If you were to ask which one object is historically most emblematic of Catholics worldwide, the average person would probably say, "The rosary."
The rosary is a form of adoration to our God, and an opportunity to see Jesus through the eyes of His mother. It consists of a specific number of prayers, beginning with the introductory prayers: one Apostle's Creed, one Our Father (or Lord's Prayer), three Hail Marys, one Gloria Patri or Glory Be).
As with many other Marian devotions, the rosary fell into relative disuse after Vatican II. Since the early 1990's, however, the rosary has begun a comeback, and not just among Catholics. Many non-Catholic Christians now pray the rosary, recognizing it as a truly biblical form of prayer - with most of those prayers supplied by the Bible itself.
The Apostles' Creed
Although not composed by the apostles themselves, The Apostles Creed expresses the teachings of the apostles. The original form of the creed came into use around A.D. 125, and the present form dates from the fifth century. It reads as follows: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, sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. 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.
Most non-Catholic Christians are able to recite the Apostle's Creed with no qualms, meaning every line of it, though to some lines many give meanings different from those given by Catholics. While it can refer to the Catholic Church," meaning a particular, identifiable Church, it can also refer to the (lower-cased) "catholic church," using "catholic" merely in the sense of "universal Church of Jesus Christ," to which all Christians belong.
The Lord's Prayer
The next prayer in the rosary--: the Our Father, also known as the Lord's Prayer, is acceptable to all Christians. The Bible relates two slightly different versions (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4).The Hail Mary
The next prayer in the rosary, and the prayer really at the center of the devotion, is the Hail Mary. Since the Hail Mary is a prayer to honor Mary, some non-Catholic Christians assume it's unbiblical. It's quite the contrary, actually. Let's look at it.The prayer begins, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." This is the greeting the Angel Gabriel gave Mary in Luke 1:28. The second sentence reads as follows: "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 directly 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." Let's look at the first words. "Holy Mary" should be objectionable to no one, one might think; but some do object to it, saying Mary was a sinner like the rest of us. But Mary was a Christian (the first Christian, actually--cf. Luke 1:45), and the Bible describes Christians in general as holy. In fact, we 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 people object to the title "Mother of God,". The title doesn't mean Mary is older than God; it means the Person who was born of her was of a divine nature. (Jesus is one Person, the divine, but has two natures, the divine and the human; it is incorrect to say he is only a human person.) 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 fifth century, and which most Reformers and non-Catholic Christian Bible scholars have also always rejected. Many are more comfortable substituting "Holy Mary, Child of God and Mother of Our Savior, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."
Another Mediator?
The most problematic line for non-Catholic Christians is usually the last: "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death." Many people think such a request denies the teaching of 1Timothy 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 Gloria Patri or Glory Be, 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 Patri 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 the opening prayers of the rosary. In fact, we've covered all the prayers of the rosary except the very last one, which is usually the Salve Regina (Latin, "Hail, Queen"). It's the second most commonly recited prayer asking Mary to pray with us to her Son, second only to the Hail Mary itself, and was composed at the end of the eleventh century. It reads as follows:"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 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 to us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary."
And those are the prayers of the rosary. Between the introductory prayers and the concluding prayer is the meat of the rosary: the decades. There are twenty decades in a full rosary - each 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 as seen by his mother. Here the word mystery refers to a truth of the faith, not to something incomprehensible, as in the line, "It's a mystery to me!" The twenty mysteries are divided into four groups of five: the Joyful, the Luminous, the Sorrowful, the Glorious. When people speak of "praying the rosary" they generally mean praying any set of five rather than the recitation of all twenty mysteries.
Now let's look at the mysteries.
Meditation Is The Key
First we must understand that the rosary is a series of meditations. When we recite the twelve prayers that form a decade of the rosary, we meditate on the mystery associated with that decade. If we merely recite the prayers, whether vocally or silently, we're missing the essence of the rosary. The rosary is a meditation on the grace of God. Critics, not knowing about the importance of the meditations, imagine the rosary must be boring, uselessly repetitious and meaningless. If we reduce the rosary to a formula, their criticism carries weight. Christ forbade meaningless repetition (Matt. 6:7), but the Bible itself prescribes some prayers that involve repetition. An example of this is Psalm 136, which is a litany (a prayer with a recurring refrain) meant to be sung in the Jewish Temple. In Psalm 136 the refrain is "His mercy endures forever." Sometimes in Psalm 136, the refrain starts before a sentence is finished, meaning it is far more repetitious than the rosary, though this Psalm was written directly under the inspiration of God.It is the meditation on the mysteries of God that fortifies the rosary with power.
The Joyful Mysteries are these: the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), the Visitation (Luke 1:40-55), the Nativity (Luke 2:6-20), the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:21-39), and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41-51).
The Mysteries of Light follow: the Baptism of Jesus (Matt. 3:17), the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2:1-11), Jesus Proclaims the Coming of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15), The Transfiguration (Luke 9:29), and The Institution of the Eucharist (John 13:1)
They're followed by The Sorrowful Mysteries: the Agony in the Garden (Matt. 26:36-46), the Scourging (Matt. 27:26), the Crowing with Thorns (Matt. 27:29), the Carrying of the Cross (Luke 23:26-32), and the Crucifixion (Luke 23:33-46).
Concluding are The Glorious Mysteries: 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, and her Coronation.
With the exception of the last two Glorious Mysteries, each mystery is explicitly scriptural. True, the Assumption and Coronation of Mary are not found in the Bible, but they are not contrary to it, so there is no reason to reject them out of hand. Given the scriptural basis of all the other mysteries, it's little wonder that Christians of varied traditions, once they understand the meditations that are the essence of the rosary, happily take up this devotion.
We've looked at the prayers found in the rosary and the mysteries around which it is formed. Now, let's look at its historical foundation.
The Tall Tale of Alan de Rupe
It's commonly thought that St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans), instituted the rosary. Not necessarily so. Certain parts of the rosary predated Dominic; then others arose only after his death. While there's little doubt that he was very involved with the rosary, it appears to have been evolving for centuries.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 should have some form of prayer of their own. These lay brothers were distinct from the choir monks, and their chief distinction was that the lay brothers were generally illiterate. Since they couldn't read the psalms, they couldn't recite them with the monks. They needed a prayer that they could memorize.
The prayer first chosen was the Our Father, and, depending on circumstances, it was said from fifty to a hundred and fifty times. These lay brothers used rosaries to keep count, and the rosaries were known then as Paternosters ("Our Fathers").
Paternoster rosaries needing to be made, a craftsmen's guild of some importance soon arose in England, the members of which made these rosaries. In London today you can find a street, named Paternoster Row, which preserves the memory of the area where these craftsmen worked.
The rosaries that originally were used to count Our Fathers came to be used during the twelfth century to also count Hail Marys--or, more properly, the first half of what we now call the Hail Mary. (The second half was later added.)
Dominic was born in 1170 and died in 1221. There is evidence of Marian rosaries consisting of between fifty and a hundred-and-fifty prayers being recited in England, for example, twenty years before the first Dominican foundation in that country.
None of the early biographies of Dominic mentions the rosary, and no treatise by a Dominican written in the two centuries following Dominic's death claims that he instituted the rosary.
If Dominic wasn't responsible, how did he get the credit? Apparently through the preaching of a Dominican, Alan de Rupe, during the years 1470 to 1475. Alan suggested that a rosary of a hundred and fifty Hail Marys was instituted by Dominic. Unfortunately, Alan de Rupe has been alleged to be a born exaggerator, but, in those historically uncritical years, his claims were generally accepted as true.
Rosary: A Prayer of Union
Decades ago, Fr. Herbert Thurston wrote that it should not "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." St. Dominic, in his present situation, surely doesn't mind being denied full credit for the establishment of the rosary. No one single person can take credit for it, the rosary having developed over centuries into what is still the most popular Catholic devotion, and one to which Christians of many traditions find themselves attracted.
The word "rosary" comes from the Latin, meaning a garland of roses. The rose was one of the flowers used to symbolize the Virgin Mary.
All Christians, as we learn more about the rosary and make more frequent use of it, come to see how its meditations bring to mind the sweet fragrance of a garland of roses, not only that of the Mother of God, but of Christ Jesus himself.
