What is the rosaryMany
people ask, “What is the rosary?” and what is the reason so many
Catholics are devoted to it. The rosary is perhaps the oldest form
of structured
lay prayer. What are the rosary’s origins? The
rosary’s roots lie
in repetitive prayer and the monastic orders’
psalter. The two came
together and formed the modern rosary of
meditation while repeating Hail
Mary’s. Even Catholics will ask what
is the history of rosary beads.
Using beads to count repeated
prayers is a very ancient practice. We first
see in the Catholic
Church what can be called rosary beads in the Middle
Ages when monks
used Paternoster cords to keep track of the Our Father’s
they said.
Similar means were used for counting Hail Mary;s when they began
being repeated. What is the significance of the word rosary? Rosary
comes from the Latin for rose garden or from the German for rose
wreath.
Numerous stories connect the recitation of Hail Mary’s with
the appearance
of roses, and the rose is traditionally Mary’s
flower. So, what word
we use for a grouping of roses, fits as the
name of a set of Hail Mary prayers.
What is the reason for the
rosary’s popularity among Catholics? That
answer lies in its
accessibility. Most lay people were illiterate during
the Middle
Ages and so couldn’t read the psalms or the Gospels for themselves.
They needed a means of prayer that they could adopt on their own.
The
rosary filled this demand. It was easy to learn, and when the
meditations
were reduced to only fifteen, easy to memorize. Lay
people had a means of
their own now to pray to God. They could pray
in any setting, alone or with
a group, and children could learn
Gospel stories and beliefs through the
meditations. The rosary,
then, is the people’s prayer and it is loved
and practiced as such.
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