Archivum Rosarianum Generale

"See the wonderful results I have had through preaching the Holy Rosary! Thou and all those who love Our Lady ought to do the same so that, by means of this holy practice of the Rosary, you may draw all people to the real science of the virtues."

Jesus to Blessed Alan de la Roche

Codices :

1. The Five Codices Rosariani, presenting Lore, History, and Tactics :

Codex Rosarii Praedicatorum : the Dominican Rosary, the Rosary most Catholics know about.
Codex Rosarii Servorum : the Servite Rosary of the 7 Sorrows.
Codex Rosarii Immaculatae Conceptionis : the 6-Decade Rosary of the Immaculate Conception, also called Bridgettine and Carmelite.
Codex Rosarii Minorum : the Franciscan Rosary of the 7 Joys.
Codex Rosarii Cartusiani : the Carthusian Rosary of the Life of Christ.

2. The Voice in the Darkness : a collection of synopses and data regarding prominent Marian Apparitions in the last two centuries ; our Lady's messages about the present and approaching times.

Appendices :

The Mysteries of the Holy Rosary ; including the original 15 and other supplemental Mysteries.

The 15 Promises of the Holy Rosary ; given by Mary to Blessed Alan de la Roche.

The Prayers of the Holy Rosary ; in English and Latin.

Glossarium Rosarianum ; labeling the elements of the Rosary for reference.

Technical Lore :

Contents : The Divine Office | Formation | Design | The Hail Mary

Introduction

The Rosary is commonly understood as it was preached by Saint Dominic in the early 1200s. However, because the Rosary was preached more locally than centrally and since the Internet did not work very well in the Middle Ages, customs, traditions, and methods of praying the Rosary have varied from region to region and individual to individual.

In general, the technical history of the Holy Rosary is difficult to place because different customs, some older, some newer, have interacted across all of Europe and then in the rest of the world. In short, there was a bit of revelation on the one hand, and a lot of ordinary side development on the other. Most likely these processes coincided with each other as man responded to God, until the current method of praying the Rosary was further normalized and officially recognized.

The Rosary is therefore a mysterious prayer, evolving out of human history and also under the Holy Spirit's direction outside of that history, acting through, with, and in His Holy Spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Context

The Divine Office is the Official Prayer of the Universal Church and its Continuous Liturgy. It re-presents liturgically the prayer of Christ the Son to the Father, Who appeases the just wrath of the Father by His praise and sacrifice and thereby purchases blessings for the Church.

This prayer is mainly composed of the Psalms of David and the Canticles found throughout Scripture, especially the Benedictus of Zacharias, the Magnificat of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon. There are also Psalms and prayers for each day of three cycles : the cycle of the week (the Psalter), that of the Lunar year (the Proper of Seasons), and that of the Solar year (the Proper of Saints). This tri-cyclic integration of prayers therefore relies on an unintuitive system and requires a Breviary for people to follow along.

Therefore, although the Divine Office is a beautiful prayer, it has remained the prayer of the literate and inaccessible to the illiterate. Moreover, before the printing press, books were extremely expensive. Books had to be copied by hand and, because of the Sanctity of the Scriptures and the Breviary by extension, were usually made with very expensive materials. Because such purchases were impossible for most Lay Faithful, only Churches, monasteries, palaces, and mansions, for the most part, had immediate access to the Scriptures. Even more, because of thieves, these Books were kept under lock and key. Most laymen were therefore greatly dependent on the clergy for the Scripture.

Formation

However, some Laymen and Lay Monks in the early Church still ardently desired to take part in the Divine Office mystically. Because they could not read, they recited 150 Our Fathers instead, one for each Psalm, meditating on the Life of Christ. This cycle of 150, or just 50, Our Fathers was generally called the Psalter or Paternosters. (Pater noster is Our Father in Latin.) The Our Father is recited as taken from the Gospel of Matthew 6.9-13, with the use of "daily bread" instead of "supersubstantial bread," as recorded in the Gospel of Luke 11.3.

Repetitive Prayer was commonly practiced by the Faithful in the early centuries of the Church. The Church in the West quoted often the second verse of Psalm 69 (70) : O God come to mine assistance. Lord make haste to help me. In the East, the Jesus Prayer was more popular : Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Both prayers are incorporated into the Divine Office. A certain monk once told Saint John Cassian that repeating short prayers like this throughout the day draws one, body and soul, deeper into the habit of contemplation, so that he may remain recollected in prayer, work, and rest, fulfilling the command of Saint Paul in 1 Thessalonians : Pray without ceasing (5.17).

Monks would count these prayers with pebbles or knotted cords before the physical Rosary Cord was invented. The use of beads became more common gradually, as with chotkis in the East and Rosary beads in the West. In fact the word bead comes from the Old English bede, meaning prayer. Sometimes the Rosary is referred to therefrom as the Beads.

Then Marian devotion increased greatly in the early 1100s, especially because of the preaching of the Mellifluous Doctor Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote the Hail, Holy Queen! Likely because of this, some people began praying the Angelic Psalter, composed of 150 Angelic Salutations, instead of the Common Psalter of 150 Our Fathers. Saint Bernard also might have encouraged people to add the Hail, Holy Queen! to the Angelic Psalter as a Concluding Prayer. Whatever happened, this is the prayer that usually concludes the Rosary today.

Finally, in 1214, Mary appeared to Saint Dominic, giving him the design of the Rosary as we know it and asking him to preach her psalter to fight heresy, particularly that of the Cathars in Southern France, who were a sort of Gnostic anti-Church. The Franciscan and Dominican Orders both preached this Rosary throughout Europe in the following years. Among other traditions, customs, and devotions, its form has come down to our present time, and its recitation has won many victories. Because of the Apparition of Mary to Saint Dominic in 1214 and parallel Carthusian influence, the Angelic Psalter (the 150 Hail Marys) was broken into decades, each preceded by the Our Father and succeeded by the Glory Be. The Church celebrates this devotion on the seventh of October, the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. These stories are told in more detail in the Codex Rosarii Praedicatorum.

At Fatima in 1917, Mary also gave the whole Church the Fatima Prayer, which is meant to follow the Minor Doxology at the end of every Decade of the Rosary.

In the following centuries, other Rosaries were created resembling the basic design of the 1214 original :

the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows in the mid-1200s by the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order ;
the Rosary of the Immaculate Conception in the mid-1300s by Saint Bridget (Birgitta) of Sweden ;
the Rosary of the Seven Joys in 1422, given to Brother James, O.F.M., by Mary herself ;
and the Rosary of the Life of Christ in the mid-1400s by Adolf of Essen and Dom Dominic of Prussia.

Design

The Rosary is commonly understood as it was preached by Saint Dominic and his Order after 1214, when Mary appeared to him, giving him the form of the Rosary. The Rosary is essentially the fifteen Decades and may be prayed with all fifteen decades or with only a set of five. Each decade begins with the Our Father, continues with ten Hail Marys, and ends with a Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer. The Glory Be, or Minor Doxology, was written by Saint Jerome in the mid to late 300s and incorporated into the Divine Office to be said after every Psalm.

Each decade corresponds with a Mystery in the Life of Jesus and Mary, Whose Hearts are perfectly united. The complete Rosary may be recited with all fifteen decades or as a chaplet (cycle) of five. The three central chaplets are the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries. Traditionally, the Joyful Mysteries are prayed on Mondays, Thursdays, and the Sundays of Advent and Christmas. The Sorrowful are recited on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays during Lent. The Glorious are offered on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays throughout the year.

The Rosary as commonly recited includes pious additions for those who find them helpful, but the essential formula is as given above.

Often the Common Introduction is added, which is especially useful for recollection in prayer : The Apostles' Creed as an act and recollection of Faith, an Our Father for the Pope, three Hail Marys for an increase in faith, hope, and charity, and a Glory Be to praise the Blessed Trinity. Saint Louis de Montfort describes a version of this introduction in the original manuscript of The Secret of the Rosary (1712), suggesting that this is a practice at least that old. In general, Saint Louis' (Loui's?) account of the Rosary is one of the earliest accounts that describes the structure of the modern Rosary.
Often the Hail, Holy Queen! is also added after the last decade, written by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, as a concluding prayer. Imitating a Commemoration in the Divine Office, and perhaps written as an Antiphon for the Cistercian Liturgy, this prayer is recited as an antiphon followed by the Versicle of Our Lady and the Collect of the Feast of the Holy Rosary (Oct. 7), as written here.
Many also pray the Luminous Mysteries in addition to the fifteen. Saint Pope John Paul II suggested reciting them on Thursday and praying the Joyful Mysteries on Saturday instead of the Glorious. These Mysteries were offered in the encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariae to encourage devotion to the Seven Sacraments, especially the Most Holy Eucharist.
Other Mysteries of the Rosary also exist with varying levels of approval. They may be considered wholesome and beautiful meditations for the Faithful as long as they do not detract from or demote the Central Fifteen Mysteries.

The Angelic Salutation and Other Prayers

The Angelic Salutation is the first half of the Hail Mary, a recitation of the verses of Saint Luke's Gospel : Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb. The Holy Name of Mary was added in or before the 1200s, and the Holy Name of Jesus was added to the end of the Angelic Salutation, especially because of Saint Dominic himself, but also the preaching of Saint Bernardine of Siena in the early 1400s.

According to region, style, and devotion, some added the Holy Mary to the Angelic Salutation, which was promulgated from the Council of Ephesus in 431 : Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. This prayer was written to contradict the heresy of Nestorianism by asserting that Mary is truly the Mother of God (Theotokos), not just of the humanity of Christ, as if the Humanity of Jesus was separated from His Divinity (Christotokos). Rather, Jesus Christ is one Person of the Blessed Trinity, in Whom both human nature and the one Divine Nature of the Godhead are united substantially (hypostatically) from the moment of His Incarnation, rendering the two natures perfectly united and distinct, as also phrased in the Athanasian Creed.

The Hail Mary is thus composed of five elements : the salutation of Saint Gabriel, that of Saint Elisabeth, the Holy Name of Mary, the Most Holy Name of Jesus, and the Holy Mary of the Council of Ephesus. In this form it was officially promulgated from the Vatican in 1568 by Pope Saint Pius V, who was a Dominican and the Pope during the battle of Lepanto and the establishment of the Discalced Carmelites.