In the recent film “Wedding in Galilee,” two traditional Muslim couples were shown together praying, while the camera zeroed in on some beads sliding along a wire with their chant. In his essay “Worship in the Parish Communities” (Feast of Faith, Ignatius, 1986), Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger mentioned the importance of not making Mass our only prayer form. Personal prayer is also needed, especially the Stations of the Cross and the Rosary.
“One of the reasons why, nowadays,” Ratzinger perceptively went on to remark, that
we are so discountenanced by the appeal of Asiatic or apparently Asiatic religious practices is that we have forgotten these forms of prayer. The Rosary does not call for intense conscious efforts which would render it impossible but invites us to enter into the rhythm of quiet, peaceably bringing us peace and giving a name to this quietness: Jesus, the blessed fruit of the womb of Mary.
This observation strikes me as most sensible.
In retrospect, for me, though it was a normal thing on both sides of my family, the Rosary was something I associate especially with Grandmother Schall, who, for five years until she died, brought my brothers, sister, and myself up after our mother had died at a relatively young age. In the evening, with my father when he was not working, we would often kneel in the front room of the house on Marion Street and say the Rosary. The Rosary becomes a prayer so habitual that it is, when we know it by heart, just what we do when we want and need to pray.
The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is October 7. The Collect of this Mass, which is to be ordinarily said at the end of the Rosary, after the Salve Regina, contains a brief statement at faith in the form of a petitionary prayer. Though I recall an earlier form, it presently reads: “Lord, fill our hearts with your love, and as you revealed to us by the message of an angel the coming of Your Son as Man, so lead us through His suffering and death to the glory of His Resurrection who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.”
The Rosary (chapelet, Rosenkranz) normally consists of a ring of fifty-five beads, in decades of ten, with a large bead in between each decade. At the juncture of the circle there are usually another four beads, three small ones and one large one attached to a crucifix. The larger Rosaries, which we used to wear on our cinctures during our Novitiate, contain one-hundred-and-fifty small beads.
The Rosary (the Rose was associated with our Lady) is a prayer divided into three general mysteries, the Joyful, the Sorrowful, and the Glorious Mysteries of Our Lord’s life. The Joyful Mysteries are the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, and the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. The Sorrowful Mysteries are the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning of Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion. The glorious Mysteries are the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Assumption of Our Lady, and the Coronation of Our Lady in heaven.
Normally the Joyful Mysteries are said on Mondays and Thursdays, the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the Glorious Mysteries on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sunday varies according to the Liturgical season, that is, in Advent the Joyful Mysteries, in Lent the Sorrowful, and the Glorious for the rest of the year. But there is nothing wrong with saying whatever mystery seems fitting. Though the New Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on the Rosary does not mention this, the Rosary is usually begun with the Apostles’ Creed. It is followed by an Our Father, three Ave ‘s, or Hail Mary’s. Then each mystery, which is announced, is followed with a Pater Noster and ten Ave’s. The Glory Be to the Father ends each decade. The Rosary itself usually terminates with a Salve Regina, the Hail Holy Queen. One is to pray for something, to reflect on the mystery at hand. No regular prayer is quite like it. The “surprising mystery” of it is that the Rosary is not rigid or even repetitious in practice.
The Rosary has an interesting history, I must say. Even the famous Lady Godiva is in it, as she seems to have placed in her will of 1075 a request that a string of beads be placed on Our Lady’s statue in her local church. This circlet does not seem to have been actually a Rosary, for the good reason that it had not yet been invented, but noteworthy in any case. The account of the Rosary in the old Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) is quite fascinating. It was in fact written by Father Herbert Thurston, an English Jesuit, who spent most of his life at The Month, the Jesuit journal in London. Thurston wrote, as Father Caraman noted, some 760 articles for The Month from 1894-1939, when he died. Posthumously, several collections of Thurston’s works were published, my favorites naturally being Ghosts and Poltergeists (1953) and Surprising Mysteries (1955).
In any case, all the more recent articles, including Thurston’s, take great pains to explain that though the Rosary is attributed to the Dominicans, who indeed have propagated this lovely devotion, no record seems to exist to show that any Dominican in the first two hundred years after St. Dominic, including Dominic himself, ever heard of it. I believe, however, that even St. Thomas himself would be amused by this slight omission to insist on the worthwhileness of the devotion itself.
The history of instruments of prayer, to help us pray accurately, is connected with the Psalter that priests, clerics, and religious are to say in the Divine Office. As there are 150 Psalms, the Pater Noster or the Ave Maria became substitutes for all or part of the Office, especially for those who could not read or who could not otherwise say the Office. Currently at the Walters Gallery in Baltimore, there is a show of many small “Books of Hours” from the Middle Ages which were initial efforts to join printed books, pictures, and prayer. As practice and simplification took place, the Pater and Ave devotions were combined and joined to the idea of reflection on Our Lord’s life. Being grounded, earthly beings, by no means abstractions, there is something right about having a Rosary in our hands when we pray. The fifty or hundred and fifty beads (a word which itself seems to come from a word for praying: bidding) set a proper limit. They serve to concentrate our attention, but they are also sufficiently habitual not to distract too much. Besides, as Thurston wryly commented, the beads were less “troublesome” than counting with the fingers.
Thurston likewise told the medieval story of a certain lady by the name of Eulalia, who was given to multiply prayers on her Pater Noster beads. Our Lady fortunately interfered in this operation to advise her, this certain “client of the Blessed Virgin, who had been wont to say a hundred and fifty Ayes” to cut the daily number down to “only fifty,” but with the effort to say them “more slowly.” This story confirms my suspicion, with Augustine, that the greatest danger to religion may come not from praying too little, but in praying too much, while not denying, paradoxically, with St. Paul, that we should “pray always.”
In a sense, the Rosary might be called a “fighting prayer.” The Feast was established by St. Pius V in thanksgiving for the Victory over the Turkish Naval Fleet at Lepanto in 1571, one of the world’s most decisive battles. St. Dominic was said, evidently with little justification, to have used the Rosary in the wars against the Albigensians in Southern France in the twelfth century. Finally, today, the Rosary devotion is much influenced by Our Lady of Fatima and prayers for the conversion of Russia. Unlike so many pious minds today, the tradition of prayer apparently understood that it made a considerable difference who won and who lost wars.
In conclusion, let me cite something from the Cure of Ars. In his delightful new book, The Cure D’Ars Today (Ignatius, 1988), Father George Rutler recounted all the difficulties that Jean-Marie Vianney had getting through theology classes. Finally, after considerable shuffling and persistence and with some help from the distractions caused by Napoleon’s military difficulties, a Canon was found who would give Vianney the final test of his worthiness. Monsignor Courbon, from Lyons, wanted to know only three things: “Is the Abbe Vianney pious? Has he a devotion to Our Lady? Does he know how to say his Rosary?”
Rutler finished his book with the story that John Paul II was going to Ars to give a retreat to priests and seminarians. Some advanced types of clergy tried to suggest to the Pope that the Cure of Ars was not a model parish priest and his devotion ought not to be encouraged. Well, need I add, with Rutler, that John Paul II listened patiently, then went directly to Ars and gave a wonderful retreat. I believe perhaps the question, “Do you know how to say the Rosary?” might be a test for all of us, priests, popes, and laity alike. With Eulalia, we can always say fifty beads slowly. Try it.