Pope John Pauls II's Apostolic Letter "ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE" to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful on the most holy Rosary begins:
"The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to "set out into the deep" (duc in altum!) in order once more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, "the way, and the truth and the life" (Jn 14:6), "the goal of human history and the point on which the desires of history and civilization turn".
"The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium. It is an echo of the prayerof Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer."
This introduction clearly displays what the Church thinking on the Rosary is today. This Apostolic letter was used to proclaim the year from October 2002 to October 2003 the Year of the Rosary and to introduce the Luminous mysteries.
The Letter also goes on to address some objections to the Rosary:
"The timeliness of this proposal is evident from a number of considerations. First, the urgent need to counter a certain crisis of the Rosary, which in the present historical and theological context can risk being wrongly devalued, and therefore no longer taught to the younger generation. There are some who think that the centrality of the Liturgy, rightly stressed by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, necessarily entails giving lesser importance to the Rosary. Yet, as Pope Paul VI made clear, not only does this prayer not conflict with the Liturgy, it sustains it, since it serves as an excellent introduction and a faithful echo of the Liturgy, enabling people to participate fully and interiorly in it and to reap its fruits in their daily lives."
"Perhaps too, there are some who fear that the Rosary is somehow unecumenical because of its distinctly Marian character. Yet the Rosary clearly belongs to the kind of veneration of the Mother of God described by the Council: a devotion directed to the Christological centre of the Christian faith, in such a way that "when the Mother is honoured, the Son ... is duly known, loved and glorified". If properly revitalized, the Rosary is an aid and certainly not a hindrance to ecumenism!"
"The Rosary, a treasure to be rediscovered."
"Dear brothers and sisters! A prayer so easy and yet so rich truly deserves to be rediscovered by the Christian community."
To help with your rediscovery or initial discovery, Here is a set of instructions to get you going. We also have it in a one page printable guide format.
There are variations on how the Rosary is recited but all of the prayers you will need will be included on our Common Prayers page.
Here is a short explanation with Bible reference. of the Mysteries
Here is a in-depth explanation of the Mysteries:
Please, consider discovering the Rosary for yourself, your family and your community. The Rosary is recited here at Saint Andrew 15 minutes before the 5:30 Saturday Mass and the 8:00 AM Sunday Mass.
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