Whats In The Name Rosary

Did you ever wonder how the Rosary got its name? Rosary’s Latin meaning is garland of roses, the rose and often the Rose is the flower that commonly is thought of when one things of the Blessed Mother. If you asked both Catholics and non-Catholics, what do they think of when they think of the Catholic Church although the Crucifix or the Eucharist should be first to mind it is always with little exception the Rosary. Most people have seen people praying the Rosary. Some put the Rosary around the mirror in their car. And some are older nuns with large ones hanging from their waist. And as a child I remember the little plastic pink and blues ones they gave us at school. But the rosary has made a comeback in recent years.

During the 60s after Vatican II the rosary seem to have fallen out of favor. Many stopped saying it as did Marian devotions, but Pope John Paul II was so committed to the Blessed Mother. Reciting the Rosary has come back in favor in the recent years. And so much so Pope John Paul II added a 4th set of mysterious, the Luminous Mysteries.

The rosary is a way to show your devotion to the Blessed Mother and ask for her intercession. There are several prayers with the Hail Mary repeated the most times The first prayer said is the Apostle’s Creed which do explain the beliefs of the Catholic person. Next is the Our Father, the prayer Jesus himself gave us when asked during the Sermon on the Mount that when you pray to the Father, pray in this way. The Our Father is actually Jesus’ own words. Then the Hail Mary is introduced at this point in the Rosary. The Hail Mary has its roots in the Bible where as its first part is the Salutation of The Angel Gabriel when he came to tell Mary she was about to be the mother of the Savior. The second part is an intercessory prayer asking for the Blessed Mothers help. The first part of the rosary has 3 Hail Mary’s. The Glory Be is also included And during the decades, the Fatima prayer was added by Our Lady in one of her appearances to the children of Fatima.

There is fairly common belief that the Rosary was instituted by St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominicans. Some will argue that he infact did not because parts of it predated him and other parts only came into favor after his death. But to ask the Dominicans they will say St. Dominic was believed to have seen the Blessed Mother in a dream. More to the point the rosary has been an evolving prayer all the way to the last changes made in the 20th century, the Addition of both the Fatima Prayer and the Addition of the Luminous Mysteries.

Some of this belief came because the origins of the Rosary can be traced back to earlier centuries It’s well known that the monks would recite all 150 psalms. And although the towns people couldn’t read, they would mimic the sound using root prayer such as the Our Father. Literacy was the main separation between these lay people and the monks. Their inability to read lead the way for them to come up with alternative ways to remember what was being prayed. In selecting the Our Father, the beads were used to count how many were being said.

The beads counting the Our Fathers also began being used to count the Hail Mary’s, ironically in the 12th century, around the time of St. Dominic. The original Hail Mary was just the Salutation of St. Gabriel. Or the first half of the Hail Mary we presently use.

As people learn more about the rosary, it is also gaining favor in Protestant Sect of Christianity as well. But the main point as each person learns more about the rosary it continues to gain favor as a meditative pray and keeping with its original form, the use of Rose Petals stimulating the sense of smell brings to mind the association with the Blessed Mother and her beloved Son, Our Lord.