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Gold plated pewter with 7x5 oval beads

Item # GP12/29/1966

$40.00

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The History of the Rosary

Prayer beads, of which rosaries are one type, have been used by many peoples, for almost four thousand years of known history, to count or "tell" their prayers. Roman Catholic use of prayer beads dates, in history from the fourth century A.D., when they were used to count Hail Mary's , Our Father's and other prayers. Historically, the modern Catholic rosary beads are thought to have originated between 1409 and 1415 A.D. when a Carthusian monk named Dominic, (not to be confused with Saint Dominic), began the practice of meditating on the life of Jesus Christ while repeating Ave Maria's, telling them on his beads. Many Catholics believe the story that the rosary was given to Saint Dominic by Mary in a miraculous vision in 1214. In Catholic history, the Dominican Order of Preachers were the primary advocates for the praying of rosary beads from 1468, and the Dominican legend may have started because of this intertwining of the rosary with the order's history. The word rosary comes from the German "rosenkranz" which means rose garden or wreath. There is, in Marian history, a legend that a monk once said 50 Ave Maries and they turned into roses, a "rosenkranz". The word rosary also has a significant Latin history. In Latin, "rosarium" can mean either a rose garden or an anthology of prayer. The use of the word beads to refer to the rosary may come from the Dutch word for prayer, "bede." The words are connected because each bead means a prayer. Historically, the rosary was first said while meditating on fifty clauses about the life of Jesus Christ. In 1483, a Dominican prayer book reduced the fifty meditations to just fifteen mysteries, which was passed down in history and is the same way Catholics pray rosary beads today. The rosary continues to be a beloved prayer practice for many Roman Catholics. In their religious history, Jesus came onto the world through Mary, and so she is revered as their first intercessor. The act of praying to her name brings them closer to all that is holy, closer to God.