Pray­ing the Rosary 

In the begin­ning of his 2002 encycli­cal on the Rosary, Pope John Paul II said:

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 prayer of 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. [1]

Reflect­ing on parts of that encycli­cal will help us pray it with greater devo­tion and mean­ing. The whole let­ter is worth read­ing, for its rich recount­ing of the his­to­ry and past reflec­tions on the Rosary by the Church, but we high­light here the changes which the Holy Father sug­gest­ed for pray­ing the Rosary - those which are wide­ly known and those which have not been pub­li­cized very widely.

The first change which the Holy Father makes in the tra­di­tion of recit­ing the Rosary is the one which received the most publicity.

A pro­posed addi­tion to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern
The Holy Father reflects on the mys­ter­ies in the Rosary and add the “Mys­ter­ies of Light,” explain­ing their importance.

Of the many mys­ter­ies of Christ’s life, only a few are indi­cat­ed by the Rosary in the form that has become gen­er­al­ly estab­lished with the seal of the Church’s approval. The selec­tion was deter­mined by the ori­gin of the prayer, which was based on the num­ber 150, the num­ber of the Psalms in the Psalter.

I believe, how­ev­er, that to bring out ful­ly the Chris­to­log­i­cal depth of the Rosary it would be suit­able to make an addi­tion to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern which, while left to the free­dom of indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties, could broad­en it to include the mys­ter­ies of Christ’s pub­lic min­istry between his Bap­tism and his Pas­sion. In the course of those mys­ter­ies we con­tem­plate impor­tant aspects of the per­son of Christ as the defin­i­tive rev­e­la­tion of God. Declared the beloved Son of the Father at the Bap­tism in the Jor­dan, Christ is the one who announces the com­ing of the King­dom, bears wit­ness to it in his works and pro­claims its demands. 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).

Con­se­quent­ly, for the Rosary to become more ful­ly a “com­pendi­um of the Gospel”, it is fit­ting to add, fol­low­ing reflec­tion on the Incar­na­tion and the hid­den life of Christ (the joy­ful mys­ter­ies) and before focus­ing on the suf­fer­ings of his Pas­sion (the sor­row­ful mys­ter­ies) and the tri­umph of his Res­ur­rec­tion (the glo­ri­ous mys­ter­ies), a med­i­ta­tion on cer­tain par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant moments in his pub­lic min­istry (the mys­ter­ies of light). This addi­tion of these new mys­ter­ies, with­out prej­u­dice to any essen­tial aspect of the prayer’s tra­di­tion­al for­mat, is meant to give it fresh life and to enkin­dle renewed inter­est in the Rosary’s place with­in Chris­t­ian spir­i­tu­al­i­ty as a true door­way to the depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of joy and of light, of suf­fer­ing and of glo­ry. [19]

Then, the Holy Father com­ments fur­ther on each of the famil­iar mys­ter­ies. What he says about the Mys­ter­ies of Light is worth repeat­ing here, in full.

The Mys­ter­ies of Light
Mov­ing on from the infan­cy and the hid­den life in Nazareth to the pub­lic life of Jesus, our con­tem­pla­tion brings us to those mys­ter­ies which may be called in a spe­cial way “mys­ter­ies of light”. Cer­tain­ly the whole mys­tery of Christ is a mys­tery of light. He is the “light of the world” (Jn 8:12). Yet this truth emerges in a spe­cial way dur­ing the years of his pub­lic life, when he pro­claims the Gospel of the King­dom. In propos­ing to the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty five sig­nif­i­cant moments – “lumi­nous” mys­ter­ies – dur­ing this phase of Christ’s life, I think that the fol­low­ing can be fit­ting­ly sin­gled out: (1) his Bap­tism in the Jor­dan, (2) his self-man­i­fes­­ta­­tion at the wed­ding of Cana, (3) his procla­ma­tion of the King­dom of God, with his call to con­ver­sion, (4) his Trans­fig­u­ra­tion, and final­ly, (5) his insti­tu­tion of the Eucharist, as the sacra­men­tal expres­sion of the Paschal Mystery.

Each of these mys­ter­ies is a rev­e­la­tion of the King­dom now present in the very per­son of Jesus. The Bap­tism in the Jor­dan is first of all a mys­tery of light. Here, as Christ descends into the waters, the inno­cent one who became “sin” for our sake (cf. 2Cor 5:21), the heav­ens open wide and the voice of the Father declares him the beloved Son (cf. Mt 3:17 and par­al­lels), while the Spir­it descends on him to invest him with the mis­sion which he is to car­ry out. Anoth­er mys­tery of light is the first of the signs, giv­en at Cana (cf. Jn 2:1- 12), when Christ changes water into wine and opens the hearts of the dis­ci­ples to faith, thanks to the inter­ven­tion of Mary, the first among believ­ers. Anoth­er mys­tery of light is the preach­ing by which Jesus pro­claims the com­ing of the King­dom of God, calls to con­ver­sion (cf. Mk 1:15) and for­gives the sins of all who draw near to him in hum­ble trust (cf. Mk 2:3-13; Lk 7:47- 48): the inau­gu­ra­tion of that min­istry of mer­cy which he con­tin­ues to exer­cise until the end of the world, par­tic­u­lar­ly through the Sacra­ment of Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion which he has entrust­ed to his Church (cf. Jn 20:22-23). The mys­tery of light par excel­lence is the Trans­fig­u­ra­tion, tra­di­tion­al­ly believed to have tak­en place on Mount Tabor. The glo­ry of the God­head shines forth from the face of Christ as the Father com­mands the aston­ished Apos­tles to “lis­ten to him” (cf. Lk 9:35 and par­al­lels) and to pre­pare to expe­ri­ence with him the agony of the Pas­sion, so as to come with him to the joy of the Res­ur­rec­tion and a life trans­fig­ured by the Holy Spir­it. A final mys­tery of light is the insti­tu­tion of the Eucharist, in which Christ offers his body and blood as food under the signs of bread and wine, and tes­ti­fies “to the end” his love for human­i­ty (Jn 13:1), for whose sal­va­tion he will offer him­self in sacrifice.

In these mys­ter­ies, apart from the mir­a­cle at Cana, the pres­ence of Mary remains in the back­ground. The Gospels make only the briefest ref­er­ence to her occa­sion­al pres­ence at one moment or oth­er dur­ing the preach­ing of Jesus (cf. Mk 3:31-5; Jn 2:12), and they give no indi­ca­tion that she was present at the Last Sup­per and the insti­tu­tion of the Eucharist. Yet the role she assumed at Cana in some way accom­pa­nies Christ through­out his min­istry. The rev­e­la­tion made direct­ly by the Father at the Bap­tism in the Jor­dan and echoed by John the Bap­tist is placed upon Mary’s lips at Cana, and it becomes the great mater­nal coun­sel which Mary address­es to the Church of every age: “Do what­ev­er he tells you” (Jn 2:5). This coun­sel is a fit­ting intro­duc­tion to the words and signs of Christ’s pub­lic min­istry and it forms the Mar­i­an foun­da­tion of all the “mys­ter­ies of light”. [21]

The rest of the Holy Father’s reflec­tions on the Rosary and his oth­er sug­ges­tions for improv­ing our pray­ing the Rosary did not get media atten­tion. They are worth more seri­ous attention.

In many beau­ti­ful ways, he re-empha­­sizes and explains the impor­tance of the Rosary as a method of con­tem­pla­tion, as a pref­ace to his main sug­ges­tions. He affirms that the Rosary is “a valid method of prayer,” which he says, “can nev­er­the­less be improved.”

In effect, the Rosary is sim­ply a method of con­tem­pla­tion. As a method, it serves as a means to an end and can­not become an end in itself. All the same, as the fruit of cen­turies of expe­ri­ence, this method should not be under­val­ued. In its favour one could cite the expe­ri­ence of count­less Saints. This is not to say, how­ev­er, that the method can­not be improved. Such is the intent of the addi­tion of the new series of mys­te­ria lucis [mys­ter­ies of light] to the over­all cycle of mys­ter­ies and of the few sug­ges­tions which I am propos­ing in this Let­ter regard­ing its man­ner of recita­tion. These sug­ges­tions, while respect­ing the well-estab­lished struc­ture of this prayer, are intend­ed to help the faith­ful to under­stand it in the rich­ness of its sym­bol­ism and in har­mo­ny with the demands of dai­ly life. Oth­er­wise there is a risk that the Rosary would not only fail to pro­duce the intend­ed spir­i­tu­al effects, but even that the beads, with which it is usu­al­ly said, could come to be regard­ed as some kind of amulet or mag­ic object, there­by rad­i­cal­ly dis­tort­ing their mean­ing and func­tion. [28]

Announc­ing each mys­tery
The Holy Father encour­ages us to reflect on each mys­tery deeply, even imag­i­na­tive­ly, with a con­tem­pla­tive prayer, he sug­gests, like St. Ignatius pro­posed in the Spir­i­tu­al Exercises.

Lis­ten­ing to the word of God
The Holy Father sug­gests we read the scrip­ture pas­sage we will reflect upon in each mystery.

It is help­ful to fol­low the announce­ment of the mys­tery with the procla­ma­tion of a relat­ed Bib­li­cal pas­sage, long or short, depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances. No oth­er words can ever match the effi­ca­cy of the inspired word. As we lis­ten, we are cer­tain that this is the word of God, spo­ken for today and spo­ken “for me”.

If received in this way, the word of God can become part of the Rosary’s method­ol­o­gy of rep­e­ti­tion with­out giv­ing rise to the ennui derived from the sim­ple rec­ol­lec­tion of some­thing already well known. It is not a mat­ter of recall­ing infor­ma­tion but of allow­ing God to speak. In cer­tain solemn com­mu­nal cel­e­bra­tions, this word can be appro­pri­ate­ly illus­trat­ed by a brief com­men­tary. [30]

Silence
Then the Holy Father rec­om­mends some­thing we often for­get about in our prayer - reflec­tive silence.

Lis­ten­ing and med­i­ta­tion are nour­ished by silence. After the announce­ment of the mys­tery and the procla­ma­tion of the word, it is fit­ting to pause and focus one’s atten­tion for a suit­able peri­od of time on the mys­tery con­cerned, before mov­ing into vocal prayer. A dis­cov­ery of the impor­tance of silence is one of the secrets of prac­tic­ing con­tem­pla­tion and med­i­ta­tion. One draw­back of a soci­ety dom­i­nat­ed by tech­nol­o­gy and the mass media is the fact that silence becomes increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to achieve. Just as moments of silence are rec­om­mend­ed in the Litur­gy, so too in the recita­tion of the Rosary it is fit­ting to pause briefly after lis­ten­ing to the word of God, while the mind focus­es on the con­tent of a par­tic­u­lar mys­tery. [31]

The “Our Father”
Now the Holy Father places the Lord’s Prayer in its con­text for the reflec­tion on the mysteries.

After lis­ten­ing to the word and focus­ing on the mys­tery, it is nat­ur­al for the mind to be lift­ed up towards the Father. In each of his mys­ter­ies, Jesus always leads us to the Father, for as he rests in the Father’s bosom (cf. Jn 1:18) he is con­tin­u­al­ly turned towards him. He wants us to share in his inti­ma­cy with the Father, so that we can say with him: “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). By virtue of his rela­tion­ship to the Father he makes us broth­ers and sis­ters of him­self and of one anoth­er, com­mu­ni­cat­ing to us the Spir­it which is both his and the Father’s. Act­ing as a kind of foun­da­tion for the Chris­to­log­i­cal and Mar­i­an med­i­ta­tion which unfolds in the rep­e­ti­tion of the Hail Mary, the Our Father makes med­i­ta­tion upon the mys­tery, even when car­ried out in soli­tude, an eccle­sial expe­ri­ence. [32]

The ten “Hail Marys”
Here the Holy Father writes elo­quent­ly about the mean­ing of the rep­e­ti­tion of the Hail Mary prayer, as we med­i­tate on each mystery.

This is the most sub­stan­tial ele­ment in the Rosary and also the one which makes it a Mar­i­an prayer par excel­lence. Yet when the Hail Mary is prop­er­ly under­stood, we come to see clear­ly that its Mar­i­an char­ac­ter is not opposed to its Chris­to­log­i­cal char­ac­ter, but that it actu­al­ly empha­sizes and increas­es it. The first part of the Hail Mary, drawn from the words spo­ken to Mary by the Angel Gabriel and by Saint Eliz­a­beth, is a con­tem­pla­tion in ado­ra­tion of the mys­tery accom­plished in the Vir­gin of Nazareth. These words express, so to speak, the won­der of heav­en and earth; they could be said to give us a glimpse of God’s own won­der­ment as he con­tem­plates his “mas­ter­piece” – the Incar­na­tion of the Son in the womb of the Vir­gin Mary. If we recall how, in the Book of Gen­e­sis, God “saw all that he had made” (Gen 1:31), we can find here an echo of that “pathos with which God, at the dawn of cre­ation, looked upon the work of his hands”. The rep­e­ti­tion of the Hail Mary in the Rosary gives us a share in God’s own won­der and plea­sure: in jubi­lant amaze­ment we acknowl­edge the great­est mir­a­cle of his­to­ry. Mary’s prophe­cy here finds its ful­fil­ment: “Hence­forth all gen­er­a­tions will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48).  [33]

He then calls our atten­tion to a cus­tom which Pope Paul VI rec­om­mend­ed - adding the name of the mys­tery into the Hail Mary prayer, after the name of Jesus. For exam­ple, ” and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, as we med­i­tate on the mys­tery of the vis­i­ta­tion of Mary to Elizabeth.”

The cen­tre of grav­i­ty in the Hail Mary, the hinge as it were which joins its two parts, is the name of Jesus. Some­times, in hur­ried recita­tion, this cen­tre of grav­i­ty can be over­looked, and with it the con­nec­tion to the mys­tery of Christ being con­tem­plat­ed. Yet it is pre­cise­ly the empha­sis giv­en to the name of Jesus and to his mys­tery that is the sign of a mean­ing­ful and fruit­ful recita­tion of the Rosary. Pope Paul VI drew atten­tion, in his Apos­tolic Exhor­ta­tion Mar­i­alis Cul­tus, to the cus­tom in cer­tain regions of high­light­ing the name of Christ by the addi­tion of a clause refer­ring to the mys­tery being con­tem­plat­ed. This is a praise­wor­thy cus­tom, espe­cial­ly dur­ing pub­lic recita­tion. It gives force­ful expres­sion to our faith in Christ, direct­ed to the dif­fer­ent moments of the Redeemer’s life. It is at once a pro­fes­sion of faith and an aid in con­cen­trat­ing our med­i­ta­tion, since it facil­i­tates the process of assim­i­la­tion to the mys­tery of Christ inher­ent in the rep­e­ti­tion of the Hail Mary. When we repeat the name of Jesus – the only name giv­en to us by which we may hope for sal­va­tion (cf. Acts 4:12) – in close asso­ci­a­tion with the name of his Blessed Moth­er, almost as if it were done at her sug­ges­tion, we set out on a path of assim­i­la­tion meant to help us enter more deeply into the life of Christ. [33]

The “Glo­ria”
The Holy Father writes about the impor­tance of the prayer, “Glo­ry be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spir­it” between each mystery.

Trini­tar­i­an dox­ol­o­gy is the goal of all Chris­t­ian con­tem­pla­tion. For Christ is the way that leads us to the Father in the Spir­it. If we trav­el this way to the end, we repeat­ed­ly encounter the mys­tery of the three divine Per­sons, to whom all praise, wor­ship and thanks­giv­ing are due. It is impor­tant that the Glo­ria, the high-point of con­tem­pla­tion, be giv­en due promi­nence in the Rosary. In pub­lic recita­tion it could be sung, as a way of giv­ing prop­er empha­sis to the essen­tial­ly Trini­tar­i­an struc­ture of all Chris­t­ian prayer.

To the extent that med­i­ta­tion on the mys­tery is atten­tive and pro­found, and to the extent that it is enlivened – from one Hail Mary to anoth­er – by love for Christ and for Mary, the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of the Trin­i­ty at the end of each decade, far from being a per­func­to­ry con­clu­sion, takes on its prop­er con­tem­pla­tive tone, rais­ing the mind as it were to the heights of heav­en and enabling us in some way to relive the expe­ri­ence of Tabor, a fore­taste of the con­tem­pla­tion yet to come: “It is good for us to be here!” (Lk 9:33). [34]

Then the Holy Father makes his most dra­mat­ic sug­ges­tion, which received no men­tion in the media. With­out dimin­ish­ing the val­ue of cur­rent prayers between the mys­ter­ies - like the prayer, “Oh, My Jesus, for­give us our sins …” he sug­gests replac­ing those with a Col­lect - a con­clud­ing prayer at the end of each decade’s reflec­tion, with “a prayer for the fruits spe­cif­ic to that par­tic­u­lar mystery.”

The con­clud­ing short prayer
In cur­rent prac­tice, the Trini­tar­i­an dox­ol­o­gy is fol­lowed by a brief con­clud­ing prayer which varies accord­ing to local cus­tom. With­out in any way dimin­ish­ing the val­ue of such invo­ca­tions, it is worth­while to note that the con­tem­pla­tion of the mys­ter­ies could bet­ter express their full spir­i­tu­al fruit­ful­ness if an effort were made to con­clude each mys­tery with a prayer for the fruits spe­cif­ic to that par­tic­u­lar mys­tery. In this way the Rosary would bet­ter express its con­nec­tion with the Chris­t­ian life. One fine litur­gi­cal prayer sug­gests as much, invit­ing us to pray that, by med­i­ta­tion on the mys­ter­ies of the Rosary, we may come to “imi­tate what they con­tain and obtain what they promise”.

Such a final prayer could take on a legit­i­mate vari­ety of forms, as indeed it already does. In this way the Rosary can be bet­ter adapt­ed to dif­fer­ent spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions and dif­fer­ent Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties. It is to be hoped, then, that appro­pri­ate for­mu­las will be wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed, after due pas­toral dis­cern­ment and pos­si­bly after exper­i­men­tal use in cen­tres and shrines par­tic­u­lar­ly devot­ed to the Rosary, so that the Peo­ple of God may ben­e­fit from an abun­dance of authen­tic spir­i­tu­al rich­es and find nour­ish­ment for their per­son­al con­tem­pla­tion. [35]

We can exper­i­ment, as he sug­gests, with var­i­ous spon­ta­neous prayers. For exam­ple, at the end of the decade reflect­ing on on the Annun­ci­a­tion, we might conclude:

“Lord, we thank you for this reflec­tion on the mys­tery of your Incar­na­tion which hap­pened through the announce­ment to Mary, your moth­er. Please give me/us her ready and com­plete trust in your ways and her accep­tance of your call to be your ser­vant in ful­fill­ing your love for oth­ers. We ask this in Jesus’ name.”

As the Holy Father sug­gests, this kind of prayer helps us focus the reflec­tion on a grace, a fruit we are look­ing for, as we pray about this mys­tery. It will be a tremen­dous grace for us to even ask our­selves, “As I pray this mys­tery, what is the fruit that it might bring me?”

The plan for using the var­i­ous mys­ter­ies has been pub­li­cized broad­ly - what days we reflect upon which mys­tery. The Holy Father out­lines it here and explains how Thurs­day and Sat­ur­day become days for pray­ing the mys­ter­ies of light:

Accord­ing to cur­rent prac­tice, Mon­day and Thurs­day are ded­i­cat­ed to the “joy­ful mys­ter­ies”, Tues­day and Fri­day to the “sor­row­ful mys­ter­ies”, and Wednes­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day to the “glo­ri­ous mys­ter­ies”. Where might the “mys­ter­ies of light” be insert­ed? If we con­sid­er that the “glo­ri­ous mys­ter­ies” are said on both Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, and that Sat­ur­day has always had a spe­cial Mar­i­an flavour, the sec­ond week­ly med­i­ta­tion on the “joy­ful mys­ter­ies”, mys­ter­ies in which Mary’s pres­ence is espe­cial­ly pro­nounced, could be moved to Sat­ur­day. Thurs­day would then be free for med­i­tat­ing on the “mys­ter­ies of light”. [38]

The Con­clu­sion
In the con­clu­sion of the encycli­cal, the Holy Father entrusts the pow­er of the Rosary’s prayer to the cause of peace and to the cause of the fam­i­ly. [39-42]

He says, “Dear broth­ers and sis­ters! A prayer so easy and yet so rich tru­ly deserves to be redis­cov­ered by the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty.” [43] And, after appeal­ing to Bish­ops, priest, dea­cons and reli­gious to take up the Rosary and to pro­mote it, he says to all of us:

I look to all of you, broth­ers and sis­ters of every state of life, to you, Chris­t­ian fam­i­lies, to you, the sick and elder­ly, and to you, young peo­ple: con­fi­dent­ly take up the Rosary once again. Redis­cov­er the Rosary in the light of Scrip­ture, in har­mo­ny with the Litur­gy, and in the con­text of your dai­ly lives. [43]