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Pope Pius XII called the Rosary “the compendium of the entire Gospel.”1 Pope Paul VI said that “By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are unfolded.”2 And all the Hail Marys, one after another in succession become “an unceasing praise of Christ.”3 Pope Paul gave the Rosary great praise, saying, “after the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, the high point which family prayer can reach, the Rosary should be considered as one of the best and most efficacious prayers in common that the Christian family is invited to recite.4 A succession of popes wrote on the Rosary, and Pope John Paul II even added five decades to it, the Luminous Mysteries. Pope John Paul called the Rosary “a true doorway to the depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of joy and of light, of suffering and of glory.”5
Many credit St. Dominic with bringing praying the Rosary into prominence through a vision of Blessed Mary giving it to him, and he certainly did that. But praying with beads did not start with St. Dominic. Praying a form of the Rosary can be found all the way back in ninth-century monasteries. Monks would recite the 150 Psalms. Lay people, who possibly couldn’t read and so couldn’t memorize the 150 Psalms, would say 150 Hail Marys instead.6 Pope Paul VI stated that “the Rosary is, as it were, a branch sprung from the ancient trunk of the Christian liturgy, the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, whereby the humble were associated in the Church’s hymn of praise and universal intercession.”7 Yet it is also said that it was St. Dominic who gave us the fifteen mysteries associated with praying the Rosary and started spreading it in the early thirteenth century as a way of spreading the Good News and catechizing.8 Ever since Dominicans have been prominent in promoting praying of the Rosary. Dominican Alan de la Roche established the first Rosary Confraternity in 1470.9 In the sixteenth century, Pope Pius V, a Dominican, set down the method of saying the Rosary and also established the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary to commemorate the battle of Lepanto.10 Also in the sixteenth century, “During a plague in 16th-century Italy, Dominican Fr. Timothy Ricci responded to the people’s distress by organizing the perpetual prayer of the Rosary, with each person committing to pray at a specific hour each month.”11 One Dominican historian adds that “Ricci … introduced choral recitation of the Rosary.”12 Many other Dominicans have promoted praying the Rosary including St. Rose of Lima in the early seventeenth century.
Dominicans have been praying it that way for over five hundred years. Even today daily recitation of the Rosary is part of the Rule by which all Dominicans, religious and lay, live. Bishops, priests, many other religious orders, and lay people also have joined in daily praying of the Rosary. May we all join in this great tradition.
1 Quoted in Paul VI, Marialis cultus (1974), no. 42, https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19740202_marialis-cultus.html.
2 Ibid., no. 47.
3 Ibid., no. 46.
4 Ibid., no. 54.
5 John Paul II, Rosarium virginis Mariae (2002), no. 19, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20021016_rosarium-virginis-mariae.html.
6 See e.g. Michelle Martin, “We Can Thank St. Dominic and St. Pius V for the Rosary,” Chicago Catholic, October 18, 2015, https://www.chicagocatholic.com/chicagoland/-/article/2015/10/19/we-can-thank-st-dominic-and-st-pius-v-for-the-rosary-october-is-celebrated-as-the-month-of-this-ancient-marian-prayer.
7 Paul VI, Marialis cultus, no. 48.
8 J.S. Alemany, The Life of St. Dominic and a Sketch of the Dominican Order (New York: P. O’Shea Publishers, 1867), 42.
9 Dominican Liturgical Commission, Dominican Supplement to the Liturgy of the Hours (Chicago: Dominican Liturgical Commission, 1991), 320.
10 Boguslaw Kochaniewicz, "The Contribution of the Dominicans to the Development of the Rosary," Angelicum 81.2 (2004), 377-403.
11 A Dominican Nun, “These Nuns Pray the Perpetual Rosary–One Shares Her Reflections,” October 30, 2020, https://avemariaradio.net/oldsite/these-nuns-pray-the-perpetual-rosary-one-shares-her-reflections/.
12 William A. Hinnebusch, The Dominicans: A Short History (New York: Alba House, 1975), chap. 8.
