The Rosary
Etymology
- "Mid-15th century, "rose garden," from Latin rosarium "rose garden," from neuter of rosarius "of roses," from rosa "rose" (see rose). The sense of "series of prayers" is 1540s, from Middle French rosaire, a figurative use of the word meaning "rose garden," on the notion of a "garden" of prayers. This embodies the medieval conceit [practice, conception, habit] of comparing collections to bouquets (cf. anthology ["a collection of flowers"] and Middle Latin hortulus animæ, "prayerbook," lit. "little garden of the soul"). This sense was transferred around 1597 to the strings of beads used as a memory aid in reciting the rosary."[1]
History
St. Dominic and Our Lady
"When the Albigensian heresy was devastating the country of Toulouse, St. Dominic earnestly besought the help of Our Lady and was instructed by her, so tradition asserts, to preach the Rosary among the people as an antidote to heresy and sin. From that time forward this manner of prayer was 'most wonderfully published abroad and developed [promulgari augerique coepit] by St. Dominic whom different Supreme Pontiffs have in various past ages of their apostolic letters declared to be the institutor and author of the same devotion.' That many popes have so spoken is undoubtedly true, and amongst the rest we have a series of encyclicals, beginning in 1883, issued by Pope Leo XIII, which, while commending this devotion to the faithful in the most earnest terms, assumes the institution of the Rosary by St. Dominic to be a fact historically established. ... We will confine ourselves here to the controverted question of its history, a matter which both in the middle of the eighteenth century and again in recent years has attracted much attention."[1]
Paternoster Beads
Development of the "Hail Mary"
The final addition to the Angelic Salutation is attributed to St. Peter Canisius in the mid-16th century.
Development of the Mysteries
Repetition
- Jesus in His Agony in the Garden (Mt 26:44).
- The four living creatures: "Day and night they do not stop exclaiming: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come" (Rev 4:8).