A Background on Rosaries
The word Rosary is not exclusively Christian. For Buddhist and Hindus the word means “garden of flowers” or “necklace of beads”. The phrase refers to the actual prayer beads with the rosaries of Buddhist and Hindus varying from 108 beads, to rosaries with 66. Dating of their use goes back to the 6th century B.C. Islam too uses a type of rosary, though the rose and flower imagery is absent. Their rosaries, or prayer beads, typically have 99 beads. The Greeks today still use the ancient practice of a knotted rope to count prayers.

The common use of prayer counting devices in so many cultures far from diminishes the important role rosaries play for Christians. It is instead testimony to the common yearning for conversation with God in the hearts of all people. It is uniquely in the Catholic rosary however that meditation, vocal, and tactile prayer are wed and perfected.

The rosary as an explicitly Christian prayer form developed over several centuries but had immediate connection and basis on the Jewish Psalter. Reciting the 150 Psalms was a pious practice of any literate individual and was a proscribed daily part of the consecrated religious life. Though other parts of Christendom likely used some form of counting device to pray the Psalter, 7th century Irish monks are credited with the use of knotted cords. Since most of the people of the time were at best semi-literate and Bibles were a rare and expensive item, people adopted the monks knotted cords and prayed or chanted the Our Father in Latin 150 times. This practice soon had many variants including a popular one in Europe that began substituting the Our Father with Gabriel’s greeting to Mary (Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you).

By the time of Aquinas in the 12th century, rosaries of a sort were common. Instead of the monks’ long 150 knot cord, a shorter 50 knot cord had replaced it. By this time Elizabeth’s proclamation was added to Gabriel’s nnouncement to Mary completing the first half of the rosary. This was known as The Psalter of Our Lady and, for the first time, as the Rosary. Within a century Our Lady’s prayer of the people had become so popular that merchants began making rosaries for sale.

Up to the 12th century many traditions and individuals had been helping popularize the devotion to the rosary by contributing phrases and meditations about Jesus and Mary to the Hail Marys. It is St. Dominic however (1170-1221), the founder of the Dominican order, that solidified rosaries as a powerful spiritual weapon. The Blessed Virgin specially entrusted the rosary to Dominic to combat the heresies at the time, and his Dominican order, with zealous promotion and evangelization, became so closely associated with the rosary, that many have attributed the origin of rosaries to them. This is true in the sense that Dominic was given a vision that issued him to use it with a definite purpose.Rosaries had developled to the point where there were 50 mysteries, one for each Hail Mary. But by 1480, they had been reduced to 5 mysteries, one for each decade. Soon after, a rosary book by another Dominican mentions 15 mysteries, the same as we have today except the final two glorious mysteries were more apocalyptic. Yet another Dominican, Blessed Alan de la Roche, founded the Confraternity of the Psalter of Jesus and Mary, which contributed enormously to the 15 decade rosary's popularity. Finally, in 1569, Pope St. Pius V published a papal bull, Consueverent Romani Pontifices, that formally established the prayer form for rosaries that had been developing for centuries and standardized the 15 Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries that we know today.

In 1917 Mary appears to children at Fatima, Portugal with a Rosary in her hand and calls herself The Lady of the Rosary: “Say the rosary every day, to obtain peace for the world and an end to the war.” Her warnings and admonitions, in what is arguably the most import apparition in the history of Christianity, crowns the preeminence nd imperative need for rosaries to be prayed, for the good of the individual and for the whole world.

On October 16, 2002, Pope John Paul II gave the world with the most significant document on rosaries in over four centuries, Rosarium Virginis Mariae. He proclaimed October 2002 to October 2003 the Year of the Rosary. In this apostolic letter, John Paul II appeals to Christians throughout the world to rediscover the spiritual richness of the rosary. He takes on the modern world's skeptical objections to the rosary, in particular teaching that the Marian and repetitive aspects do not only not detract from the Christological focus and fathomless depth but underscore this central focus in ways that are insurpassable.

John Paul II also gave the world five new "mysteries of light" for meditation. He names them the luminous mysteries for "it is during the years of his public ministry that the mystery of Christ is most evidently a mystery of light: ‘While I am in the world, I am the light of the world' (Jn 9:5)." In the words of the Holy Father: “At the dawn of this new illennium, we may well hope that the Church will respond with vigor to his appeal and, in rediscovering the spiritual richness of the rosary, contribute to the spiritual rejuvenation of societies and families.”

Rosaries, whether in the hands of Saints like Dominic or Padre Pio, or in the hands of saints in the making, are a sure way to know our feet are on the narrow path.