The Rosary
Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Archbishop Fulton Sheen said,
"The Rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known;
it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men;
it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next.
The power of the rosary is beyond description."
Why the Holy Rosary?
The Rosary and the indulgences attached to it by the Church essentially concern the decades and the meditation upon the mysteries only.
Many great popes, saints, and Christian leaders have exhorted us to pray the rosary. It’s a powerful prayer, they say, one that can change your life, strengthen the family, bring peace to the world, convert entire nations, and win the salvation of souls.
According to Catholic traditions, St. Dominic was given the rosary by the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1214 in the Monastery of Prouille.
Since then, it has become one of the Catholic Church’s powerful tools of prayer.
The rosary is the perfect way to make time to connect with God, and for spiritual healing. Take 15 minutes a day to be one with Him.
Even for those people who do not know how, or who are not able to recollect themselves sufficiently to meditate, the simple act of taking the Rosary in their hands in order to pray is already to become mindful of God, and a mention in each decade of a mystery of the life of Christ recalls Him to their minds; this in turn will light in their souls a gentle light of faith which supports the still smoldering wick, preventing it from extinguishing itself altogether.
St Lucia
Just click on each heading for a particular decade.
( Mondays and Saturdays, may be said on Sundays during Advent and Christmas)
The Joyful Mysteries are marked by the joy radiating from the event of the Incarnation.
To meditate upon the joyful mysteries is to enter into the ultimate causes and the deepest meaning of Christian joy. It is to focus on the realism of the mystery of the Incarnation and on the obscure foreshadowing of the mystery of the saving Passion.
Mary leads us to discover the secret of Christian joy, reminding us that Christianity is, first and foremost, evangelisation, "good news", which has as its heart and its whole content the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the one Savior of the world.
(Tuesdays and Fridays, may be said on Sundays during Lent )
In the Sorrowful Mysteries we stand beneath the Cross of Jesus, coming face to face with the truth of his insistence that the Christ must suffer and die.
No matter that we long to cry out, if only we had been there; we still encounter the reality of our human position and the truth that is Our Lord's.
We sense the sword piercing the heart of his Mother, and pray that it may open our whole being to the agony and the power that the infinite love of Jesus in his Passion chose and endured for us
(Wednesdays and Sundays)
The Glorious Mysteries reveal the mediation of the great Virgin, still more abundant in fruitfulness.
She rejoices in heart over the glory of her Son triumphant over death, and follows Him with a mother's love in His Ascension to His eternal kingdom; but, though worthy of Heaven, she abides a while on earth, so that the infant Church may be directed and comforted by her "who penetrated, beyond all belief, into the deep secrets of Divine wisdom" (St. Bernard).
(Thursdays)
Moving on from the infancy and the hidden life in Nazareth to the public life of Jesus, our contemplation brings us to those mysteries which may be called in a special way
“mysteries of light".
Certainly the whole mystery of Christ is a mystery of light. He is the “light of the world" (Jn 8:12).
Yet this truth emerges in a special way during the years of his public life, when he proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom.
Each of these mysteries is a revelation of the Kingdom now present in the very person of Jesus.