Mary, in this your month of the Rosary, teach us how to pray it. For behold, Mother of men and of God, somewhere along the dark road of the past decades, we have forgotten how to pray.
Show us, O Mother of Wisdom, the height, the depth, the width, and the endless breadth that is to be found in that prayer called, in the old days, so beautifully, “Our Lady’s Psalter.” Indeed it is your song and your prayer.
For it leads us, O Cause of Our Joy, gently and softly into your joyful mysteries. And then, O Mother of Sorrows, it shows us your poignant Sorrows, the price you paid for our salvation—Co-redemptrix of Christ. Also it leads us to your blinding, breathtaking, glorious mysteries—O Mystical Rose.
We need you, Gate of Heaven, to teach us how to pray. Bend down to our littleness and say the Rosary with us.
In our spiritual childhood, the beads will teach us how to pray with your voice. In our spiritual youth, through you, they will reveal to us how to plunge our minds into the blessed mystery spelled out by each decade.
And in our spiritual maturity, Mediatrix of all Graces, show us your secret ways to the prayer of silence—of contemplation.
Your Psalter—the Rosary—is a school of prayer, and you are the perfect Mistress of it.
Of all the generations, we who live in insecurity and fear, we who bear the almost unendurable heat of a marketplace from which your Son has been almost completely shut out—we truly need to learn how to pray with the Bride of your Son, the Church.
Only through prayer can we begin truly to know him whom we must love and serve, or indeed perish. Only through prayer can we be before his face and get the strength then to do or live before him, witnessing if need be, unto death, to his divinity and to our Christianity.
This century needs Christians who are Christians in faith and deed. On such depends the fate of the world.
You, who are the Gate of Christ, the Way to the Father, our ultimate goal—you, Mary, Mother of Christ—teach us in this your month of the Rosary—to pray it as it should be prayed.
For these ordinary beads, strung on threads, hold within themselves all the mysteries of our holy Faith and all the main ways of prayer.
Mary, Queen of the Rosary, open to us its holy secrets. Let it be our door to the heart of your Son, his Father, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
By the servant of God, Catherine Doherty
—Adapted from Carmel, an Irish magazine, October 1956
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
I Love the Rosary
Takes minutes to learn and a Life time to Master. Every Old Every New
Thank you
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I agree, Roger. The whole of the Gospel is contained in the 150 mysteries of the Holy Rosary! The Rosary is a very powerful prayer, and greatly needed in our times.
For all those who are in or around London (England) tomorrow, there is the 32nd Annual National Rosary Crusade of Reparation taking place. It is a walking pilgrimage that starts from outside Westminster Cathedral, ending at beautiful Brompton Oratory, so a distance quite easy to manage for most people.
It is always well attended, by now numbers reaching well over two thousand people! Catholics from everywhere take part (London being one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world) and it is organised by Francis Carey, who also organises the British chapters of the annual Chartres pilgrimage.
I and one of my sisters shall be taking part, like last year, taking all our prayer intentions on CP&S with me.
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Kathleen (19:07) says – “The whole of the Gospel is contained in the 150 mysteries of the Holy Rosary!”
Correct my arithmeticky, but I always thought there were just enough to count with my fingers and toes. Has His Holiness added another 130 in remembrance of the environment and divorced Catholics?
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…or maybe Kathleen’s typing finger slipped and she meant 15 not 150, which is understandable if she intends to ignore the Luminous mysteries?
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Oops! Thanks, JH. I did indeed mean 15 mysteries of course 😳 , which X 10 = 150 Hail Marys. Silly me! Somehow I managed to scrape past my maths O’Level, believe it or not, so once upon a time my “arithmeticky” was passable. 😉
St John Paul II gave us the Luminous mysteries as “an option”, although they were met with suspicion by some Catholics. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with meditating on these five special and important parts of Our Lord’s life though, and once in a while I will pray the Luminous mysteries.
What do others think about them?
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Kathleen (21:59) – is your mistake as absurd as this one by another lady today who scolded me:
My reply to that faithful Catholic on that other website was the same as I said yesterday apropos Roger and Jabba and Ginny: “Somebody shoot me.” But I treasure my first set of Rosary Beads purchased in the gift shop of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré 49 years ago, long before I converted; but my arithmeticky tells me there are a lot more than 59 little beads on them.
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What do I feel about the Luminous Mysteries?
The Rosary has been called for good reason the Gospel Of Our Lady we will find her with her Son at all parts of these mysteries.
Our Lady’s Gospel starts with the Immaculate Virgin in a Fallen world and Ends with Our Lady crowned and in Heaven and at the right hand of Her Son (that single mystery alone isn’t understood in all of its full ramifications)
We are looking at the Redemption of Man promised in the Garden to Fallen Adam and Eve. We are seeing the fulfilment and fruitful completion of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. We are seeing the body of the Christ which will become the mystical Body incorporating Fallen Mankind in His Church.
In praying the Rosary its good to start with this over view of just exactly what the Gospel of the fifteen mysteries is revealing.
The Joyful mysteries – But this has to be understood in a spiritual way and not a worldly way.
The world from the begining sought the Life of the Man-God.
First the Incarnation of the Child (the Word) by a single word uttered by the Immaculate Virgin FIAT
The Immaculate’s womb is now the Holy of Holies since it is the Temple and Tabernacle of the Man God.
Its a hidden mystery revealed by the Holy Ghost to very very few.
Elias is to come first in Prophecy and so it is because the Precursor St John The Baptist leaps in recognition of the Man God within the Holy Of Holies (Immaculates Womb).
So it goes on with the Child reaching Manhood and observing and fulfiling the rites and rituals of the Old Covenant.
The Sorrowful mysteries. Sorrowful and Joyful because these are the Triumph and fulfilment of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Sorrows for exiled Mankind have come to an End through the Triumph Of the Cross. These mysteries remember are experienced spiritually (and really) by Our Lady and therefor are part of her Gospel
The Glorious Mysteries. These are Our Inheritence and are given to Us and the Church through the Sacraments.
Through Baptism we are Resurrected from the Tomb of Original Sin. Through the Life of Grace we Ascend towards The Father. We Receive the Holy Ghost and Heaven is opened to Us at Our Deaths. Our Heaven Mother and Our Lord are human glorified Flesh and we who Die in Christ will also like them after the Resurrection of the Dead be in Heaven in Our Flesh. Again Our Lady is central to these Mysteries and they therefor are part of her Gospel.
Now consider the Luminous Mystery’s I don’t doubt the merit of the meditation of these. But aren’t they more about Our Lord rather than expressly Our Lady’s Gospel.
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“Now consider the Luminous Mysteries. I don’t doubt the merit of meditation on these. But aren’t they more about Our Lord rather than about Our Lady’s Gospel?”
Roger, that’s an incisive question. I shall have to think a bit deeper on this.
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John
The Traditional Rosary Our Lady’s Gospel teaches Us of the New Adam and New Eve. and enjoins Genesis (Fall) with Paradise Regained (Through Our Lady’s word FIAT and the Word Made Flesh).
The Public Life of our Lord was only 10% of His Life on Earth. 90% of Our Lords Life. The Hidden Life of Jesus and Mary of prayer and reparation is actually the better Way. Think of Martha and Mary and what Our Lord said.
Quotes reference Luminous Mysteries
“..What a gift the the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary are. Meditating on these Mysteries of Light bring even deeper understanding to the public life of Jesus. ..” “..Luminous Mysteries Reveal Light Of Jesus, Bringing Peace In Your Life..”
See these are Christ oriented (no harm in this) but not Our Lady’s Gospel.
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A pretty song from the Philippines professionally composed especially for October 5th 2007, the centenary of the canonical coronation of Nuestra Señora del Santisimo Rosario de la Naval de Manila. Sung with great affection and dedication by the good folk of Sta. Maria (not sure where exactly in the Philippines, as there is quite a number of places there with the Virgin’s Name.)
(I’m all at sea with the translation of the prayer. Perhaps one of our friends in the Philippines can help us? Or jabba?)
For a more “dramatic performance” with clouds of incense, Dominican friars and all, this is from the humongous Dominican church of Sto. Domingo in Quezon City, Metro Manila, where La Naval’s shrine is. Recorded in October 2007 itself, the centenary year.
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SPECIAL APPEAL to our brothers and sisters in the Philippines.
If a reader of CP&S in your beautiful islands, across the South China Sea from me here, could give us a translation of the words of the song/prayer Salamat Maria shown above, that would be greatly valued!
Many thanks to you! A blessed Sunday to you all.
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Hi everyone, may i know where you got the lovely picture of our Lady of the Rosary and what is her country of origin, what is she known for and whether there is a statute of her on sale ? You may contact me by email at janetang8@gmail.com. Thanks and warm regards.
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