Praying the Rosary

This is a wonderful summary statement about what praying the Rosary means.  It is not what Protestants think it is. 

Journeying through the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries of the rosary, the individual brings to mind our Lord's incarnation, His passion and death and His resurrection from the dead. In so doing, the rosary assists us in growing in a deeper appreciation of these mysteries, in uniting our life more closely to our Lord and in imploring His graced assistance to live the faith. We also ask for the prayers of our Blessed Mother, who leads all believers to her Son.

From - History of the Rosary by Fr. William Saunders

(When he wrote this, the Luminous Mysteries had not yet been added by St. Pope John Paul II. ) 

There is a lot of confusion among Protestants - and maybe Catholics as well - about what praying the Rosary actually is. 

On his blog, Douglas Beaumont provides a great explanation for Protestants of what the Rosary is. You can find his article Rosary Explanation for Protestants.

The Rosary is not just something that old ladies - like me, I suppose - use. Beaumont wrote a very good article about the Rosary for men - Manly Rosaries for Manly Men.


After I decided that I would join the Catholic Church, I also decided that I would start praying the Rosary. It was like a test for me. If I couldn’t pray the Rosary, then maybe I wasn’t meant to be Catholic. Of course, praying the Rosary is not an obligation for us as Catholics, but for me it was something truly Catholic. It is very different from anything that Protestants do in the way of devotional praying. Well, at least in the Protestant traditions I am most familiar with. 

I wanted to see what it was all about. In the RCIA class, we were each given a lovely Rosary. I started using it and learning all the Mysteries and prayers. I now have a growing collection of Rosaries, including at least 2 virtual Rosary apps and several Rosary bracelets.

There was an error in my thinking that I had learned in Protestantism. It was that the Rosary is all about Mariolatry. That is, the worship of Mary. The truth is that it is all about focusing on the main events of the life of Jesus, our Savior and Lord. The Rosary is basically looking at Jesus through the eyes of His mother. Hence the phrase “to Jesus through Mary.” She was there for most of those events, so she was an eyewitness. 

The Rosary is the Gospel. Here is a list of the mysteries that one is encouraged to contemplate throughout the week.  If Protestants take offense at the Marian parts of the Rosary, why not just think about these Biblical passages at least once a week? There are also virtues associated with these mysteries, such as faith, hope, and love - the 3 theological virtues - all the fruit of the Spirit, and more. What could it possibly hurt to think about these things and ask God for the virtues exemplified in them? 

Protestants barely think about these events  a couple of times a year - at Christmas, Easter, and maybe during Advent, Lent, and Holy Week. Yet at the same time, Protestants love to criticize Catholics for not knowing the Bible!  Yes, I have very much been guilty of that. Now, every week I remember these events, most of them twice during the week. It helps keep me focused on Christ, our Foundation. 

I don’t know what problem a Protestant would have in thinking about how Jesus entered this world through His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Neither should a Protestant have trouble contemplating the fact that Mary said “yes” to God and is therefore the prime example for all believers of how we should submit our wills to the will of God. 

There is more, of course. Mary is no ordinary woman. She was specially prepared to be the Mother of Our Lord. Look at Jesus through her eyes and see what you see. Open your heart to the Holy Spirit as she did. A whole new world of wonder and glory just might open up to you if you let it. 

As Fr. Saunders pointed out, our Blessed Mother always leads the believer to her Son. 

The Joyful Mysteries (Monday and Saturday)
1. The annunciation - Luke 1:26-38
2. The Visitation - Luke 1:39-56
3. The Birth of Our Lord - Luke 1:1-21
4. The presentation of Our Lord - Luke 2:22-38
5. The finding of the Boy, Jesus in the Temple - Luke 2:41-52

The Sorrowful Mysteries (Tuesday and Friday)
1. The Agony in the Garden - Mt. 26:36-56
2. The Scourging at the Pillar - Mt. 27:26
3. The Crowning with Thorns (Matthew 27:27-31)
4. Our Lord Carries the Cross to Calvary (Matthew 27:32
5. The Crucifixion of Our Lord (Matthew 27:33-56)

“Glorious Mysteries”
(Wednesday & Sunday)

1. The Glorious Resurrection of Our Lord (John 20:1-29)
2. The Ascension of Our Lord (Luke 24:36-53)
3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-41)
4. The Assumption of Mary into Heaven (Song of Songs 2:2,10-11)
5. The Coronation of Mary (Genesis 3:15 cf. Revelation 12:1)

“Luminous Mysteries”
(Thursday)

1. The Baptism of Our Lord in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:13-16)
2. The Wedding at Cana, when Christ manifested Himself (John 2:1-11)
3. The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14-15)
4. The Transfiguration of Our Lord (Matthew 17:1-8)
5. The Last Supper, when Our Lord gave us the Holy Eucharist (Mt 26)

The Rosary - a few thoughts - 1

This is another post without a lot of developed ideas, just a few thoughts and those kind of random. Here goes.

The Rosary is called the Mysteries of the Rosary. For most Protestants, the Rosary itself is a mystery. 

Why would Christians pray to and worship Mary?  When I was a Protestant, I thought that the Rosary was all about Mary and probably mariolatry - the worship of Mary as though she were a goddess. It was kind of creepy.

Well, now I know that it really isn’t all about Mary. It’s more like seeing the life of Jesus, Mary’s Son, through her eyes. It is also an appeal to Mary to pray for us. It is a very human form of devotion, to put oneself into the Gospel narrative and see it all through the eyes of the one who made the Incarnation possible from the human point of view. Mary’s “yes” to God made our “yes” to Him possible. 

Eve’s “no” to God’s will brought about the effects in our world that we call in theological terms "the Fall." Mary’s “yes” changed everything. If you think about the parallels between Eve and Mary you may begin to see why Mary is so highly favored, being called “blessed” all throughout the history of the Church.


So, the Rosary involves the contemplation of the key points of the life of Christ as seen through His mother’s eyes as well as an appeal to her for prayer. That kind of thing makes Protestants uncomfortable. I know, because I used to think that was strange. 

Why do Catholics pray to the dead?

Catholics and Orthodox used to tell me that Mary is not dead, but actually more alive now in God’s presence than she was during her earthly life. So, just as we would ask someone here on earth to pray for us, we can ask those who are in Heaven right now to pray for us. That is the kind of intercession we are talking about.

I used to argue against that idea. Scripture won the debate for me. I will throw this in, even though it doesn’t relate directly to the Rosary. One of the final blows to my carefully laid Protestant foundation was St. Thomas Aquinas.

Now, generally when someone says they are a Thomist, it means they are steeped in philosophy, natural law, and are just plain smarter than the average human being. That is true about many Thomists. 

However, I am one of those simple Thomists. I have never studied philosophy in any kind of serious way. The one course on philosophy that I took in college traumatized me. I hated it.

So, what is it that impressed me about Thomas?  Here it is. Thomas knew his Bible. He had it memorized. 

That meant a lot to a good, old fashioned and proud of it, Bible thumper. I love God’s Word. I listen to parts of it every day. I read it every day. I have large sections of it memorized, like any good Bible thumper has. Bible thumpers get a bad rap. We love God’s Word, and we love the God of the Word. That part has not changed at all. God bless the Bible thumpers! All of them who spoke the truth of the Bible into my life and my dull mind!

So, I read the first few pages of his Summa Theologica, and I was hooked. It is the most Biblical of all the theological “stuff” I had ever read. In fact, it is like the fountain of all other theological works, since it brings together all that had gone before him, and set the stage for all that followed. 

Many Protestants claim him, even. He indeed summarized all of Christian theology. His philosophy was his handmaiden, and his theology is about God Himself.  It is a very foolish Christian theologian who tosses Thomas aside. It is a very foolish Thomist as well who does not memorize Scripture and argue from that point of view. So, this is also an little advertisement for St. Thomas Aquinas. 


One key Scripture that I could not ignore and that helped in my conversion was this. 

Mark 12:27New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)27 He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

Read this verse in context. The words are very clear. 

Mark 12:26b‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 

Here is the complete context. Notice this. 

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are said to be alive, not dead. So, you may not be ready to go the whole way and begin to ask  the saints to pray for you, but at least you may be able to see that Catholics and Orthodox do not pray to the dead. 

In fact, we do not “pray to” the saints in the same sense that we pray to God. We do not believe that they are little gods with supernatural powers of their own, coming from them. It is all about the grace of God operating in the lives of His saints. 

Remember the passage about the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishing much?  That passage is a key to understanding what Catholics and Orthodox do in asking the saints who are now in God’s presence to pray for us. (James 5:16)

The Question about the Resurrection18 Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man[b] shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; 21 and the second married the widow[c] and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22 none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. 23 In the resurrection[d]whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”24 Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

I will leave it there for now. Later I will probably post the sequence of the Rosary. It, like the Creeds, is a way of keeping the Gospel alive among the people of God. 

The world changes. This cosmos - the way that the world is manifested in a specific time frame - is constantly changing. So, the Creeds and the prayers of the Church are ways to keep Christians from following the cosmos. They are ways that Christians can keep from being conformed to this world, but rather being transformed by Christ. They are ways, along with Scripture itself of course, to renew our minds. 

See Romans 12:1,2

It is not obligatory to use the devotional prayers of the Rosary. The Creeds are obligatory. 

The Creeds - The Nicene and the Apostles’ - are incorporated into the Mass. Many of us pray the Creeds every day as well. That is another subject. It touches on the subject of the Rosary, though, because the first prayer is the Apostles’ Creed. 

Yes, I have been praying the Rosary almost every day, now, for about a year. True confessions of an ex Protestant. Yes, it surprises me, too.  It shocks me, even. I never would have believed it about myself!