimeter iambics. In the hymn
for First Vespers (Coelestis aulae nuntiva) the Five Joyful Mysteries are celebrated, a single
stanza being given to a mystery. In the same symmetrical manner the hymn for Matins (In
monte olivis consito) deals with the Five Sorrowful Mysteries and that for Lauds (Jam morte
victor obruta) with the Five Glorious Mysteries. The hymn for Second Vespers (Te gestientem
gaudiis) maintains the symmetrical form by devoting three stanzas to a recapitulation of the
three sets of mysteries (Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious), prefacing them with a stanza which sums
up all three and devoting a fifth stanza to a poetical invitation to weave a crown of flowers from
the “rosary” for the Mother of fair love. The compression of a single “mystery” into a single
stanza may be illustrated by the first stanza of the first hymn, devoted to the First Joyful
Mystery:

Coelestis aulae nuntius, Arcana pandens Numinis, Plenam salutat gratia Dei Parentem
Virginem.

“The envoy of the Heavenly Court, Sent to unfold God‘s secret plan, The Virgin hails as
full of grace, And Mother of the God made Man”
–(Bagshawe).

The first (or prefatory) stanza of the fourth hymn sums up the three sets of mysteries:
 Te gestientem gaudiis, Te sauciam doloribus, Te jugi amictam gloria, O Virgo Mater,
pangimus.

The still greater compression of five mysteries within a single stanza may be illustrated by the
second stanza of this hymn:

Ave, redundans gaudio Dum concipis, dum visitors, Et edis, offers, invenis, Mater beata,
Filium.

“Hail, filled with joy in heart and mind, Conceiving, visiting, or when Thou didst bring
forth, offer, and find Thy Child amidst the learned men.”

Archbishop Bagshawe translates the hymns in his “Breviary Hymns and Missal Sequences”
(London, s. d., pp. 114-18). As in the illustration quoted from one of these, the stanza contains
(in all the hymns) only two rhymes, the author’s aim being “as much as possible to keep to the
sense of the original, neither adding to this, nor taking from it” (preface). The other illustration
of a fully-rhymed stanza is taken from another version of the four hymns (Henry in the “Rosary
Magazine”, October, 1891). Translations into French verse are given by Albin, “La Poesie du
Breviaire”, with slight comment, pp. 345-56.
—H. T. HENRY.

CONFRATERNITY OF THE HOLY ROSARY.—In accordance with the conclusion of the article
Rosary no sufficient evidence is forthcoming to establish the existence of any Rosary
Confraternity before the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Dominican guilds or fraternities
there were, but we cannot assume without proof that they were connected with the Rosary.
We know, however, that through the preaching of Alan de Rupe such associations began to be
erected shortly before 1475; that established at Cologne in 1474 by Father James Sprenger is
especially famous. People from all parts of the world desired to be enrolled in it. A casual
English example occurs in the Plumpton Correspondence (Camden Society, p. 50), where a
priest in London writes in 1486 to his patron in Yorkshire: “I send a paper of the Rosary of our
Ladie of Coleyn and I have registered your name with both my Ladis names, as the paper
expresses, and ye be acopled as brether and sisters.” Even at that time the entry of the name of
each associate on the register was an indispensable condition of membership, and so it remains
to this day. It was undoubtedly to this and similar confraternities, which by degrees began to be
erected in many other places under Dominican supervision, that the great vogue of the Rosary
as well as the acceptance of a more uniform system in its recitation was mainly due. The
recitation of the Rosary is alone prescribed for the members—at present they undertake to
recite the fifteen mysteries at least once in each week—but even this does not in any way bind
under sin. The organization of these confraternities is entirely in the hands of the Dominican
Order, and no new confraternity can be anywhere begun without the sanction of the general. It
is to the members of the Rosary confraternities that the principal indulgences have been
granted, and there can be no need to lay stress upon the special advantages which the
confraternity offers by the union of prayer and devotional exercises as well as the participation
of merits in this which is probably the largest organization of the kind within the Catholic
Church. Moreover, in the “patent of erection”, which is issued for each new confraternity by
the General of the Dominicans, a clause is added granting to all members enrolled therein “a
participation in all the good works which by the grace of God are performed throughout the
world by the brethren and sisters of the said [Dominican] Order.” An important “Apostolic
Constitution on the Rosary Confraternity“, which may be regarded as a sort of new charter, was
issued by Leo XIII on October 2, 1898.
The “Perpetual Rosary” is an organization for securing the continuous recitation of the Rosary
by day and night among a number of associates who perform their allotted share at stated
times. This is a development of the Rosary Confraternity, and dates from the seventeenth
century.
The “Living Rosary” was begun in 1826, and is independent of the confraternity; it consists in a
number of circles of fifteen members who each agree to recite a single decade every day and
who thus complete the whole Rosary between them.
—HERBERT THURSTON.
FEAST OF THE HOLY ROSARY.—Apart from the signal defeat of the Albigensian heretics at the
battle of Muret in 1213 which legend has attributed to the recitation of the Rosary by St.
Dominic, it is believed that Heaven has on many occasions rewarded the faith of those who had
recourse to this devotion in times of special danger. More particularly, the naval victory of
Lepanto gained by Don John of Austria over the Turkish fleet on the first Sunday of October in
1571 responded wonderfully to the processions made at Rome on that same day by the
members of the Rosary confraternity. St. Pius V thereupon ordered that a commemoration of
the Rosary should be made upon that day, and at the request of the Dominican Order Gregory
XIII in 1573 allowed this feast to be kept in all churches which possessed an altar dedicated to
the Holy Rosary. In 1671 the observance of this festival was extended by Clement X to the
whole of Spain, and somewhat later Clement XI after the important victory over the Turks
gained by Prince Eugene on August 5, 1716 (the feast of our Lady of the Snows), at
Peterwardein in Hungary, commanded the feast of the Rosary to be celebrated by the universal
Church. A set of “proper” lessons in the second nocturn were conceded by Benedict XIII. Leo XIII
has since raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class and has added to the
Litany of Loreto the invocation “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary”. On this feast, in every church
in which the Rosary confraternity has been duly erected, a plenary indulgence toties quoties is
granted upon certain conditions to all who visit therein the Rosary chapel or statue of Our Lady.
This has been called the “Portiuncula” of the Rosary.
HERBERT THURSTON

The Rosary Dissected

Perhaps the most emblematic sacramental in Catholicism is the rosary, that string of beads with
a crucifix attached. Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart pictured one on the dust jacket of his anti-
Catholic book, Catholicism and Christianity. [Jimmy Swaggart, Catholicism and
Christianity (Baton Rouge: Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 1986)]. Swaggart wrote, “The rosary (or
prayer beads) was introduced by Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1090. This was copied from the
Hindus and Muhammadans [sic]. The counting of prayers is a pagan practice and is expressly
condemned by Christ (Matt. 6:5-7).” [Ibid., 160-161]. 
Aside from the fact that the rosary consists of prayer beads, Swaggart got nothing right. This is
regrettable since such crude misrepresentations frighten away uninformed Christians from a
powerful aid to prayer and contemplation. 
Tradition links the rosary not to Peter the Hermit but to St. Dominic (1170-1221), who is said to
have received it from the Virgin Mary to combat the Albigensian heresy. This legend seems to
be derived from the writings of Alan de la Roche (1428-1475), that indefatigable Dominican
preacher of the rosary. Modern critical scholarship from Dominicans and others reveals a far
more complicated history, though one having nothing to do with Hindus and Muslims. 
Medieval monks had a practice of daily praying the 150 psalms. Since lay brothers of the orders
were illiterate and couldn’t read the psalms, among them arose the practice of reciting the Our
Father 150 times. Beads were used to keep track of the prayers. (The word “bede” in Middle
English, from which we derive the word “bead,” originally meant “prayer.”) This practice spread
among the laity, and other easily-remembered prayers were added. During the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries the rosary settled into its present form. It now consists of the Apostles’
Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Gloria. 
The Apostles’ Creed appeared first as a second-century Roman baptismal creed, and it took its
present form in the 400s. Although this creed wasn’t written by the apostles, it’s generally
agreed it could very well have been of apostolic origin. 
The Our Father is prayed on the solitary beads that separate the groups of ten beads (the
“decades”). Every Christian is familiar with this prayer, which is found in Matthew 6:9-13.
Significantly, it is given in the same passage of Scripture in which Jesus says, “But when you
pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for
their many words” (Matt. 6:7). This is the verse Jimmy Swaggart says condemns the “pagan
practice” of “counting prayers.” Though Jesus himself gave us the Our Father, some
Fundamentalists try to discourage Christians from using it as anything other than a model
prayer because they feel that actually praying it would constitute a “vain repetition.” 
But let’s look at the context of the “vain repetitions” verse. Matthew 6:5-6 deal with the prayer
practices of the Jews themselves; Jesus derides these as hypocritical. He doesn’t condemn
repetitive Jewish prayers, of which there were a countless number. For example, the book of
Psalms is a collection of hymns and prayers repeatedly used in Jewish celebrations in which
Jesus himself participated. The Passover, celebrated by Jesus before his Crucifixion, had fixed
prayers that were repeated annually. Following the Last Supper, Jesus went to the Garden of
Gethsemane and prayed the same prayer three times in a row (Matt. 26:39-44)–he engaged in
repetitive prayer. 
In the next pair of verses Jesus warns against the prayer practices of the pagans, who held a
magical view of prayer and whose repetitious prayers he doescondemn. Verse 7 reads, in the
King James Version, “[D]o not use vain repetitions [battalogeo] as the heathen do.” This is a
misleading rendering. The Greek word battalogeo is better translated as “babbling,” and it is so
translated in the New International Version. (The Revised Standard Version has “empty
phrases.”) [Battalogeo, which is a very rare Greek word except in writings dependent on the
New Testament, is perhaps connected with the Aramaic word battal (idle, useless). Battal is
used in an Aramaic papyrus from Qumran with the meaning of “without effect.” The Sinaitic
Syriac manuscript of Matthew renders this verse as “Do not be saying idle things.”] Jesus isn’t
condemning mere repetition–something he himself engaged in, as did other good Jews–but the
babbling of the pagans. 
What sort of babbling did the pagans practice? Look at 1 Kings 18:26-29, where the pagan
prophets on Mount Carmel tried to invoke Baal all day long, repeatedly calling on his name and
performing ritual dances: “[They] called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying,
Oh Baal, answer us!’ But there was no voice, no one answered. And they leaped about the altar
which they had made. . . . And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their custom with
swords and lances, until the blood gushed out of them. And as midday passed, they raved on
until the time of the offering of the [evening] oblation, but there was no voice, no one
answered, no one heeded.” Once the pagan prophets had given up, Elijah came forward and
called on the God of Israel, and immediately his prayer was answered. 
The prayers of the pagan prophets were “vain” because, after spending the entire day
frantically calling upon him, Baal never responded. He wasn’t a real god, unlike the God of
Israel, who always answers sincere prayer. Jesus’ point in Matthew 6:7 is that we don’t need to
spend all day leaping over altars, cutting ourselves, and raving to get our heavenly Father’s ear.
He hears our prayers no matter what type of prayer is offered: lengthy or short, composed or
extemporaneous, group or individual, repetitious or unique. 
Thus Jesus says in the next verse: “Therefore do not be like them [the pagans]. For your Father
knows the things you have need of before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8). This doesn’t mean that,
since God already knows our needs, we don’t have to pray at all. As Jesus taught in the parable
of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8), we are to be tenacious in prayer, freely and repeatedly
(repetitiously) bringing our petition before the seat of grace. 
Paul says we are to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), not “pray reservedly lest we repeat
ourselves” (as is inevitable in ceaseless prayer). One of the benefits of the rosary is that it leads
naturally to the ceaseless prayer and meditation which Scripture enjoins upon us. 
If there should be any lingering doubt that God doesn’t look askance on repetition in prayer,
note that in Revelation 4:8-11 we find the heavenly host engaging in repetitive prayer (“Holy,
holy, holy Lord God Almighty”), said “day and night” before the throne of the Almighty,
followed by repetitious antiphons from the elders. 
The Hail Mary is the heart of the rosary and is said on each of the ten beads which are grouped
together to form a decade, there being fifteen decades totaling 150 Hail Marys–as many Hail
Marys as there are psalms. The first part of the prayer is composed of two Bible verses strung
together: “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee” (Luke 1:28) and “blessed art thou
among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (Luke 1:42). 
The remainder of the prayer reads, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at
the hour of our death. Amen.” As she was on earth called the object of divine grace (Luke 1:28)
and is now in heaven a glorified saint, Mary is called “holy.” 
The title “Mother of God” (Greek, Theotokos, “God-bearer”) is an ancient one. A piece of
papyrus found in Egypt and dating to 250-270 invokes the intercession of the Theotokos.
[Papyrus 470 in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, England]. Catholics maintain that the
person born of the Virgin Mary is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the divine Word
(Greek, Logos), and is therefore God (John 1:1, 14). As Jesus is God, humanity and divinity fully
united in one Person, the mother of Jesus is therefore the mother (but not the originator or
creator) of God; she is the Theotokos. [If one should look at the visitation of Mary to her cousin
Elizabeth, who looks at Mary and exclaims, “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of
my Lord (Greek: ha mater tou kyriou mou) should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). As anyone familiar
with the Bible is aware, the title “Lord” is practically synonymous with the God of Israel (Ps.
110:1-4). Indeed, whenever the translators of the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) found
the word “YHWH” (the Tetragrammaton, “Yahweh”) in the Hebrew text, they translated it as
Lord (kyrios), though kyrios is really the Greek translation of Adonai, the Hebrew word for Lord.
Thus what Elizabeth exclaimed could be reworded, “But why is this granted to me, that the
mother of my God should come to me?”] 
Many non-Catholics object to the practice of asking the saints in heaven, including the Virgin
Mary, to pray for us. Often cited is 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Since Jesus is our only mediator, they argue,
Mary (or any other saint) shouldn’t be asked to pray on our behalf. By praying “Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” Catholics intrude on the
sole mediatorship of Christ. But this idea can be held only if one believes that death creates a
chasm between Christians on earth and Christians in heaven. 
Catholics believe that Christians aren’t separated from Christ or each other at death (Rom 8:38-
39). The Body of Christ “is one though it has many parts” (1 Cor. 12:12), and Christians don’t
become amputated from the Body when they go to heaven. Nor are there two Churches, one in
heaven and another on earth, separated by death and thus somehow not in communion with
each other. The Church is the Bride of Christ (Rev. 21:9ff), and Jesus is a strict monogamist. We
reject any idea that separates us from one another and consequently destroys the unity of the
Church. 
As stated in the Apostles’ Creed, Catholics believe in “the communion of saints.” This means
that since we’re all one in Christ, we can ask the saints in heaven to pray for us every bit as
much as we can ask our brothers and sisters in the Lord here on earth to pray for us. Since we
are specifically commanded to pray for each other (1Tim. 2:1, Eph. 2:18, Heb. 4:16), and since
the word of the Lord “stands firm in the heavens” as well as on earth (Ps. 119:89), we don’t
violate Scripture by asking for the prayers of the saints in heaven. It is precisely because of
Christ’s mediatorship that Christians in heaven can pray for those on earth. 
We know the saints in heaven are aware of what occurs to us (Heb. 12:1, Luke 15:7) and that
they offer prayers (Rev. 5:8-10, 8:3), including praying for God’s intervention on the earth (Rev.
6:9-10). Hebrews 12:22-24 tells us we approach not only Jesus, “the mediator of the new
covenant,” but the heavenly Jerusalem and the “assembly of the first-born enrolled in heaven”
and “the spirits of the just made perfect.” We don’t hesitate to ask them for their prayers
because the prayers of the righteous “availeth much” (Jas. 5:16b). 
Some object that the saints are dead and that the Bible forbids communication with the dead
(Lev. 19:31, 20:6, 27) through mediums and other occultic means (necromancy). But Catholics
do not attempt to get information from spirits, as is done in seances. The Church condemns
occult practices. Moreover, the saints in heaven aren’t “dead” they’re more alive than you or I:
“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” Jesus quoted from Exodus.
“He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. Ye therefore do greatly err” (Mark
12:26-27). If Jesus did not intend the saints on earth to communicate with the saints in heaven,
he certainly set a rather poor example in appearing to Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor
(Matt. 17:1-8). 
Sometimes Fundamentalists such as Jimmy Swaggart say that praying ten Hail Marys to every
Our Father confirms their worst fears about Catholicism: Catholics prefer Mary to God by a
margin of ten to one. This assertion is not only offensive to Catholics, but it’s logically awry as
well. Looking at a King James Bible, does the fact that Paul’s name occurs 126 times in the book
of Acts compared with only 68 times for Jesus’ name imply that the author of Acts thought Paul
twice as important as Jesus? Does the fact that the Protestant translation of the book of Esther
contains neither the word “God” nor the word “Lord” mean that the author of that book was an
atheist? Such statistical “proofs” prove nothing at all. The rosary is a devotion in honor of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, who, under divine inspiration, herself prophesied that all generations
would call her blessed (Luke 1:48). In such devotions Catholics happily fulfill the prophecy,
recalling that God blesses us when we bless those whom he has especially favored (Gen. 12:3,
27:29, Num. 24:9). 
After the ten Hail Marys, the Gloria is said on the solitary bead separating the decades. It’s a
doxology that has been used since the Trinitarian controversies of the early Church: “Glory be
to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever
shall be, world without end. Amen.” It is, like the Apostles’ Creed and the Our Father, to be
found in most mainline Protestant churches. 
Yet there is more to the rosary than “rattling off” prayers. The rosary is a contemplation of the
Gospels. With each decade is associated a “mystery,” Gospel episode to be meditated upon,
the word “mystery” being used in the theological sense of divine revelation. There are fifteen
mysteries divided into three groups of five: joyful, sorrowful, and glorious. 
The joyful mysteries are the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth (Luke
1:39-56), the Nativity (Luke 2:1-20), the presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:22-38), and
the finding of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52). 
The sorrowful mysteries are the agony in the garden of Gethsemane Luke 22:39-53), the
scourging (John 19:1; Is. 53:5), the crowning with thorns (Mark 15:17-20), the way of the cross
(Mark 15:20-22), and the Crucifixion (John 19:18-30). 
The glorious mysteries comprise: the Resurrection (John 20:1-29), the Ascension (Acts 1:6-12),
the descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-13), the Assumption of Mary (Rev. 12:12), and Mary’s
coronation in heaven (Rev. 12:1-2, 5). 
Note that all of the fifteen mysteries, except for the last two, are explicitly taught in the Bible.
We’ll close with an examination of the two that are present only by implication. 
The bodily Assumption of Mary into heaven at the end of her life is neither explicitly taught nor
contradicted by the Bible, though there are precedents (Hebrews 11:5 mentions the
assumption of Enoch; 2 Kings 2:1-13 recounts that of Elijah; Paul admits the possibility of his
own bodily assumption in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4). There is no indication that Mary’s remains
were venerated as relics (a customary practice in the early Church), and the belief in her
Assumption is held both in the East (Orthodox) and in the West (Catholic). 
Mary is perceived in Catholic thought as the proto-Christian and the symbol of the Church as a
whole. Hence her Assumption is seen as a sign of the ultimate destiny of the Church: Christ will
come at the end in order to take his Bride into the kingdom and to glorify her (2 Thess. 4:16-
17). The belief in the Assumption is affirmed by all Christian communities having historic links
with the ancient Church–which our Lord promised to lead into all truth (John 16:12-13; cf. Matt.
16:18, 28:20). The belief is very old as well as widespread, and those who deny this teaching do
so without scriptural warrant, for Christians are to follow all apostolic traditions, whether or
not written in the New Testament (2 Thess. 2:15). 
The coronation of Mary in heaven should be understood against the Jewish background of early
Christianity. In Judah, partly because of the Fourth Commandment (Ex. 20:12), the mother of
the anointed king had a function of considerable importance, and her name is with only two
exceptions associated with the accession of the king in the official annals. [See 1 Kings 14:21;
15:2, 10; 22:42; 2 Kings 8:26; 9:6-7, 22; 12:1; 14:2; 15:2, 33; 18:2; 22:1; 23:31, 36; 24:18]. The
king’s mother bore the powerful and prestigious title of Gebirah [Literally “lady” or “mistress,”
used six times in the Bible and always as the title of a queen, whether the wife (1 Kgs. 11:19) or
mother of a king (1 Kgs. 15:13, 2 Kgs. 10:13, 2 Chron. 15:16, Jer. 13:18, 29:2). It ought to be
noted that the title is used only once in reference to the wife of a king, and even there it is used
of Tahpenes, the queen of Egypt, and not of a queen of Judah, where the title is associated
more with the queen mother] and received honors of the first order. She had an official place at
the court, was mistress of the harem, had enough power to seize complete control over the
nation (as did Athaliah in 842 B.C., 2 Kgs. 11:1-3), was sent into exile with the king (as was
Nehushta in 597 B.C., Jer. 29:2), and could be deposed (as was King Asa’s idolatrous
grandmother, Maacah, who first became queen mother during the reign of her son Abijam, 1
Kgs. 15:2, 10, 13, 2 Chron. 15:16). The Gebirah was a monarchical institution and had a throne
and a crown. [ Compare Jeremiah 13:18, where the prophet proclaims to the eighteen-year-old
Jehoiachin and the queen mother, Nehushta, “Say to the king and to the queen mother, ‘Come
down from your thrones, for your glorious crowns will fall from your heads.'” ] 
As Jesus is the ultimate King of the Jews, fulfilling the messianic prophecy in 2 Samuel 7:10-17,
it would be strange indeed if Mary did not have this crown as the ultimate queen mother. The
monarchical nature of the kingdom of God, complete with queen mother, may be difficult to
appreciate for those who live in a democratic culture, but it was something accepted as natural
in early Christendom, as witnessed by the art and literature. 
In 1 Kings 1:16, 31 we see Queen Bathsheba petitioning King David, her husband, by bowing
“her face to the earth, and [doing] homage to the king, and [saying], ‘Let my lord, King David,
live forever!'” This was common protocol in the court of an Oriental monarch, though the
position of the queen seems to have been somewhat higher in other Near Eastern countries
than it was in Judah and Israel (but compare Jezebel in 1Kings 21:7-11). 
Contrast this to the next chapter. In 1 Kings 2:13-20 Solomon, the son of David, has come to the
throne. Adonijah approaches “Bathsheba the mother of Solomon” with a request and says,
“Please speak to King Solomon, for he will not refuse you.” Bathsheba promises to intercede
with Solomon on his behalf (compare John 2:1-11, where Mary intercedes with Jesus), not
seeing through Adonijah’s plot to seize the throne. “Bathsheba therefore went to King
Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah.” The use of the title “King Solomon” hints that Solomon
acts in his official capacity (cf. verse 23). 
Instead of Bathsheba scraping her face on the floor before Solomon as previously she had done
before David, King Solomon “rose up to meet her and bowed down to her and sat down on his
throne and had a throne set for the king’s mother; so she sat at his right hand. Then she said, ‘I
desire one small petition of you; do not refuse me.’ And the king said to her, ‘Ask it, my mother,
for I will not refuse you'” (vv. 19-20). Solomon wasn’t merely being a nice son. It was a custom
throughout the ancient world to make the right-hand seat the place of honor and of delegated
authority, which is precisely why the New Testament speaks of Christ as being seated at the
right hand of the Father. Bathsheba’s status in society had changed; she had become the
“king’s mother.” 
The Bible teaches that the Old Testament types (such as the Passover lamb, the Flood, Hagar,
and Sarah) find their fulfillment in the New Testament (John 1:29, 1 Pet. 3:18-21, Gal. 4:21-31).
As Christ is superior to the Passover lamb which foreshadowed him, the fulfillment of the type
is always greater than the type itself. Christians have recognized that Jesus Christ, Son of David
and King of Israel par excellence, is the perfect fulfillment of King Solomon, the original son of
David. Christians have also recognized that the Virgin Mary fulfills perfectly the role of
Solomon’s mother, the original Gebirah who foreshadowed the mother of the Messiah. 
Catholics believe Jesus rose from his throne in heaven and, like Solomon, came down to meet
his mother and elevated her to be with him (the Assumption). He then led her to a throne set
up for her at his right hand in a position of authority and special honor (the coronation). Here,
like Bathsheba, she intercedes on our behalf as the queen mother of the Church, the spiritual
Israel (Rom. 11:17ff, 1 Pet. 2:9). From lowly handmaid of the Lord to Gebirah of the kingdom of
God: “For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant; for behold, henceforth all
generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me. . . . He has
put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly” (Luke 1:48-49, 52). 
Epicetus in the second century said that “if your heart is set upon a crown, make and put on
one of roses, for it will make the prettier appearance.” “Rosary” comes from the Latin rosarium,
which means “rose garden” and suggests the presention of a rose wreath to our Lady. 
Here is the crowning of the King’s Mother (Rev. 12:1) and, more importantly, of the King of
Kings himself (Rev. 6:2). It is through persevering in the faith that we hope to be given our own
crowns (Rev. 2:10), and no other devotional practice surpasses the rosary in obtaining and
strengthening the grace necessary for this end. “Every athlete exercises discipline in every way.
They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one” (1 Cor. 9:25).
Why the Rosary Isn’t “Vain Repetitions”
Question:
Jesus says, "Use not vain repetitions as the heathens do” (Matt. 6:7, King James Version).
Doesn’t this prove that Catholics are wrong in praying the rosary?
Answer:
There are three ways we can respond.
First, Jesus is not condemning repetitious prayer per se. If he were then he would be
condemning himself, since he prayed multiple times, “Father . . . remove this cup . . . not what I
will, but what you will” (Mark 14:39). But that’s absurd.
Furthermore, right after Jesus condemns the “vain repetitions” of the Gentiles, he commands
the apostles, “Pray like this . . . Our Father who art in heaven . . .” Does Jesus intend for us to
only say it once? Are we forbidden to repeat the Our Father? Of course not.
Finally, if we accept the objector’s interpretation of Matthew 6:7, we would have to condemn
the four angels of Revelation 4:8 singing day and night without ceasing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the
Lord God Almighty.” Of course we don’t want to do that!
So what was Jesus condemning?
He was condemning Gentile prayers, which were meaningless or mindless repetitious prayers,
as the Greek word battalogesete suggests. The Gentiles recited prayers only to appease their
gods. They were, as the Revised Standard Versioh translates it, “empty phrases” having nothing
to do with expressing one’s love for and trust in God. They would simply say the words, and
that was it—they went their merry way and lived their lives as they wanted. That’s what Jesus
is condemning, not repetitious prayer such as we find in the rosary.
Do Catholics Pray “Vain Repetitions?”: Jesus' condemnation of the
pagans is not a condemnation of all repetitious prayer
By TIM STAPLES
As a young Protestant, this was one of my favorites to ask Catholics. “Why do Catholics pray
‘repetitious prayer’ like the Rosary when Jesus says not to pray ‘vain repetitions’ in Matthew
6:7?”
I think we should begin here by quoting the actual text of Matt. 6:7:
And in praying do not heap up empty phrases (“vain repetitions” in KJV) as the Gentiles
do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Notice the context? Jesus said “do not heap up ‘empty phrases’ (Gr. – battalagesete,  which
means to stammer, babble, prate, or to repeat the same things over and over mindlessly) as the
Gentiles do…” We have to remember that the main idea of prayer and sacrifice among the
pagans was to appease the gods so that you could go on with your own life. You had to be
careful to “take care of” all of the gods by mentioning them, and saying all the right words, lest
you bring a curse upon yourself.
And remember as well, the gods themselves were immoral at times! They were selfish, cruel,
vengeful etc. The pagans would say their incantations, offer their sacrifice, but there was no
real connection between the moral life and the prayer. Jesus is saying that this will not cut it in
the New Covenant Kingdom of God! One must pray from a heart of repentance and submission
to God’s will. But does Jesus mean to exclude the possibility of devotions like the Rosary or the
Divine Mercy Chaplet which repeat prayers? No, he does not. This becomes evident when, in
the very next verses of Matthew 6, Jesus says:
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like
this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debts, As
we also have forgiven our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For
if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not
forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Jesus gave us a prayer to recite! But notice the emphasis on living the words of the prayer! This
is a prayer to be recited, but they are neither “empty phrases” nor “vain repetitions.”
Examples of Biblical “Repetitious Prayer”
Consider the prayers of the angels in Revelation 4:8:
And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within,
and day and night they never cease to sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was
and is and is to come!”
These “four living creatures” refer back to four angels, or “Seraphim,” that Isaiah saw as
revealed in Is. 6:1-3 about 800 years earlier, and guess what they were praying?
In the year that King Uzzi’ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and
his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he
covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to
another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Someone needs to inform these angels about “vain repetition!” According to many of our
Protestant friends, especially Fundamentalists, they need to knock it off and pray something
different! They’d been praying like that for ca. 800 years!
I say that tongue and cheek, of course, because though we don’t understand fully “time” as it
applies to angels, let’s just say they have been praying this way for a lot longer than just 800
years. How about longer than mankind has even existed! That’s a long time! There is obviously
something more to Jesus’ words than just to say we should not pray the same words more than
once or twice.
I challenge those skeptical of prayers like the Rosary to take a serious look at Psalm 136 and
consider the fact that Jews and Christians have prayed these Psalms for thousands of years.
Psalm 136 repeats the words “for his steadfast love endures for ever” 26 times in 26 verses!
Perhaps most importantly, we have Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, in Mark 14:32-39
(emphasis added):
And they went to a place which was called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit
here, while I pray.” And the took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be
greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to
death; remain here, and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and
prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba,
Father, all things are possible to you; remove this chalice from me; yet not what I will,
 but what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, ”Simon,
are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter
into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went
away and prayed, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them
sleeping… And he came a third time, and said to them, “Are you still sleeping…?”
Our Lord was here praying for hours and saying “the same words.” Is this “vain repetition?”
And not only do we have our Lord praying repetitious prayer, but he also commends it. In Luke
18:1-14, we read:
And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose
heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded
man; and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, “Vindicate
me against my adversary.” For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself,
“Though I neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will
vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.” And the Lord said,
“Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to
him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them
speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” He also
told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and
despised others: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the
other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, “God, I thank
thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax
collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.” But the tax collector, standing
far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be
merciful to me a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than
the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be
exalted.”

Final Thoughts
Would any wife tell her husband, “Hey knock it off! You’ve already told me you loved me three
times today! I don’t want to hear it any more!” I think not! The key here is that the words are
from the heart, not the number of times they are said. I think that is Jesus’ emphasis. There are
some words, like “I love you,” or like the “Our Father,” or the “Hail, Mary,” that you really can’t
improve upon. The key is that we truly enter into the words so that they are coming from our
hearts.
For those who do not know, the Rosary is not about “mindless repetition” so that God will hear
us. We repeat the prayers of the Rosary to be sure, but we do so in order that we may keep our
focus while we meditate upon the most important mysteries of the Faith. I find it to be a
wonderful way for me to be able to focus on the Lord.
I find it ironic that as a former Protestant who prayed much, and many words, before I was
Catholic, that it was far easier to drift into “vain repetition” when all I prayed was spontaneous
prayers. My prayers often devolved into petition after petition, and yes, I tended to pray the
same way, and the same words, over and over, over the years.
I have found praying liturgical prayer and devotional prayers to have tremendous spiritual
benefit. First, these prayers are either from Scripture, or from the greatest minds and souls who
have ever walked the earth who have gone before us. They are theologically correct as well as
spiritually rich. They free me from having to think about what I am going to say next and they
allow me to really enter into my prayer, and into God. These prayers challenge me at times
because of their spiritual depth while they keep me from reducing God to a cosmic bubble gum
machine. “Give me, give me, give…”
In the end, I have found, the prayers, devotions, and meditations of the Catholic tradition
actually save me from the “vain repetition” that Jesus warns about in the Gospel.
This does not mean that there is not a danger of mindlessly repeating the Rosary or other such
devotions. There is. We must always stay on guard against that very real possibility. But if we do
fall prey to “vain repetition” in prayer, it will not be because we are “saying the same words”
over and over in prayer as our Lord did in Mark 14:39. It will be because we are not praying
from the heart and truly entering into the great devotions Holy Mother Church provides for our
spiritual nourishment.
Is Jesus against Catholic Prayers?
OBJECTOR: Don’t Catholics engage in many standard and repetitious prayers, both in their
Masses and in their private lives? Aren’t prayers in your religious services dictated by the
Church? And don’t Catholics use things like the rosary and the Divine Mercy chaplet to pray?
These types of prayers seem to me to be mechanical and insincere as well as against scriptural
teaching.
CATHOLIC: For the sake of clarity, I think it’s important to distinguish between standardized
prayers and repetitious prayers. The prayers that are used publicly in a Mass or other religious
ceremony (e.g., consecration of a Church building) are prescribed by the Church, but they are
not repetitious in the way that the rosary or the Divine Mercy chaplet is.
OBJECTOR: It’s hard for me to see how standardized prayers could be from the heart. If a priest
has to read a prayer from a book, how can he really be sincere?
CATHOLIC: I can assure you that a prescribed or written prayer can be just as much from the
heart as any prayer off the cuff. And when a priest reads or recites a prayer in the Mass, he can
be as sincere as if he had composed the prayer himself. One of the most important reasons that
the Church provides these prayers is that it doesn’t want the people of God to be misguided by
the individual inclinations or, even worse, the false teachings that an individual priest might fall
into unknowingly. Standardized prayers are a way of exercising the pastoral care of Christ in his
body, the Church. I hope you’ll agree that we cannot and should not judge the sincerity of
another person’s heart by the prayers he uses, especially when those prayers come from a
tradition that we are not familiar with.
OBJECTOR: Perhaps we should not be quick to judge another’s sincerity, but the use of
repetitious prayers is clearly against Scripture. Read Matthew 6:7–8. “And in praying do not
heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many
words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Jesus
says explicitly that we should not “heap up empty phrases.” You may be aware that the
word battalogeo is used only once in the New Testament: here in Matthew 6:7. It seems to be a
word of special importance. It also can be translated “to babble on” or “to repeat endlessly.” If
the Hail Mary is not a vain repetition, I don’t know what is.
CATHOLIC: That is an interesting text, but why did you stop at the end of verse 8? In verse 9,
Jesus says explicitly, “Pray then like this.” He then goes on to teach us to pray the Lord’s Prayer
(the Our Father). If Jesus was against standardized prayers, why did he give us one to pray? And
I presume you would agree that he wanted us to pray this on many occasions.
OBJECTOR: Perhaps, but I think Jesus was giving us more a model of prayer here than
something we should repeat mindlessly.
CATHOLIC: I agree that the Lord’s Prayer is a model of prayer, one that we can use as a basis for
other prayers. But since he says explicitly, “Pray like this,” I don’t think we can exclude a
repetitious use of this prayer. After all, if this is a perfect prayer coming directly from the mouth
of the Lord himself, we might be in danger of ignoring his command if we don’t pray it often.
OBJECTOR: Well, I don’t have any objection to praying it, but we should clearly avoid the
“babbling” and “vain repetitions” that Jesus condemned in Matthew 6:7–8. The many
repetitious prayers used in Catholic piety are obvious examples of violating Jesus’ prohibition.
CATHOLIC: Then I suppose you also would condemn Eastern Orthodox Christians who use the
Jesus Prayer. This prayer is very simple: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.” In
eastern Christianity, the monks and lay people would repeat this prayer throughout the day as
a way of communing with God.
OBJECTOR: I have never heard of that prayer, but yes, I would say that any Christian who uses
repetitious prayers like that would be violating Jesus’ words. How can such a prayer really be
meaningful? It can even deceive a person into thinking that he is praying from the heart when
in fact he is just babbling phrases.
CATHOLIC: Not all repetition is vain. Consider the prayers spoken of in Revelation 4:8 offered
day and night without ceasing: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and
is to come!” Another repetitious prayer pleasing to God is contained in Psalm 136: “For his
steadfast love endures for ever.” This phrase is repeated over twenty-five times. Finally,
Matthew 26:44 tells us that Jesus himself prayed the same prayer three times in the garden in
Gethsemane.
OBJECTOR: Your examples from Scripture are heartfelt prayers directed to God, not vain
prayers directed to Mary.
CATHOLIC: You may feel comfortable in judging the hearts of other Christians, but I do not. I
don’t think one person can know whether another person is really sincere or not in his prayer. I
prefer to follow Jesus’ command: “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1). Charity
toward our fellow Christians should presume sincerity until we have clear evidence to the
contrary. Remember what God said to Samuel the prophet: “For the Lord sees not as man sees;
man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).
OBJECTOR: Well, I agree that we cannot judge another. But as you said, “until we have clear
evidence to the contrary.” It’s clear enough to me that saying the Hail Mary fifty-three times in
about twenty minutes counts as vain repetition.
CATHOLIC: I suppose that would be natural for you think since you have never had any
experience with such prayers. From your standpoint it looks impossible to be praying from the
heart when such repetitious prayers are used. But you don’t understand that the purpose of
the rosary is to meditate on the life, death and resurrection of Christ. 
The fact that the Hail Mary begins with the words from Luke 1:28, 42 recalling the pivotal event
in salvation history—when Jesus became incarnate—is reason enough to pray these words day
and night. But there is even more to this devotional prayer. For example, in the first sorrowful
mystery, we meditate on Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane. The other meditations
guide us through the other mysteries of our faith.
OBJECTOR: Well, the only kind of prayers that I think can be truly from the heart are freely
composed or extemporaneous prayers.
CATHOLIC: Perhaps a reminder is in order here that non-Catholic Christians often lead others in
a standardized “Sinners Prayer.” Furthermore, no Christians would deny that reading Scripture
over and over again for the purpose of entering more deeply into the life of Christ is pleasing to
God. So perhaps there is a subtle bias against Catholic standardized prayers. Whether using
standardized or extemporaneous prayer, Catholics have the same goal of always praying from
the heart.
OBJECTOR: If that is true, then I would say that there is a disconnect between their intention
and the methods or types of prayer used. These standardized and repetitious prayers cannot be
from the heart. Maybe these prayers are just another example of the “traditions of men” that
Jesus condemns in Mark 7:8.
CATHOLIC: These prayers allow us to participate in the prayer of the whole body of Christ, since
many others use the same prayers. It has the effect of binding our hearts with our fellow
believers. But it is also important to know that standard and repetitious prayers are just a small
part of the wealth of the Catholic Church’s teachings on prayer.
OBJECTOR: Well, all that non-Catholics are exposed to are these kinds of prayer s.
C ATHOLIC: Maybe so, but to the insider, to the person who prays as a Catholic, there is a much
richer treasure of prayer life. As an example, take the fourth century bishop of Constantinople,
St. John Chrysostom. He says that “prayer and converse with God is a supreme good; it is a
partnership and union with God. The prayer from the heart—continuous throughout the day
and night” (On Prayer, 6). You can see that this father of ancient Catholicism instructs us clearly
in prayer from the heart. Whether we use repetition or free-flowing thoughts, the important
thing is that our prayer rises from a loving heart to a loving God. This is the essence of the
Catholic understanding of prayer. In fact, Chrysostom goes on to say, “I speak of prayer, not
words. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by man but by God’s
grace.” The apostle Paul says, “We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself
intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). Whether we are at worship in
Mass, in a group of Catholics praying, or at home in our closet, our desire is to reach out to God.
St. John Chrysostom leads us to the ideal of prayer in obedience to Paul’s command in 1
Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray constantly.” Listen to him again:
“Our spirit should be quick to reach out toward God not only when it is engaged in meditation;
at other times also, when it is carrying out its duties, caring for the needy, performing works of
charity, giving generously in service to others, our spirit should long for God and call him to
mind, so that these works may be seasoned with the salt of God’s love, and so make a palatable
offering to the Lord of the universe. Throughout the whole of our lives we may enjoy the
benefit that comes from prayer if we devote a great deal of time to it.”
The Rosary Isn’t Heaping Up Empty Phrases
Question:

Does praying the rosary violate Jesus' command to not "heap up empty phrases" and "many words"
(Matt. 6:7)?

Answer:

If the rosary were simply about repeating words, then it would violate Christ’s command. However, the
rosary is about meditation. When we pray the rosary, we are saying the prayers while meditating on
salvation history.

The rosary is not magic or superstition. We do not simply say X number of Hail Mary’s and X number
of Our Fathers and X number of Glory Be’s, and, voilà, our wishes come true. Praying the rosary is about
meditating on the events of salvation history and what God reveals to us through them. It’s no different
than praying and meditating upon the Psalms or certain passages of Scripture.

Jesus himself repeated prayers:

He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass
from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”

Withdrawing a second time, he prayed again, “My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without
my drinking it, your will be done!”

He left them and withdrew again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing again
(Matt. 26:39, 42, 44).

To claim that simply repeating the same prayer is a violation of Jesus’ teaching would be to claim Jesus
violated his own teaching!
Are the angels in heaven violating Jesus’ teaching by praying the same prayer forever?

The four living creatures, each of them with six wings, were covered with eyes inside and out.
Day and night they do not stop exclaiming: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was,
and who is, and who is to come” (Rev. 4:8).

Jesus’ point in Matthew 6:5-8 is about prayer without heart, prayer without soul, prayer without inner
meaning. Jesus is condemning superstitious prayer that thinks the right combination of words will
produce a desired result. Praying the rosary is about mediation and worship of God, not finding the right
formula to get what we want.

Why More Hail Marys than Our Fathers in the Rosary

Question:
Why do say the Hail Mary more than the Our Father when we pray the rosary?
Answer:
The words of the first part of the Hail Mary are words addressed to her by the angel Gabriel and
her relative Elizabeth. The second part is merely a request for the mother of God to pray for us.
But most important of all: the whole point (the context) of the Hail Mary is not Mary but the
incarnation of Jesus. Without the incarnation, we would have no Our Father. If Jesus had not
taken flesh in her womb, we would never have heard of her. So whenever we pray the Hail
Mary, we are professing our faith in Jesus, the Word made flesh. As she said to Elizabeth, her
soul magnifies the Lord; everything about her speaks of God.

The Hail Mary Is in the Bible

Question:
Is saying the Hail Mary wrong? It's not in the Bible.
Answer:
But it is in the Bible. When the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary by the Father, he greeted her,
“Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). When Mary visited Elizabeth, Elizabeth
exclaimed, “Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your
womb” (Luke 1:41-42). So here we have the first part of the Hail Mary. St. Bernardine added the
name of Jesus, clarifying who the fruit of her womb is.
The second part is in response to the first, asking Mary to pray for us and addressing her as the
mother of God. Of course, Elizabeth addressed her in much the same way: “Why should I be
honored with a visit from the mother of my Lord?” (Luke 1:43).
Since Gabriel’s words were at the request of God, those words were actually God’s words. So
we are honored to repeat them.

The Holy Rosary

The Power of the Hail Mary

Pope Pius XI On the Rosary

In the year 1214 While St. Dominic was trying to convert sinners without success, because of the
Albegensian heresy that had devastated southern France, he went off in prayer in the forests of
Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During which he wept and did
penance in order to appease the anger of Almighty God. He finally fellinto a coma. Here Our lady
appeared to him saying " Dear Dominic do you know which weapon the blessed trinity wants to use to
reform the world?" Oh, my Lady, You know far better than I do because next to yours son Jesus Christ
you have always been the Chief instrument of our Salvation,". Our Lady replied saying " I want you to
know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the
foundation of the New Testament" .

Rising and burning with Zeal for the conversion of the people in that district he went directly to the
Cathedral. At once, unseen angels rang the bells to gather the people and Saint Dominic Began to
preach. At the very beginning of his Sermon an appalling storm broke out, the earth shook, the Sun was
darkened, and there was so much Thunder and lightning that all were very much afraid. Even greater
was their fear when, looking ata picture of Our Lady exposed in a prominent Place, they Saw her raise
her arms to heaven three times to call down God's Vengeance upon them if they failed to be converted,
to amend their lives, and seek the protection of the Holy Mother of God. From hence forth many
miraculous conversions resulted and the Heresy's were destroyed.

The Rosary in Scripture & its History

The prayer of the Rosary is actually taken from parts of Scripture wesee this as we join together the
words of the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation (Lk 1:28) together with Elizabeth's greeting to Mary at
the Visitation (Luke 1:42). However the Church added the name of Mary to the beginning and that of
Jesus to the end of the Angelic Salutation "Hail Mary". At the council of Ephesus, in 431, Holy Mother
Church defined that the Blessed Virgin is truly the Mother of God (Jesus is God) and thus gave us the
conclusion of the Hail Mary, . Further the joining of these two passages can be found as early as the fifth,
and perhaps even the fourth, century in the eastern liturgies of St. James of Antioch and St. Mark of
Alexandria. It is also recorded in the ritual of St. Severus (538 AD). In the west it was in usein Rome by
the 7th century for it is prescribed as an offertory antiphon for the feast of the Annunciation. The great
popularity of the phrase by the 11th century is attested to in the writings of St. Peter Damian (1007-
1072)and Hermann of Tournai d.c. 1147).

Even though the rosary is it's self evidently taken from scripture many Protestants often claim that to
repeat a prayer is of no benefit, Yet Christ himself whom we should all imitate taught us to pray in such
a manner as he himself prayed repeating the same words. We see this at Gethsemane, were he (Jesus)
says (Matthew 26:36 - 44) " Father if possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you, not i
would have it" we notice here that it tells that Christ went away praying for the THIRD TIME REPEATING
THE SAME WORDS. However one must first understand that before we pray any prayer that God Does
NOT listen to the words of Men but totheir hearts, For he even spoke to his people saying " These
people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me" (Matthew 15:8) , fromthis we know
that God knows our hearts and he seeks to converse with ourhearts (our eternal souls) in prayer.

The Rosary is made up of both mental and Vocal prayer. In the Holy Rosary mental prayer is none other
than meditation of the chief mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ and of His Blessed
Mother. While the Vocal prayer consists in saying fifteen decades of the Hail Mary, each decade headed
by an Our Father, while at the same time meditating and contemplating the fifteen principal virtues
which Jesus and Mary Practiced in the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

The Rosary was being prayed since the early Church, however saints like St Dominic, Blessed Alan De La
Roche, St Tomas Aquinas and other Saints and Popes of the Church throughout the ages by their
example and Wisdom helped to increase Knowledge and love of this most powerful of prayer, the
Rosary.

The Church Saints Speak on the Rosary

St Dominic

"After the Divine Office and the Holy Mass, no homage is as agreeable to Jesus and His Divine Mother as
the fervent prayer of the Holy Rosary, since the work of salvation began with the Angelic Salutation (Hail
Mary) the Salvation of each one of us in particular is attached to this prayer."

St Louis De Montfort

" The Holy Rosary  is not  just a conglomeration of our Fathers and Hail Mary's, But on the contrary it is a
Divine Summary of the Mysteries of the Life, Passion, Death, and Glory of Jesus and Mary."

Gregory XVI 1831

" We are confident this prayer, so conducive to giving honor to the Blessed Virgin in all places and at all
times, will not only continue to spread more and more everywhere because of its simplicity, but also
because made more powerful by so close a union among those who pray, it will be most favorably
accepted by God. "
Pope Puis IX 1849

"Among the devotion aproved by the Church none have been so Favored byso many miracles as the Holy
Rosary."

St Bernard

"The Hail Mary puts the devil to flight and causes Hell to Tremble with terror."

Pope St. Pius X 1903

" There is nothing more excellent, it seems to us, than that numerous voices are uninterruptingly and
from many parts of the world simultaneously lifting supplications to the Blessed Virgin Mary as they
meditate on the Christian mysteries, so that the blessings of her maternal goodness may not cease to
descend upon the Church."

Pope Puis XII

"there is no surer means of calling down God's blessing upon the family. . . than the daily recitation of
the Rosary".

St Francis De la Salles ( Doctor of Church)

"The best method of prayer is the Holy Rosary if you Say it well."

Pope Leo XIII

" A powerful means of rendering our courage will undoubtedly be found inthe Holy Rosary".

St Teresa of Avila ( Doctor of the Church)

"I would Gladly suffer . . . Just to have the chance to pray even one HailMary in order to gain more merits
before our lord."

Pope Benedict

"People who pray the Rosary are appealing to the Mother of Mercy and somerciful is She, that She's
inclined to aid spontaneously, those who suffer.She is absolutely incapable of refusing help to those who
invoke Her. TheRosary prayed daily is the most fitting formula for praying and meditating."

St John Neuman 1860

"The Holy Rosary is to me the most beautiful of all devotions, as it containsall in itself."
Pope St Puis V

"The Holy Rosary was given to the Faithful in order that they might havespiritual peace and consolation
more easily."

Bishop Hugh boyle

"No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary- either he will give up sin or he will give
up the Rosary."

Pope Paul XXIII

". . . Therefore we are sure that Our Children and all their bretherenthroughout the world will turn (the
Rosary) into a school for learningtrue perfection, as, with a deep spirit of recollection, they
contemplatethe teachings that shine forth from the life of Christ and of Mary MostHoly."

Pope John Paul II

"It is my favorite prayer."

Where Did the Rosary Originate?

Except for the Our Father, no Catholic prayer or devotion may be more revered than the
Rosary.
Many say the Rosary daily, reciting this prayer not only in church but during special times and
places we set aside. Many keep the beads in their pocket, hang them in cars, put them on
bedposts. They may be part of the essentials carried every day, such as keys, wallets or purses.
When lost or misplaced, many may feel incomplete until the beads are found or a new set is in
their possession. But when did this whole idea of counting beads while praying begin? Where
did the Rosary originate?
For centuries long before Christ, the faithful said prayers in a repetitive manner and found
different methods of keeping count, often by using rocks or pebbles. By at least the ninth
century, monks were reciting all 150 psalms, at first every day, but later every week as part of
their prayers and devotions. One way they kept track was to count out 150 pebbles and then
place one pebble in a container or pouch as they said each psalm. People living near the monks
wanted to mimic this devotion, but due to lack of education couldn’t memorize all the psalms.
Printed copies, even if individuals could read, were not available as the printing press was
centuries away. So Christians began to pray 50 or 150 Our Fathers (or Paternosters) each week
instead of the psalms. In order to keep count of the Our Fathers, they often used string with
knots in it instead of counting on rocks. Later the knots gave way to small pieces of wood and
eventually to the use of beads.
St. Dominic
There has long been a tradition in the Church that St. Dominic de Guzman (1170-1221) is the
source of the Rosary. In the 12th century, the Albigenses heresy was widespread in Europe,
especially in southern France and Italy. The Albigenses denied the mystery of the Incarnation,
rejected Church sacraments and condoned many secular activities considered evil by the
Catholic faith. Among the efforts by the Church to combat this heresy was the organization of
the mendicant orders, including one led by St. Dominic. The Dominicans, as they became
known, tried to reverse the vile teachings of the Albigenses by roaming the countryside
preaching against the heresy, trying to influence the fallen away back into the Church. Tradition
has it that St. Dominic’s efforts were most effective following a visit from the Blessed Virgin
Mary in the year 1214. Neither Dominic nor his order ever made this claim.
The legend spread from an alleged dream of Blessed Alan de la Roche in the 15th century, more
than 250 years after Dominic died. De la Roche was a respected writer and theologian of his
time (c. 1428-1478) and instrumental in spreading the Rosary devotion throughout the Western
Church. In his dream, Mary gave Dominic the Rosary and instructed the saint to preach the
Rosary as part of his effort to thwart heresy. According to de la Roche, Mary said to Dominic, “If
you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter.” The
Psalter refers to the Angelic Prayer, the Hail Mary. Among those who related this beautiful story
is St. Louis Marie de Montfort in the book “God Alone: The Collected Writings of Saint Louis
Marie de Montfort.”
While many Church scholars do not give credence to de la Roche’s story, numerous popes have
advocated Dominic as indeed the source of the Rosary. In the 18th century, the Bollandists, a
religious community that researches and verifies Church facts and historical allegations,
questioned the role of Dominic in the Rosary story. The future Pope Benedict XIV (r. 1740-58),
at the time a member of the Vatican Sacred Congregation of Rites, responded to the
Bollandists: “You ask whether St. Dominic was really the illustrator of the Rosary, you declare
yourselves perplexed and full of doubt upon the subject. But what account do you make of the
decisions of so many sovereign pontiffs — of Leo X, of St. Pius V, of Gregory XIII, of Sixtus V, of
Clement VIII, of Alexander VII, of Innocent XI, of Clement XI, of Innocent XIII, of Benedict XIII,
and of many others who are all unanimous in declaring the Rosary to have been instituted by
St. Dominic himself?” (Augusta T. Drane, “The History of St Dominic, Founder of the Friars
Preachers,” Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1891, p. 136, and other sources.)
Rosary Evolution
Notwithstanding papal advocacy for Dominic’s role, there are divergent views regarding the
evolution of this most beautiful of Marian devotions. Many scholars and theologians conclude
that it is the outgrowth from the early monks saying the psalms, but some differ in regard to
the identity of individuals contributing to the growth throughout the centuries. Despite the
different views, there is widespread agreement on certain facts.
The Rosary includes six of Catholicism’s most familiar prayers: the Apostles’ Creed, the Our
Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, the Fátima Prayer (“O My Jesus”) and the Hail Holy Queen.
The inclusion of these prayers in the Rosary did not happen overnight but was a lengthy
evolution down through the centuries. Originally, the Our Father was said 150 times as a
replacement for the psalms, saying the prayer on each bead of the Rosary string. A Glory Be
was normally part of the prayer. During the 11th century, St. Peter Damian (d. 1072) suggested
praying 150 Angelic Salutations, the Hail Mary, as an alternative prayer to the Our Father. The
Hail Mary at that time consisted of Gabriel’s angelic salutation to Mary, “Hail Mary full of Grace
the Lord is with you” (see Lk 1:28-31), and the exchange between Mary and Elizabeth during
the visitation, “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (Lk 1:39-
45). The name of Jesus (“blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus”) was included sometime later.
In 1365, a Carthusian monk named Henry of Kalkar (1328-1408) divided the 150 Hail Marys into
15 groups of 10 beads each. He placed an Our Father between each group or decade (10
beads); the prayer was thus made up of 10 Hail Marys, repeated 15 times with an Our Father in
between each set.
In the mid-15th century, another Carthusian monk, Dominic of Prussia (1382-1461), introduced
a similar devotion that included 50 Hail Marys with 50 individual thoughts or phrases about
Jesus and Mary. A different thought or phrase would accompany each Hail Mary.
Around 1480, the evolution continued when “an anonymous Dominican priest … retained the
pattern of the decades that Henry of Kalkar suggested but focused them on fifteen episodes in
the life and work of Mary and Jesus, not on fifty or one hundred and fifty of them. Instead of
meditating on a Mystery for the space of a single Hail Mary, people could meditate more deeply
for the time it took to recite ten Hail Marys devoutly; and instead of circling the Mystery by
meditating on a myriad of details, they would approach the details by focusing on the heart of
the Mystery itself.” (Kevin O. Johnson, “Rosary: Mysteries, Meditations and the Telling of the
Beads,” Pangaeus Press, Dallas, 1997, p. 199). By now there were 15 groups of 10 beads, 15
decades. Each decade, instead of each bead, was accompanied by a meditation on the life of
Christ and Mary.
Completion of the Hail Mary
By the first part of the 15th century the Hail Mary consisted of: “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the
Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
The third part, known as the petition (“Pray for us Holy Mother of God…”) is traced back to the
Council of Ephesus in 431. At that council, Church leaders officially defined Mary as not only the
Mother of Jesus but as Theotokos (God-bearer, the Mother of God).
On the night this proclamation was made, the citizens of Ephesus marched through the town
joyfully chanting, “Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners.” This petition, including the
words “now and at the hour of our death” would become part of the prayer by the time Pope
St. Pius V (r. 1566-72) issued the papal bull Consueverunt Romani Pontifices in 1569
encouraging the universal use of the Rosary.
Since Pope Pius V issued that document, only the Fátima Prayer has been added to the Rosary.
The Fátima prayer, given to the Portuguese children during the Fátima apparition in 1908, is
widely used, but it is not universal. The Rosary made up of 150 beads, promoted by Pope Pius
V, is still subscribed to by the Church but is, of course, different than the popular Rosary with 50
beads that many of us carry in our pockets.
From the 16th century until the 21st century there were three sets of mysteries: the Joyful, the
Glorious and the Sorrowful. But in 2001 Pope St. John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light. The
intent was to include meditations on the time in Jesus’ life between His incarnation (a Joyful
Mystery) and His passion (a Sorrowful Mystery).
We Catholics instinctively turn to the Rosary in times of crises and life’s sorrows, in the midst of
personal and even public tragedies.
How many soldiers have repeated the Hail Mary over and over on the battlefield? In our
darkest hour, even the hour of our death, we plead for the intercession, the blessing and
comfort of the Blessed Mother using this 700-year-old devotion which ends, in part, “Turn then
most gracious advocate thine eyes of mercy toward us …”
D.D. Emmons writes from Mount Joy, Pennsylvania.
Why the Rosary, Why Now?
GRETCHEN R. CROWE
12 MIN READ
It’s easy for Catholics to take the Rosary for granted. We tend to purchase them as souvenirs, or
carry them around with us, or even wear them — but we forget the immense power that they
have when we actually pray them. And that’s really too bad, because a devotion to the Rosary
can be the answer to so many struggles in our 21st-century world.
Our society today faces growing secularism and the disappearance of faith from the public
square. We find ourselves confronting a world awash in the spread of evil and terrorism, war
and violence. We are plagued by broken families, abounding distractions and a general lack of
drive for holiness.
But the Rosary can help. And we know this because Mary herself told us this 100 years ago in
Fátima, Portugal, when she appeared six times to three shepherd children once a month from
May to October 1917. She told them repeatedly: “Recite the Rosary every day to obtain peace
for the world and the end of the war.”
We also know the great value of the Rosary because it has manifested its power time and time
again in the lives of men and women of faith throughout history. This, of course, isn’t because
the Rosary is magical; it’s because it brings us to Jesus. As the late Cardinal Francis E. George,
archbishop of Chicago, said at the conclusion of the Year of the Rosary in 2003: The Rosary
“brings us to the heart of the Gospel.” Here’s how.
Break through the Noise
In today’s typical lifestyle, it is easy to become distracted and overwhelmed by all of the
“noise.” Technology is constantly demanding our attention. We sit in front of screens and, at
the same time, look at smaller screens. We are drawn in by the lure of social-media alerts and
use texting as a primary form of communication. We have developed an “always on” or “always
available” mentality, and noise no longer knows any boundaries. A Nielson report issued in June
2016 said that Americans, on average, spend more than 10 hours a day looking at some type of
screen. It’s easy for us to tell ourselves we’re being productive and that this abundance of
“screen time” is necessary, but the reality is that all that noise is damaging to our relationship
with God.
This is not just a 21st-century problem, although it has become more pronounced in recent
decades. In 1973, Cardinal Albino Luciani — then-archbishop of Venice who would go on to
become Pope John Paul I — gave a homily that identified a “crisis of prayer” in the world —
adding that part of the reason was due to the fact that “noise has invaded our existence.”
If he thought that life was noisy in 1973, what would Papa Luciani think of 2017?
We also face an abundance of internal noise. We are distracted by interior barriers to prayer
that often manifest themselves in the form of pride and self-centeredness. In all of these
moments of difficulty, we can turn to the Rosary. The meditative quality of the devotion can
help focus us and break through the external noise. At the same time, by praying this simple
prayer frequently, faithfully and with humility, we can break down our internal barriers.
In his homily recounted in the book “Why the Rosary, Why Now?”, Cardinal Luciani gives a
beautiful and passionate defense of the Rosary — one that is just as relevant in 2017 as it was
in 1973.
A Deeper Devotion to the Church
One of the intellectual, spiritual and even media giants of the 20th century was Archbishop
Fulton J. Sheen. Archbishop Sheen also had a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother, and he
dedicated a book to her called “The World’s First Love, Mary, Mother of God.”
Many of you are probably familiar with Father Patrick Peyton, known also as “the Rosary
Priest.” He’s the one who coined the phrase, “The family that prays together, stays together.”
But he didn’t just make up the phrase one day; he had been educated and formed on the
immense value of the Rosary from birth.
Father Peyton was so used to praying the family Rosary every night, for example, that when he
left home for the first time to work and was staying with another Catholic family, he was
shocked and distressed when they all went to bed without gathering to pray first.
“While I pretended to sleep, I prayed my own Rosary and felt the pangs of homesickness, the
bitterness of being among people whose ways were different from my own, whose sense of
values failed to measure up to what all my training and experience had told me was normal,”
he wrote.
This was clearly a pivotal experience for Father Peyton — one in which he realized he couldn’t
take the faith given to him by his family for granted. And this is why, when tragedy struck later
in his life, as he was preparing for priesthood, Father Peyton was able to turn to Mary. Through
his devotion to her, Father Peyton was miraculously healed from a debilitating disease. And in
response, he dedicated his life to spreading devotion to Mary. As he said, “The merit and the
glory of every action I would ever perform would be hers and hers alone.”
Father Peyton went on to form the Family Rosary Crusade, making use of radio, film, outdoor
signage and more than 260 rallies on six continents to promote family prayer to millions of
people.
The excerpt describing this chapter in Father Peyton’s life included in “Why the Rosary, Why
Now?” comes from Father Peyton’s biography and chronicles his life-threatening illness and his
remarkable recovery — as well as the devotion to Mary and the Rosary that did not forsake
him.
An Increase in Christian Discipleship
I think it’s safe to say that each of us, somewhere along the path of life, has come across
someone of deep prayer or faith whom we greatly admire and perhaps even envy. I know that I
have. This kind of witness is a gift, and it’s a reminder to each of us that we are called to
establish our own close, loving relationships with Jesus.
To do this, we must encounter — a word that, in the Pope Francis era, has become a bit of a
buzzword, but which is no less vital — Him Encountering Christ means getting to know him
intimately, fully and without reservation. It means emptying one’s self so that we may be filled
instead with the Holy Spirit.
There are many ways to encounter Christ in our daily lives: through prayer, the sacraments and,
of course, the Eucharist. But a less-trod path to encountering Jesus is by developing a
relationship first with His mother. After all, it was she who knew Him best, having carried Him in
her womb. Mary lived with her eyes fixed on her son, watching over Him and learning from
Him. She treasured each moment she had with Him and, as St. Luke’s Gospel says, pondered
each in her heart.
The beloved St. John Paul II wrote in Rosarium Virginis Mariae, an apostolic letter on the
Rosary, that the devotion is “one of the traditional paths of Christian prayer directed to the
contemplation of Christ’s face.” When we pray the Rosary, we meditate on different moments
of Jesus’ life, all through the lens of His holy mother. This contemplation leads to a personal
encounter, which sets us on the path to Christian discipleship.
There is a startling dearth of Christian discipleship in the world today, mostly because it is not
easy to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him, as we are instructed to do. As
Christian disciples, however, we are called to set aside ego, selfishness and pride, and to
instead prioritize others. It’s a countercultural life, but one which Mary and the Rosary can help
to achieve.
Brings Peace to the World
One of my favorite Scripture verses comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Christian community at
Philippi in which he counsels them on everyday living: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of
God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-
7).
Toward the end of 2014, Bishop Doeme had a vision in which Jesus appeared to him and
handed him a sword. But when he reached out to take it, the sword turned into a Rosary. Jesus
then spoke saying “Boko Haram is gone” three times.
“It was clear that with the Rosary we would be able to expel them,” the bishop said. While this
is a remarkable testimony to the power of the Rosary when it comes to fighting evil, it’s not
unique.
Many other stories and holy people outline the protections that the Rosary can give, from the
Battle of Lepanto, which saved the Christian West from Ottoman invasion, to St. Padre Pio, who
called the Rosary “the weapon against the evils of the world today.”
In the included text, written in September 1951, Venerable Pope Pius XII put forth that the
Rosary is an antidote to the evils facing the world at the time, such as the nuclear age,
communism and the Korean War.
We find ourselves in different, but no less difficult, situations today with almost perpetual war
in the Middle East, terrorism at home and abroad, and the persecution of Christians around the
globe.
Pope Pius’ words about evil are just as applicable now as they were almost 70 years ago, and
the Rosary continues to be the weapon we have to fight it.
Combats Secularism
A recent study performed by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown
University in Washington, D.C., indicated that 13 was the typical age at which people were
leaving the Faith. When asked if they would ever consider returning to the Church, that number
raised its ugly head again — with, this time, only 13 percent of young people responding in the
affirmative.
Both statistics are disturbing, but they unfortunately present an accurate picture of where we
stand today in terms of widespread faith in our culture. We are losing it. In its place, our society
is facing a rapid spread of secularism. In an address to U.S. bishops in January 2012, Pope
Benedict XVI warned of the pervasiveness of secularism in American society saying, “It is
imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave
threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds
increasing expression in the political and culture spheres.”
But Pope Benedict was hardly the first pope to speak out against secularism. Pope Leo XIII, who
reigned from 1878 to 1903, was plagued by politics and the drama of atheist humanism during
his time as successor of Peter. In several portions of an astounding 11 encyclicals on the Rosary
(Pope Leo was known as the “pope of the Rosary”) — one of which is included in “Why the
Rosary, Why Now?” — Pope Leo spoke out about the dangers of a world without belief. His
words were strong and prophetic and are just as relatable now as they were then. Pope Leo
believed strongly in the power of the Rosary to fight these growing troubles — and he was
right. Praying the Rosary can help our world rediscover faith.
Helps Us Become Saints
Each of us is called to sainthood, but this life, as we all know well, is not easy. It requires
sacrifice, dedication, heroic virtue and, above all, a close relationship with Christ and a
determination to follow his will, come what may. Yet even though it’s not easy, sanctity is what
each of us is called to.
This universal call to holiness is expressed in the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen
Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) — which reminds us that we are called to “be
perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” When wanting to achieve holiness, where else is it
better to look than to those men and women who have already done so — that is, the saints
themselves.“The saints and blesseds of paradise remind us, as pilgrims on Earth, that prayer,
above all, is our sustenance for each day so that we never lose sight of our eternal destiny,” St.
John Paul said. “For many of them the Rosary … was the privileged instrument for their daily
discourse with the Lord. The Rosary led them to an ever more profound intimacy with Christ
and with the Blessed Virgin.”
Among the many saints with a devotion to the Rosary were Pope St. John XXIII, St. Teresa of
Calcutta, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Zelie Martin, Blessed John Henry Newman, Pope St. John
Paul II and St. Louis de Montfort. Through their example, we find inspiration for ourselves to
pray the Rosary more often to draw closer in holiness through Mary and her Son.

Why Is the Rosary Referred to as the “Poor Man’s Psalter?”

Question:
I recently heard a priest refer to the rosary as a "poor man's salter." What did he mean?
Answer:
A psalter—not salter—is a book that contains the 150 Psalms. Before printing was invented,
books were fabulously expensive. Most of the world was illiterate and poor, and poor men did
not own books. Often only monastic communities and churches had books. The book of the
Psalms was used for the daily recitation of prayers (something that continues today).
The common folk wanted to pray daily like the monks but had no books to read the psalms
from. Not up to memorizing all 150 Psalms, they recited an Our Father or Hail Mary in the place
of each psalm.
They strung 150 beads together, one for each psalm, so they could keep count. Other prayers
and meditations were added to this beaded string of 15 decades, until we arrived at the rosary
we have today.

How to Explain Sacramentals to Fundamentalists, Part I

Protestant Fundamentalists don’t believe that sacraments exist, even though they have two: baptism
and matrimony. Many of them use the term “ordinances” for baptism and their analog of the Eucharist,
which they call “the Lord’s Supper.” The isn’t just a matter of nomenclature. Not only do they use
different words than we do, but they mean different things.

To them, baptism is a sign and nothing more. To us, it is the sacrament that first brings sanctifying grace
to the soul. To them, the Lord’s Supper is a mere memorial of Holy Thursday. To us, it is the re-
presentation of the actual sacrifice on Calvary, but in an unbloody manner. To them, matrimony is a high
state but not a permanent one. To us, it is a permanent and grace-filled union.

We all, Catholics and Fundamentalists, know that Fundamentalists reject sacraments, at least in the
Catholic understanding of them, but they reject much more. They have a hearty dislike for distinctive
Catholic practices and for what we call sacramentals.

Sacramentals are defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as

. . . sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They signify effects, particularly of
a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church. By them men are
disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered
holy (CCC 1667).

Pesky sacramentals can pop up all over the place, not just inside Catholic churches but even inside
Fundamentalist churches. Consider the Fundamentalist wedding ceremony. The bride wears white and,
perhaps, a veil. She carries a bouquet. She and the groom exchange vows and rings. Each of these
actions and things has a religious significance: purity in the white garments, fidelity in the vows, for
instance. Each is a sign of the holiness of matrimony. Each is a sacramental if the word is used in a wide
sense.

If spoken to gently, Fundamentalists can come to accept the fact that they too use sacramentals, even if
they dislike the word. They are especially uncomfortable, though, when told many of these
sacramentals originated in pagan religions. After all, a standard Fundamentalist charge against
Catholicism is that its distinctive customs and beliefs are of pagan origin.

Fundamentalists don’t want to admit that they too have borrowed from paganism, but that is exactly
what they have done. After all, their churches are offshoots of offshoots from the Catholic Church, even
if they won’t admit the fact. (Fundamentalists believe their brand of Christianity goes straight back to
New Testament times. It actually goes back only to the nineteenth century.)

Let’s look at three Catholic practices (they can be considered sacramentals) that irk Fundamentalists.
We’ll look at additional ones in the next blog post.

Genuflecting

When they pass the Blessed Sacrament, Catholics go down on one knee to honor the Real Presence. This
posture of subservience makes perfect sense since Christ is really present in the tabernacle.
Fundamentalists don’t believe he’s there, of course (they believe instead in a Real Absence), but they
can be made to acknowledge the sensibleness of genuflecting through analogy.

Ask them to imagine themselves at Buckingham Palace, at an audience with the Queen of England. She
enters the room and walks up to a woman. Under court protocol, what is the woman supposed to do?
She is supposed to curtsy as a sign of respect for the queen.

Another analogy. A soldier meets an officer on the street. What does the soldier do? He salutes. Again, a
sign of respect and an acknowledgment of a superior.

Who is more superior to us than God? Which Fundamentalist, transported back to first century
Palestine, would not throw himself prostrate at the sight of Jesus? If that would be proper, then why not
genuflect where Jesus is sacramentally present?

Similarly, at Mass we stand when the Gospel is read, out of respect for the very words of Jesus, and we
sit to listen attentively to the other scriptural readings. At the consecration we kneel, kneeling being the
posture of adoration. What we are doing is praying with our bodies, not just with our minds, and praying
that way makes perfect sense for a creature composed of both body and soul.

Sign of the cross

Every Fundamentalist knows Catholics cross themselves when praying in church, when hiding in
foxholes, and when walking up to the plate to bat. They don’t, as a rule, know that Eastern Orthodox
Christians also cross themselves (although they do it “backward”), so they think the sign of the cross is
something that immediately distinguishes Catholics from “real” Christians.

But they don’t know that “real” Christians began making the sign of the cross at a very early date. The
theologian Tertullian, writing in A.D.211, said, “We furrow our forehead with the sign [of the cross].”
Making the sign was already an old custom when he wrote. It may have been common even when the
apostles were alive.

True, the practice is not mentioned in the New Testament, but neither are peculiarly Fundamentalist
practices such as the altar call, in which people march to the front of a church to announce publicly that,
because of the preaching, they have just decided to “make a commitment to Christ.”
The sign of the cross signifies two things at once: our redemption through the death of Jesus on the
cross and the Trinity as the central truth of Christianity. When we make the sign we trace the cross on
ourselves, and we recite the holy invocation: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.”

Incense

Not used as often in our liturgies as it once was, incense symbolizes the pleasant odor of Christian virtue
and our prayers rising to God. It is the first half of the “smells and bells,” and most Fundamentalists
think only Catholics use incense. But incense is not peculiar to Catholics. The ancient Jews used it:
incense accompanied prayers at the Temple (Luke 1:10). And one of the gifts given to the Christ Child by
the Magi was frankincense (Matt. 2:11).

But all that was before Christianity began, say Fundamentalists. Maybe so, but the Book of Revelation
deals with what happens afterward, and there we find that “the smoke of the incense along with the
prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hands of an angel” (Rev. 8:4). If there’s incense in
heaven, why not in churches here below?

How to Explain Sacramentals to Fundamentalists, Part II

Bells

Our church towers commonly have bells, often consisting of large sets, known as carillons, that can be
rung from a keyboard. Small handbells are rung during Mass. Large bells have been used for centuries to
call people to Mass and to sanctify certain times of the day—for instance, it once was the custom, in
Catholic countries, to ring church bells at noon so workers in the fields could pause and recite the
Angelus. During Mass bells are rung at the consecration, partly to focus our attention, partly to mimic
the hosannas of the heavenly choirs.

Fundamentalists disapprove of bells being used in Christian worship. Why they disapprove isn’t precisely
clear. Some say bells are of pagan origin and thus should be forbidden, but pagans also sang hymns, and
no Fundamentalist thinks Christian hymns should be forbidden. Other Fundamentalists are more
straightforward: They don’t like bells simply because bells are identified with the Catholic Church in their
minds. Of course, Protestant churches often have bell towers, but that’s overlooked by these
Fundamentalists. For them opposition to bells is largely a matter of prejudice.

The rosary

The usual complaint about the rosary is that it violates Matthew 6:7, which reads this way in the King
James Version: “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do.”

“See,” say Fundamentalists, “you Catholics repeat prayers, and Jesus told us not to!” Did he really? Then
how does one account for what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane? There Jesus prayed the same
prayer three times—that is, he repeated the prayer. Did he violate his own injunction? Was he a
hypocrite? No, that’s impossible, which means Fundamentalists are wrong when they claim Jesus
condemned repeated prayers.

Read Matthew 6:7 again. The operative word isn’t “repetitions.” It’s “vain.” Jesus condemned vain
prayers, such as those to nonexistent pagan gods.

What’s more, the rosary is an intensely biblical prayer. It contains not just the Our Father, which Jesus
himself taught us, but also the Hail Mary, which is built of verses lifted from the Bible: “Hail, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee” (Luke 1:28) and “blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy
womb” (Luke 1:42). The meditations associated with each decade (Catholics usually call them
“mysteries”) are also straight out of the Bible.

But most Fundamentalists don’t realize this. They think Catholics just rattle off Hail Marys without giving
a thought to what they’re doing. But when we pray the rosary we meditate on incidents in salvation
history, such as the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection.

Priestly vestments

What are uniforms for? To single out people for a particular function. The soldier’s uniform tells us his
vocation, the police officer’s uniform helps him be identified by someone looking for help, and the
Roman collar marks the priest. Vestments—a sacred “uniform”—are used at Mass. In this the Church
follows the example of the Old Testament liturgy, in which the priests were dressed in special clothes
(see Exodus 40:13-14, Leviticus 8:7-9), and of the New Testament, which tells us that John the Baptist
“wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist” (Matt. 3:4).

Holy water

Water covers most of the Earth, and it is absolutely necessary for life. No wonder this marvelous liquid is
used in sacraments and sacramentals. Sacred uses of water are found throughout the Old Testament:
the saving of the Israelites by the parting of the Red Sea (see Exodus 14:15–22), the miraculous flow
from the rock touched by Moses’ staff (Exodus 17:6–7), the crossing of the Jordan into the Promised
Land (Joshua 3:14–17), Ezekiel’s vision of life-giving water flowing from the Temple (Ezekiel 47:1–12).

In the New Testament we find the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13–17), the healing water of the pool of
Bethesda (John 5:1–9), and the water brought forth from Jesus’ side by the spear thrust (John 19:34).
We’re told by our Lord that to enter the kingdom of God we must be born of water and the Holy Spirit
(John 3:5).

With all these holy uses of water, is it any wonder the Church promotes the use of holy water? We find
it at baptisms, in exorcisms, and in the stoups at the door of churches. With it we bless ourselves
(there’s the sign of the cross again!), not because the water itself has any special powers—it’s ordinary
tap water with a pinch of salt added—but because its pious use brings to mind the truths of our faith.

If we take the time, we can help Fundamentalists see that “smells and bells” flow naturally from the
Incarnation, but it takes work. Many Fundamentalists are what might be termed hereditary anti-
Catholics. If something is Catholic, they don’t like it, period. They operate from prejudice, not from
dispassionate thinking. But even the most prejudiced can come to appreciate the sensibleness of
sacramentals if they have sacramentals explained to them by a patient Catholic. And patience works:
Some Fundamentalists now even pray the rosary!