Chapter One
The Rosary
A WEAPON FOR ALL TIME
Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.
1—ST. PADRE PIO
Today we face unprecedented challenges on every front. The evils of “this present darkness” weigh heavy against us. Perhaps this is what makes the advice of St. Padre Pio, a holy man from our own age, so valuable and insightful. He reminds us of the Rosary’s power against the devil and his minions, and he reminds us of the efficacy of the Blessed Virgin’s mediation for us through it. Pope Pius XII’s words, too, seem right and fitting: “We put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of evils which afflict our times.”
2 What makes this prayer so powerful and effective? One indication may be found in its earliest reference. It seems it was born out of the strife, sacrifice, and persecution of the early Church martyrs. The termRosary comes from the LatinRosarium, which means “crown of roses” or “garland of roses.”
As young virgins prepared to walk into the arena of the Coliseum to face the beasts that would tear them asunder, they made ready to meet Jesus Christ, King of Kings, for whom they were offering their lives. They fittingly adorned themselves in festive garments, with crowns of roses for their heads. Thus bedecked, they joined their Savior in His Passion. At night, the faithful would gather up the martyrs’ crowns and say their prayers on them, one prayer for each rose.
3 Their prayer was a journey, perhaps, into the mystery of what they had witnessed.
4Using a device to count prayers was common in the Church. In the fourth century, the Desert Fathers kept track of their devotions on prayer cords. In the fifth century, St. Brigid of Ireland strung pieces of stone and wood together to form a little wreath, and upon these pieces, she would pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Creed.
5During this same time, it became the custom of Christians in both East and West to divide the psalter into three groups of fifty psalms each and pray or chant them in public. The custom was adapted for those who were uneducated or poor, or who toiled in the fields far away from the churches. These substituted fifty repetitions of the Angelic salutation (Ave Maria) for the fifty psalms.
6 These
Aves were recited along with verses from the Gospel relating to the joys of Mary, such as the Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, Ascension, and Assumption.
This style of prayer became known as a
Rosarium. According to writings by the Venerable Bede, churches in England and France were making prayer beads available to the faithful by the eighth century.
7The first clear historical reference we have to the Rosary as we know it today dates back to the thirteenth century, from the life of St.
