The power of this Catholic prayer “is beyond description”

The Rosary as we have it today originated in the mid- to late fifteenth century, though legend has it that it first arose from St. Dominic, in the early thirteenth century, before falling into disuse. The Rosary was based on prayer traditions using multiple repetitions of the same prayer, at first the Lord’s Prayer, using knots on a rope to keep count.

In ninth century Ireland, the laity began using a string of beads to keep count of the one hundred fifty Our Fathers they said to mirror the number of Psalms said by the regular clergy of convents in the Divine Office; at that time it was called “Our Lady’s Psalter”. In the similar practice in the Eastern Church, the laity usually used knotted rope.(...)

In 1198, the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives began saying the Rosary of the Holy Trinity on a chaplet of three groups on nine beads. The prayer around which the chaplet was structured is the Trisagion.

In 1233, the Order of the Servants of Mary, known as the Servites, instituted their rosary known as the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. The form is used with a chaplet of seven decades.

In 1422, the Order of Friars Minor (the Franciscans) established the Rosary of the Seven Joys of Our Lady, also known as the Franciscan Crown. This rosary is said with seven decades of Hail Marys, book-ended by an Our Father and a Minor Doxology, with two more Hail Marys added at the end.

In 1851, the Vatican approved the Chaplet of St. Michael, consisting of nine groups of three small beads separated by a large bead. The prayers used are the Paternoster and the Ave Maria.

The Rosary is cherished in the Catholic Church. Archbishop Fulton Sheen did say,

“The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description.”

Laurika Nxumalo, 24 février 2022

Source (Adapted): patheos.com