History of the Rosary

CCORDING to tradition, the rosary was given to Saint Dominic by the Blessed Virgin Mary in an apparition in 1214. Other sources suggest a more gradual development of the rosary over time which may have begun as a practice by the laity to imitate the monastic Liturgy of the Hours also known as the Divine Office. The Divine Office recites the 150 psalms over the course of its cycle. The laity, many of whom could not read, substituted 150 Our Fathers or Hail Marys for the Psalms. To assist in keeping an accurate count and to free their minds to meditate, a cord with beads or counters was often used.

The use of such "prayer beads" and the repeated recitation of prayers to aid in meditation stem from the earliest days of the Church. During the Middle Ages (roughly 500AD to 1450AD) strings of beads were used to count Our Fathers and Hail Marys. These strings of beads thus became known as "Paternosters," the Latin for "Our Father."

Whatever the actual origin, the structure of the rosary as we know it today, took shape between the 12th and 15th centuries. St Dominic (d 1221), regardless of whether he actually originated the rosary or not, certainly was highly effective in preaching its use to convert sinners and those who had strayed from the faith.

The rosary gained greater popularity in the 1500s, when Moslem Turks were ravaging Eastern Europe. In 1571, Pope Pius V asked all of the faithful to say the rosary and implore our Blessed Mother's prayers, under the title Our Lady of Victory, that our Lord would grant victory to the Christians. Although outnumbered the Christian fleet defeated the Moslems at the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The following year, Pope St. Pius V established the Feast of the Holy Rosary on October 7.

From the 16th to the early 20th century, the structure of the rosary remained essentially unchanged. There were fifteen mysteries, one for each of the fifteen decades which were grouped into Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries. Following the apparition of Our Lady to three small children at Fatima in 1917, the addition of the Fatima Prayer to the end of each decade became popular. There were no other changes until 2002 when John Paul II instituted five optional new Luminous Mysteries.

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."

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