Transcript

The rosary is a quiet, contemplative prayer with enormous spiritual power.

Its very repetitiveness makes it a kind of mantra, designed to slow us down, calm our restless hearts, and allow the mysteries of the life of Christ to appear before our mind's eye.

But how exactly do we pray it?

Well, the rosary actually consists of a series of smaller prayers, all of which take about 20 minutes to pray.

For our purposes today, I will say the names of each prayer: Hail Mary, Our Father, etc. For the text of each prayer, visit wordonfire.org/rosary.

Now, let's walk through the rosary together.

Holding the crucifix of the rosary, we pray the ancient Apostle's Creed, which is a summary of our baptismal promises.

Holding the first bead above the crucifix, we then pray the Our Father, which is, of course, the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.

For each of the three beads that follow, we pray the Hail Mary, which is derived from the Biblical text where an angel asks Mary if she's willing to become the Mother of God.

One thing we might pray for during this introductory triplet is an increase in faith, hope, and love.

Next, we pray the Glory Be, which gives praise to the three persons of our one God.

Now we move into the heart of the rosary, the five decades, so-called.

These are groupings of ten beads, separated by an individual bead.

Each of these decades corresponds to a mystery in the lives of Christ and his mother.

When we pray the rosary, we pray it following one of the four categories of mysteries: the joyful mysteries, the sorrowful mysteries, the glorious mysteries, and the luminous mysteries.

Again, to learn more about the mysteries of the rosary, visit wordonfire.org/rosary.

So, let's begin the decades.

Before the first decade, we announce the mystery and then pray an Our Father.

Then, on each of the ten beads, we say a Hail Mary, contemplating the mystery as we pray.

After we pray the tenth Hail Mary in each decade, we pray the Glory Be, followed by the prayer requested by the Blessed Virgin Mary in her apparition at Fatima: Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.

In summary, we repeat this cycle of prayers, announcement of the mystery, Our Father, ten Hail Marys, Glory Be, and the Fatima prayer, for each of the five decades, meditating on each of the five mysteries as we move through each decade.

After saying the five decades, we pray the Hail Holy Queen.

Then we may recite the concluding prayer.

Finally, we end in the same way we began, with the sign of the cross.

Having gone around in a circle and reached the end, we are right back where we started, and in a way, that's the point.

The rosary hasn't taken us anywhere or accomplished anything in a worldly sense, but it has drawn us into the courts of the Lord that we might simply gaze upon him.

Thanks for watching.

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