Hello Rosary Lovers! This post is a very appropriate one, we ask: What is the Holy Rosary?
Rosary Lovers exists to promote the glory of Mary and her most holy Rosary. So this question is crucial to this website.
Let’s dive right in and see what we can say about it!
The Holy Rosary is Rosary Beads
First off, we need to acknowledge that the Rosary cannot be separated from the rosary beads that you’ve probably seen hanging from the car mirrors of Catholics.
Catholics also carry rosaries in their pockets, or give them as gifts to people when they are baptised or confirmed.
In Church, you can often see Catholics with their rosaries, praying to God.
Clearly, the Rosary and the beads belong together.
When a Catholic offers a rosary to a priest for him to bless, that rosary becomes a truly blessed object, that must be treated with respect.
A blessed set of rosary beads automatically brings divine blessing to an individual every time they wear it or carries it in their pocket, or use it to pray, or simply hold it.
Although it is possible to pray the Rosary without rosary beads, this is not recommended by the Church.
If you wish to really get serious about the Rosary, you will need a set of durable rosary beads.
I strongly recommend paracord rosaries, and some really good ones can be found in this post.
The Holy Rosary is a Very Powerful Prayer
The crucial thing to realise about the Rosary is that it is, when all is said and done, a PRAYER. Above all, this is what it is.
The most holy Rosary is so special because it is a collection of prayers to God, through the blessed Virgin Mary.
It involves meditations on the entire incarnate life of Christ – from his birth to his glorious ascension – whilst praying many Our Fathers and many more Hail Marys.
If you want specific details about how to pray the Rosary, just check out many of my posts on this website. You can scroll to the ‘Topic’ section, and look for ‘Rosary’, and lots of articles will come up.
Additionally, I must remind you that the Rosary is an extremely powerful prayer. It’s not just any prayer.
One title the Rosary has is ‘the holy Rosary’. Another title is ‘the most holy Rosary’.
One of Mary’s official titles in the Church is: ‘Queen of the MOST HOLY ROSARY’. So this isn’t just some title for the Rosary that only a few people use. It is ‘the most holy Rosary’.
One of the reasons for this is because it is one of the most powerful prayers in the Catholic Church and therefore in the whole world. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Rosary is one of the rare things that God loves more than anything else.
The Rosary has turned countless Catholics into Saints. It does this because it is ‘most holy’. It is unique.
To take up the discipline of reciting the most holy Rosary daily is to take up a very powerful and life-changing discipline.
This is especially the case if you give yourself to reciting the ENTIRE Rosary everyday: that is, all 15 (or 20) mysteries.
Many Catholic saints used to recite all 15 decades of the most holy Rosary every, single day. Pope Francis recites all 15 decades everyday. St Padre Pio used to recite 30-50 rosaries a day!
If you really devote yourself to the Rosary, you WILL become a saint. You WILL get to heaven.
For this reason, you should think carefully about whether or not to take up this spiritual discipline.
No, it’s not easy, though it’s a lot easier the more you do it, and it’s a lot easier than you would think it is. Mary helps us pray her most holy Rosary. Just ask her.
The Holy Rosary is a Gift from Mary
The holy Rosary has been gifted to the Church from Mary. It belongs to her and is rightfully her Rosary.
Frequently in Apparitions to various saints, Mary has referred to the Rosary as ‘my Rosary’. This tells us that it is HERS.
Mary gives this wonderful Gift to the Church to make us holy and lovers of Christ, and therefore lovers of God the Father.
Mary wants us to Hail her repeatedly. Nothing so thrills Mary’s heart as the sound of a weak Catholic saying: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace.’
Mary also wants us to meditate deeply on the incarnate life of her holy Son Jesus. This is why we do all the meditations when we do the Rosary.
Mary also wants us to pray the Our Father many times a day, because this is the prayer Jesus taught us, and it’s the highest prayer in the Church, next to the Mass.
In fact, the Our Father is always said when the sacred Host is consecrated at Mass. This is to show that the truest and best context for the Our Father prayer is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. When Christ is on the Altar, the most appropriate prayer to pray is: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven…’.
According to pius Catholic tradition, Mary allegedly gave the Rosary to St Dominic in a special way to preach to the world. Mary told St Dominic that the world would one day be saved by devotion to her Brown Scapular and her Rosary.
Mary also told St Dominic that nothing made her happier than when he preached on her Rosary, and that when he preaches about the Rosary, many souls will be saved.
St Dominic found it very hard to convert people before he preached on the Rosary, but when he began to preach about it, many were converted.
The Holy Rosary is a Garland of Roses
The word ‘rosary’ comes from the idea that the Rosary is supposed to be a Gift we give to Mary. Specifically: a Garland of Roses.
Each and every Hail Mary we utter when we pray the Rosary, whilst meditating on the incarnate life of her beloved Son, is a sacred Rose that we string together with the other Hail Marys.
The more Hail Marys we say, the larger the Garland we offer to Mary.
Of course, this makes her so happy, and it will bring tremendous graces into our lives through her.
Mary never fails to bless profoundly those who bless her constantly.
There are many more things to say about the Holy Rosary, but in a nutshell, I think this article sums it up fairly well.
If you wish to read an electrifying book about the Rosary, try ‘The Secret of the Rosary’ by St Louis de Montfort.
If you want to add anything to this post, or ask a question, please leave a comment below and I will try my best to get back to you ASAP.
God bless you richly, in Christ, through the Queen of the most holy Rosary!
Hi! Thanks for the sharing. The Rosary will be very blessed to me to have the whole ritual. I hope in the future I will get the whole rosary bed and make the blessing from Mary happen so I can overcome a lot of obstacles and difficulties in this life with ease!
Hello Nanina!
Thank you for your comments on this.
You can learn exactly how to pray the Rosary from many articles on my site. Please feel free to check them out. The post entitled ‘20 mysteries rosary‘ you may find particularly helpful. I describe my own practice of prayer in that article too, so it means a lot to me and might be useful to you.
If you want to buy some rosary beads, my site can help with this too. I support Bishop Sheen rosaries. See my post entitled Bishop Sheen Rosaries A Review. I haven’t finished this article and it’s only in its beginning stages but my affiliate link is there and you can explore the site. They do wonderful rosaries.
Alternatively there’s obviously Amazon but their selection isn’t great, and not many paracord rosaries on there. Paracord rosaries are the ones that don’t break, they’re solid and last forever (in theory).
Etsy has some fabulous rosaries but I’m not affiliated with them.
The Rosary is an incredible spiritual discipline and one that can change your life for the better. You will feel Mary’s presence with you everyday if you pray the Rosary everyday. I recommend building up to praying 3 or 4 rosaries a day. Obviously this is too hard to begin with.
Perhaps just start with one decade a day: choose a mystery of the rosary, and think about it briefly, then say one our Father and 10 hail marys and a Glory be. That’s one decade. Try doing that once a day.
Then try two decades a day.
Then perhaps a rosary of 5 decades a day.
And so.
Praying the Rosary of course doesn’t stop us having difficulties and all sorts of trials and hardships, sometimes some very painful ones. But it does help us greatly through these. We sail through under the protective arms of Mary.
Hope this is helpful.
All the very best.
Matthew
Even though I am not Catholic, I understand that Catholics use the Holy Rosary to pray to God, and it can be seen in the home and cars of Catholics. I did not know that Catholics give the Holy Rosary beads to a priest to bless. This is undoubtedly an extraordinary thing to do and carry with you; it is a sacred object one possesses.
It would be similar to the cross for a pentecostal. We can also ask the church pastor to bless it, and it becomes a particular object one would always wear and not take off. In the olden days, the apostles would get material blessed and use it to heal a sick person by giving it to them.
I found your article very interesting
Elke
Thanks a lot!
I didn’t know this about Pentecostalism. I had an online friend a while back who was Pentecostal and noticed some remarkable similarities between Catholicism and a lot of Pentecostal practices.
Another friend of mine says (quite rightly) that the Charismatic, Pentecostal and Catholic groups are the largest groups of Christians in the world, and he thinks that this is no coincidence.
I suppose Catholicism provides a stability that one struggles to find elsewhere in Christianity, whereas Pentecostalism and the Charismatics provide a liveliness and Spirit-filled focus that is greatly needed in the universal body of Christians.
Pope St John Paul II was very favourable towards the Charismatic Movement and he encouraged it within the Catholic Church. To this day many Catholics have incorporated much that is Pentecostal or Charismatic into their faith.
It is indeed wonderful to carry my blessed Rosary around with me everywhere. I feel close to God because of it. I also wear the Brown Scapular, which also helps me feel close to God.
I didn’t know a material cross played such an important role for Pentecostals.
I find it extremely interesting that the apostles did that. Yes, even Peter’s shadow healed people. Very strange. But we see this in the Incarnation. God became man, and through his human flesh he healed people. He would spit and touch people’s eyes and tongue with his spit. Or people would touch his Cloke and get healed.
Wonderful comment thank you.
Matthew