THE ROSARY
HISTORY
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." We're familiar with the images: the silently moving lips of
the old woman fingering her beads; the oversized rosary hanging from the waist
of the wimpled nun; more recently, the merely decorative rosary hanging from
the rearview mirror. 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 comprise it come mainly from the Bible. The rosary is 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),
and 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, meaning every line of it, 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 re-interpret
this to refer to an "invisible church" consisting of all "true
believers" in Jesus. Protestants, when they say the prayer, refer to the
(lower-cased) "holy catholic church," using "catholic"
merely in the sense of "universal," not implying any connection with
the (upper-case) Catholic Church, which is based in Rome. (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"). Despite these differences
Protestants embrace the Apostles' Creed without reluctance, seeing it as
embodying basic Christian truths as they understand them.
THE
LORD'S PRAYER
The
next prayer in the rosary-Our Father or the 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 we say. (We won't reproduce it
here. All Christians should have it memorized.)
THE
HAIL MARY
The
next prayer in the rosary, and the prayer which 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, actually. 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 is 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." Let's look at the first words. 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; cf. Luke 1:45), and the Bible
describes Christians in general as holy. In fact, they are called saints, which
mean "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 object to the
title" Mother of God," but suffice it to say that 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; it is incorrect to say he is 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 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 (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 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 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 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. 0 clement, 0
loving, 0 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 often 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, as in the line, "It's a mystery
to me!" The fifteen mysteries are divided into three groups of five: the
Joyful, the Sorrowful, and 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
First we must understand that they are meditations. 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. It isn't just a recitation of prayers, but a meditation on the grace of God. Critics, not knowing about the meditation part, imagine the rosary must be boring, uselessly repetitious, meaningless, and their criticism carries weight if you reduce the rosary to a formula. 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: 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).
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).
The Glorious Mysteries: the Resurrection (Luke 24:1-12), the Ascension (Luke 24:5051), 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.
Given the scriptural basis of most of the mysteries, it's little wonder that
many Protestants, once they understand the meditations that are the essence of
the rosary, happily take it up as a devotion. We've looked at the prayers found
in the rosary and the mysteries around which it is formed. Now let's see how it
was formed historically.
THE
SECRET OF PATERNOSTER ROW
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"). In England there arose a craftsmen's guild of
some importance, the members of which made these rosaries. In London 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 count Hail Mary’s 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.
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