Tips on Praying the Rosary

APPENDIX 2

Connected in Love Through the Holy Rosary: the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary

Perhaps the most famous saintly promoter of the Holy Rosary is St Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort who was a secular priest and Dominican tertiary who laboured to renew the Faith in 18th century France. In 1712 he obtained permission from the Master of the Dominican Order to preach the Rosary and to enrol members in the Rosary Confraternity. Around this time, St Louis then researched the history and miracles of the Rosary, and he wrote his two books, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and The Secret of the Rosary. Because of the turmoil of the French Revolution and the resulting anti-Catholicism, both books remained unpublished and were hidden away, literally buried in a field and thus protected by providence from destruction, until they were discovered almost by chance in 1842 and published in 1843.

St Louis de Montfort sums up the great value of the Rosary as Mary’s gift to us. He says: “The Holy Rosary teaches people about the virtues of Jesus and Mary, and leads them to mental prayer and to imitate Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It teaches them to approach the Sacraments often, genuinely to strive after Christian virtues and to

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APPENDIX 3

Further Marian Prayers

Tradition holds that the Holy Rosary was a gift from Our Lady to St Dominic and thus to the whole Church, and we know that it is the recommended prayer of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima to her beloved children. However, over the centuries, and particularly in the Middle Ages as Marian devotion flowered in the Western Church, there have arisen a host of prayers offered by the Church and her saints to Our Lady. The Rosary itself and its name which suggests a garland of flowers offered to one’s beloved is also something we offer to Our Blessed Mother with love, devotion, and fidelity. In addition to the Rosary, I offer here a selection of the most beautiful prayers to Our Lady from the Church’s treasury, some of which are particular to our Dominican tradition and so differ slightly from the version you might already know.

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The Joyful Mysteries

Carved stone reredos in the Annunciation Chapel of the 19th century Rosary Shrine church (St Dominic’s Priory) in London, U.K. The Visitation by Luca della Robbia, made in Florence ca.1445. It is in the church of San Leone in Pistoia, Italy. Nativity Window, installed in 1910. It was designed by Edward Burne-Jones and executed by William Morris in Winchester Cathedral, U.K.

Detail from the oak reredos in the chapel of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C., U.S.A. Carved in Ghent (Belgium), the main altar with its reredos of the Rosary mysteries was in place by 1907. Stained glass window from the Chapel of the Mercy Sisters Convent of St Catharine in Edinburgh, U.K.

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