Rosaries

The Rosary (from Latin rosarium, "Rose Garden"), is an important and traditional devotion of the Catholic Church (Roman and Eastern) consisting of a set of prayer beads and a system of set prayers. more...

Home
Cultures, Ethnicities
Decorative Collectibles
Holiday, Seasonal
Religions, Spirituality
Buddhism
Christianity
Bears, Dolls
Boxes
Charms
Crucifixes
Glass
Gold
Other Materials
Silver
Wood
Holy Cards
Icons
Medals
Other Items
Pendants, Pins
Plates, Plaques
Prints, Posters
Relics
Rosaries
Glass
Other Materials
Silver
Wood
Statues, Figures
Angels
Jesus
Mother and Child
Other
Vestments
Hinduism
Islam
Judaica
Other Faiths
Wiccan, Pagan

The Rosary combines vocal prayer and meditation centered around sequences of reciting the Lord's Prayer followed by ten recitations of the "Hail Mary" prayer; and one recitation of "Glory Be to the Father" one such sequence is known as a decade. A complete Rosary involves the completion of fifteen or twenty decades, as well as other prefatory and final prayers.

The Rosary is usually prayed in three or four parts, one part each day, with the "Mysteries" (which are meditated or contemplated on during the prayers) being rotated daily.

What distinguishes the Rosary from other forms of repetitive prayer is that, along with the vocal prayers, it includes a series of meditations. Each decade of the Rosary is said while meditating on one of the "Mysteries" of redemption. These mysteries originated in the 15th century, and while there has been some disagreement on them (the final mystery is sometimes the Last Judgment) the earliest sets bear a remarkable resemblance to those still used.

Many similar prayer practices exist in Catholicism, each with its own set of prescribed prayers and its own form of bead counters. These other devotions and their associated beads are usually referred to as "chaplets." (To see types of prayer-bead prayers used by other religions, see article on prayer beads).

The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary has the liturgical rank of universal memorial. It is associated with Our Lady of Victory and is celebrated on October 7th on the Catholic liturgical calendar in commemoration of the "Victory of Our Lady" at the Battle of Lepanto.

The rosary is also sometimes used by some adherents of other Christian denominations, particularly in the Anglican Communion, the Old Catholic Church, and the Lutheran Church. Baptists, Methodists, Fundamentalist Protestants, and some other Christian groups sometimes condemn it as idolatry or as being contrary to Jesus's teachings in the Gospel of Matthew 6:7 regarding prayer.

History

The Rosary came to replace the popular devotional practice that consisted of reciting the 150 Psalms of the Bible in thirds or 50 at a time. Instead of the Psalms, 150 Our Fathers were recited. Over the course of the middle ages, the Lord's Prayer was replaced with the Angelic Saluation, commonly called the Hail Mary. The prayers of the Rosary were set by the late 16th century. From the 16th to the early 20th century, there were no changes in the Rosary until the mid-20th century when the addition of the Fatima Prayer became popular. There were no other changes until 2002 when John Paul II proposed five new Luminous Mysteries as an option.

Key dates

The following table are key dates in the development of the rosary.

Read more at Wikipedia.org