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If you'd like to either listen to or download The Grammy-nominated Joyful Mysteries in its entirety at no cost, please click on the "Listen Free" toolbar above. 

Or, study the prayers and history of the rosary, order the set of Rosary Tapes, available only on CDs, either through mail order or directly from this website, or review a sampling of previous news articles written about them. 

This past Summer, The Associated Press released the following story worldwide:

Rosary Gets Pop Music Makeover 

By COREY WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer

Friday, July 25, 2008

(07-25) 04:11 PDT DETROIT (AP) --

Madonna is on Jennifer Zablocki's iPod. So is "The Madonna."

The Detroit-area 12th-grade teacher works up a sweat to the pop diva's music as well as songs honoring Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Among the hundreds of popular and Top 40 selections Zablocki has downloaded are the Rosary Tapes, a collection of Roman Catholic prayers and meditations for the rosary set to contemporary music by a pair of jingle writers better known for helping Ford Motor Co. sell cars.

"I don't make it to church every week, so it's just kind of my way of keeping in touch with my faith," said Zablocki, a 25-year-old Catholic.

The Rosary Tapes have helped open the centuries-old tradition to other Christian denominations, according to former rock station disc jockey Bill Gildenstern and composer John Giaier, both devout Catholics. The Michigan-based music consultants have released the fourth CD in the set and have seen more than 1 million free downloads of an earlier CD.

"It's not a Catholic prayer, it's a Christian prayer," Gildenstern said. "We all have our traditions, but the bottom line is we're Christians. I see the rosary not as something to, in any way, replace our Sunday worship together, but rather as a way to bring prayer into other areas of our lives where we may typically not pray, such as while driving or exercising."

People with few qualms about listening to something from a different denomination will have no trouble getting into the Rosary Tapes, Zablocki said.

"It's really nice-sounding music," she said. "It's not like preaching to you or anything like that. I don't think anybody would feel uncomfortable — if they weren't Catholic — listening to it."

The rosary is a series of prayers beginning with the Apostle's Creed, Lord's Prayer, three Hail Marys and one Gloria Patri, also known as "Glory Be to the Father." Catholics believe that as the rosary is recited, it allows a person to see Jesus through Mary.  A string of small rosary beads typically is used to count prayers.

Jesus' birth, baptism, crucifixion and resurrection are part of the 20 mysteries that make up the Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious and Luminous mysteries in the rosary.

Gildenstern and Giaier, who helped compose "Have You Driven A Ford — Lately?" and have written thousands of other advertising jingles in a more than 30-year collaboration, added original lyrics, music, percussion, acoustic and electric guitars, organs, pianos and vocal harmony to the devotional prayers.

"The mix with contemporary music is rather unique, and I think it's an attraction to the style of prayer for a number of people," said the Rev. Bob Konopa, a priest at Saint Thomas Aquinas Church in Saginaw, Mich.

"We've used them in the church during reconciliation services for children. The response has been good."

Gildenstern said he was motivated to create the Rosary Tapes to help recite the prayers while driving, but Giaier said he had to be sold on the project.

"I was selfishly thinking of how it would look in our industry as being religious fanatics," Giaier said. "I thought he was out of his mind. I wanted no part of it."

But Gildenstern took one of the mysteries, tapped out "Silent Night" on the piano and had his wife sing the traditional Christmas hymn while the rosary was recited.

The combination brought Giaier's wife to tears. "From that moment on I've felt drawn to do this," he said.

Joyful Mysteries was released in 1992, followed by the Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries a year later. Free Internet downloads of the Joyful Mysteries started in 2001, and the Mysteries of Light, or Luminous Mysteries, was released this winter.

Outside of the free Internet downloads of the Joyful Mysteries, more than 40,000 sets of the Rosary Tapes have been sold, far from enough to make the two longtime friends wealthy. The four-CD set costs $39.95 online.

The tapes have renewed Cleo LaVoie's eagerness to pray the rosary.

"For a while, the rosary just went away," said the 82-year-old, who lives about 50 miles north of Duluth, Minn. "When you say the rosary at church, it's kind of dry.

"I love the tapes," said LaVoie. "The music kind of inspires you."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/07/25/national/a041149D01.DTL

 

As Family of the Father, we’re now releasing our 5th CD, “Songs of Mystery”, the 5th CD in the set, which contains just the songs of The Rosary Tapes, and is now included in each set at no additional cost.

 

It took 5 years from the time that the Mysteries of Light were first introduced by Pope John Paul II for us to finish them.  As we grew up with the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries, we knew them well.  But we needed to learn these new 5 mysteries before we could insightfully write The Mysteries of Light songs and meditations.  

We spoke with members of the clergy both within and outside the Catholic tradition.  We studied the Scripture, and, in the end, we discovered five components of a very beautiful, complete prayer – not just for Catholics this time, for all Bible-believing Christians.  The completeness of this prayer is contained in the 5 referenced points of Scripture:  reconciliation, petition, praise, empathy, and gratitude.

 

The Rosary Tapes® is now a collection of the 20 events of the Rosary, (Joyful, Luminous, Glorious and Sorrowful), on 4 CDs, with a 5th bonus CD containing "Songs Of Mystery", he songs of The Rosary Tapes..  This collection includes meditations and prayers for the entire rosary along with Grammy-nominated music from Family of the Father, a contemporary Christian musical group from Michigan.  Its author is Bill Gildenstern, and its composer is John Giaier. 

It was the summer of 1992, and Bill was driving from his home in Saginaw to a business appointment in Detroit, praying the rosary.  The beads got stuck in the track of the car seat that day, and he began to think, 'There must be a better way.' He'd just returned from a week at a Franciscan retreat center in Wisconsin.  

Later, he remembers sitting at his desk.  Before him was his desk, behind him, audio equipment; and he began to pray, "Lord, all my life I've always tried to do pretty much what I've wanted to do.  Now, I want to do what You want me to do. Please tell me what You want me to do, Lord."  As quickly as he made the prayer, all he seemed to hear was 'Turn around.'  Bill turned around and stared at the audio studio, not knowing what to do with it.  He recalls just asking God, "What do I do now?" 

Then he got an idea. He'd create a tape of the rosary.  Each decade would include meditations united with a song, reflecting the theme of that particular mystery.  Bill had written award-winning lyrics in the commercial arena for years, and he felt the need to work with a top-notch composer to assure the quality of the tapes.  The name, John Giaier, came to mind.  John had composed "Have You Driven a Ford Lately" and the two of them had written a number of musical images over the years for clients around the US. 

With his wife, Kelly, Bill created a tape of the third Joyful Mystery - The Nativity - and used "Silent Night" to wrap the mystery.  He wrote the meditations, tapped out the melody on the keyboard, and asked Kelly to sing the song, help him read the meditations, and recite the prayers.  He knew that he would need a tangible example to sell the idea to John. 

The next afternoon, Bill drove the tape to John & Debbie's home.  He told John he had something he wanted to do. John wasn't all that receptive at first.  So Bill suggested they ask his wife, Debbie, to listen to the tape that Kelly and Bill had made.  Shortly after the 3rd Joyful Mystery began, Debbie asked them to leave the room, then began to cry while listening to the tape. 

John remembers that, while he was somewhat surprised by Debbie's reaction to it, it took him a little time to warm-up to the idea.  Shortly after Bill had played the tape for them, John was driving through the Sonoran desert.  He found himself wishing that he'd had a tape like that to pray with; and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that t should undertake the project together.  So, together Bill and John wrote the songs based on meditations that Kelly and Bill had written.  

We released the Grammy-nominated Joyful Mysteries in October of 1992. Shortly after, newspapers and radio and television stations around Michigan began writing stories about them.  After Christmas, we began work on the Sorrowful & Glorious Mysteries Rosary Tapes.  Upon their release, in July of 1993, The Detroit Free Press ran David Crumm's front page story, the wire services picked-up the story and fed it to media around the world.  We began hearing from people from across the country and around the world.  We're honored to have received a very nice thank you note from Pope John Paul II.  

We've saved the many boxes of letters that've arrived over the years.  To read many of those letters is to begin to understand the power of prayer, and the peace that God gives to those who simply spend time with Him.  As the years went by, we began sensing a growing desire for more than audiocassettes.  The CD era had arrived - everywhere.  People were getting insistent that we release The Rosary Tapes on CDs. Of course, our response was "If you want them, pray that God finds a way for us to have them made."  Somebody prayed, because on May 31, 2001, we released them - and more. We also re-mixed the Glorious Mysteries tape (CD) and then re-mastered all three.  

We opened this Rosary Tapes website so that people could download The Joyful Mysteries.  We've been told that well over a million had been downloaded.  David Crumm from The Detroit Free Press wrote our story, which was picked up by the wire services and sent around the world.  When we called him later to thank him for the story, he told us about an interesting call he'd received from an office full of stockbrokers in New York's World Trade Center who had downloaded it and were all jubilantly praying with it in the office. Three months later, 9/11 brought them back to mind.