Topic: Rosary

Date originally posted: February 11, 2002

Source of this posting: Moderator response to emailed question

Moderator who originally posted this source: B. Egan

Question:  How did the rosary come about; along with the rosary bead necklace?

Answer:

Although the rosary as we know it today (both in terms of the structure of its prayers and the length of the string of beads) has developed over the centuries, its origins date back to the late twelfth century and the person of St. Dominic.  During that time, the Catholic Church was forced to contend with the existence of the Albigensian heresy (a dualistic belief in the presence of two gods – one that created all good and another that created all evil; Albigensians believed that all earthly things were evil).  Troubled by this heresy, St. Dominic prayed to Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, for guidance.  Tradition holds that St. Dominic had a vision of Mary who told him to pray the psalms and preach the mysteries of our salvation in order to combat the heresy. 

As it stands today, the rosary consists of fifteen groups of ten decades of the Hail Mary.  Thus if you were to pray the entire rosary, you would recite the Hail Mary 150 times.  It is believed that this number is directly linked to the total number of psalms, which have always been an integral part of the prayer lives of most religious orders (and St. Dominic was the founder of a religious order – the Dominicans).  The 150 Hail Mary’s have been divided into three groups of fifty, each group being recited while meditating on either the “Joyful,” “Sorrowful,” or “Glorious” mysteries (significant events in Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection that are especially linked to Mary).  The connections between the rosary and the Bible go even beyond the 150 psalms and the mysteries.  The Hail Mary and the Our Father, both essential prayers that are recited as part of the rosary, have their origins in the Scriptures (Mt 6:9-13; Lk 1:28; Lk 1:42).

 The custom of using beads to help in the counting of repeated prayers is not unique to Christianity.  In fact, Buddhists, Muslims, and other non-Christian religions began this practice long before St. Dominic lived.