A Brief History of the Rosary: Part 1 of a 2 Part Series

Oct 22

October 24th, 2021

Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever~

Last week I wrote on the rosary and now I’m back at it again. October is the month of the rosary and as you know by now, I’m a big fan of every Catholic praying it daily (so is God). For those reasons the next few pastor columns will be on a different aspect of the rosary. For today and next Sunday, it will be a short history of the rosary, a very good place to start.

What follows in two parts, is taken from a small booklet called The Rosary – The Great Weapon of the 21st Century. Information to obtain a copy of the booklet can be found at the end of this pastor’s column. Enjoy reading.

A Brief History of the Rosary – Part I

The word rosary means crown of roses. In pre-Christian times, pagans used to crown their statues with roses to symbolize the rendering of their hearts to the gods. With the coming of Christianity, the fusing of their love for false gods with their hatred for the early Christians led to the Roman persecutions.

During these persecutions, Christian virgins, dressed in their best and crowned with roses, went to their martyrdom in the sandy arena of the Coliseum. Their brethren in the Faith later collected these crowns of roses and prayed before them, saying one prayer per rose.

Among these prayers, that which held the foremost place in Christian hearts from the beginning was the one that flowed from the lips of our Divine Redeemer Himself: the Our Father.

Little by little, as though to complement this most perfect prayer, the Holy Ghost inspired the faithful to address the Mother of the Redeemer with the words spoken by the angel and by Saint Elizabeth, giving rise to the recitation of the first part of the Hail Mary. The Church added the name of Mary to the beginning and that of Jesus to the end of this salutation.

At the Council of Ephesus, in 431, Holy Mother Church defined that the Blessed Virgin is truly the Mother of God and gave us the conclusion of the Hail Mary: “Holy Mary, Mother of God . . .,” which officially became the second part of the Hail Mary in 1568.

In the monasteries of the Middle Ages, the monks who could not read replaced the recitation of the Psalms with the repetition of the Our Father. Since there are 150 Psalms in the Bible, they prayed a series of 150 Our Fathers, which they called the “Psalter of Christ.” To count the Our Fathers, the monks used knotted ropes or collars of grains, which in France came to be called “patenotres.”

In the eleventh century, some hermits and laymen began to recite “Our Lady’s Psalter,” that is, 150 salutations “Hail Mary . . . fruit of they womb,” instead of the 150 Our Fathers. They divided these salutations into three series of 50, which they termed “rosaries” or “crowns” because of the custom of crowning Our Lady’s statues with flowers.

But it was only in 1214, according to a pious and admirable tradition, that the Most Holy Virgin herself consecrated this devotion by appearing to Saint Dominic of Guzman, founder of the Dominicans, and giving him the rosary in its present form as a weapon to combat the Albigensian heresy that was devastating southern France.

“Saint Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people’s sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances in order to appease the anger of Almighty God. He used his discipline [whip to flagellate himself] so much that his body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma.

“At this point Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three angels, and she said: “Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?”

“Oh, my Lady,’ answered Saint Dominic, ‘you know far better than I do because, next to your Son Jesus Christ, you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation.’

“Then Our Lady replied: “I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter.’

“So he arose, comforted, and burning with zeal for the conversion of the people in that district he made straight for the Cathedral. At once, unseen angels rang the bells to gather the people together and Saint Dominic began to preach.

“At the very beginning of his sermon an appalling storm broke out, the earth shook, the sun was darkened, and there was so much thunder and lightning that all were very much afraid. Even greater was their fear when, looking at a picture of Our Lady exposed in a prominent place, they saw her raise her arms to heaven three times to call down God’s vengeance upon them if they failed to be converted, to amend their lives, and seek the protection of the Holy Mother of God.

“At last, the prayer of Saint Dominic, the storm came to an end, and he went on preaching. So fervently and compellingly did he explain the importance and value of the holy rosary that almost all the people of Toulouse embraced it and renounced their false beliefs” (The Secret of the Rosary, Montfort Publications, Bay Shore, N.Y., 1954, pp. 18-19).

After this brilliant victory of the Faith, obtained by preaching the rosary, Saint Dominic endeavored, with renewed fervor to spread this meritorious devotion. But after his death in 1221, as the memory of his preaching gradually faded in the minds of the Christians who had heard him, devotion to the rosary declined. One century later it was practically buried and forgotten.

Next week, part II.

The Rosary – The Great Weapon of the 21st Century.

(To order a copy)

America Needs Fatima
1-888-317-5571
PO Box 341
Hanover, PA 17331

ANF@ANF.org or www.ANF.org