A Crown of Roses
By Gloria Purvis and Michael Scott
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Reciting the rosary may seem mundane and monotonous, but it can be an intense mystical experience. Unfortunately, many people do not always see past its simplicity and into its deeper realities.

The history of the rosary is long and circuitous. Knotted strings and beaded strings have been used by many faith traditions, i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, including Christianity. The practice dates back to the hermits of the early church who fled the world to seek God alone while living in the African desert.

Most of them prayed for long hours every day. They counted their prayers, psalms, and meditations by moving one rock or pebble at a time into a small pile, making notches in a wooden stick, or tying knots with a string. However, prayer counting became a highly evolved practice, which paralleled the Church's growth as an institution. By the sixteenth century, the Rosary had become a very popular devotion with the Latin Church's official sanction.

The Rosary is not a conglomeration of meaningless prayers. It involves vocal and mental prayers. The vocal prayers include the Apostles' Creed, the Our Fathers, and the Hail Marys. The mental prayers meditate on the mysteries of the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary with the intent to honor and imitate their virtue and grace.

The Apostles' Creed is a compendium of the truths about our faith. The Our Father is a short and sublime prayer whose author is not a man nor an angel, but the King of Angels and Saints, our Savior, Jesus Christ. He prayed these words and told us to pray in the same way. It is the "Lord's Prayer" in every sense.

The Hail Mary is a lovely hymn of praise and petition. The first part restates the Angelic Salutation which was God's own blessing through the Archangel Gabriel (Hail Mary, thou art full of grace, the Lord is with thee) and her cousin Elizabeth's greeting through the Holy Spirit's inspirations (blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus) which were written in Saint Luke's Gospel (6:28-45) What a blessing to recite the very words from the Author of Life!!!

The Hail Mary's second part petitions "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death." Of course, you can see that we pray not to Mary, but with and through Mary that she may intercede for our salvation.

The Rosary's transcendent nature lies in its mysteries. When we meditate on them, we engage our thoughts, emotions, desires, and imagination on the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ as well as the Virgin Mary. These mysteries are the means in which we draw closer to the truth, wonder, and perfection of the Divine. They are simple and yet unfathomable.

The Mysteries of the Rosary traditionally encompass the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries, and the Glorious Mysteries. The Joyful Mysteries recall the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, and Finding in the Temple. The Sorrowful Mysteries recount the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion. The Glorious Mysteries include the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Pentecost, the Assumption, and the Coronation.

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II has recently introduced the Luminous Mysteries when he released his Apostolic Letter On the Most Holy Rosary on October 16, 2002. The Luminous Mysteries recall the miraculous revelation of Jesus Christ's public ministry: the Baptism of our Lord, the Wedding Feast at Cana, the Proclamation of the Kingdom, the Transfiguration of our Lord, and the Last Supper.

The Rosary provides a wealth of sanctification and a means of perfection. The spiritual rewards are limitless. You receive peace, solace, courage, purity, humility, sustenance, and perseverance in the faith. It refreshes and fortifies the mind. It protects you from wickedness. It also sweetens your "daily bread" in this life.

If you have never prayed the Rosary or have thought about starting again, you will have more than a spiritually rewarding experience. You will begin a wonderfully rich, new way of life in the spirit.

Saint Louis De Montfort declared "the works of Jesus and Mary can also be called wonderful flowers; but their perfume and beauty can only be appreciated by those who study them carefully-and who open them and drink in their scent by diligent and sincere meditation." When you take up this Crown of Roses or Rosarius, you will begin to "imitate what it contains and obtain what it promises."

Pope John Paul II has declared October 2002-October 2003 as the Year of the Rosary. For more information about the Holy Rosary, please check out http://www.vatican.va/special/rosary/index_rosary.htm.