St. Dominic and the Rosary
by Robert Feeney
Source: http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Faith/0910-96/articl11.html
Dominic Guzman was born in 1170 in Calaroga, Castile (Spain)
in an age of change. The sons of Mohammed had swept across
the Mediterranean, turning Christian temples into Moorish
mosques, leaving many regions of Spain under the Moorish yoke.
At the age of 14, Dominic went to the University of Palencia
and graduated with a degree in liberal arts and sacred sciences.
He was known for his devotion to study and reverence for learning.
He was generous, compassionate, gentle, and strong. At the
age of 24, he was ordained a priest by the bishop of Osma,
Spain.
At the age 33, Dominic exercised his priestly ministry in
the southern region of France called Languedoc. It was in
this region that St. Dominic came in contact with the Albigensian
heresy. This heresy was an offshoot of Manicheanism. Manes
was a preacher who lived in the plains between the Tigris
and Euphrates during the third century. Manes taught that
all matter is evil and that man is a combination of two opposing
principles; a spiritual being created by God, thrust into
a material body created by an evil being. The Albigensians
believed that adultery, fornication, and suicide were praiseworthy;
there is no heaven, no hell, no moral code. St. Dominic traveled
from village to village teaching the truths of the Faith.
The Albigensians jeered, insulted, and pelted him with stones
as he traveled along their roads. He prayed to God in churches
at night and hardly ever slept. His contemporaries described
him as a "strong athlete," capable of great physical
endurance. He was always good to talk to when you were in
trouble, always affectionate, and quickly made you feel at
home.
It was during this time that the tradition of the Rosary
comes to us. The form in which it has come down to us will
best be stated in the words of P. Corneluis de Snecka, a disciple
of the French Dominican Alan de la Roche:
We read that at the time when he was preaching to the Albigenses,
St. Dominic at first obtained but scanty success: and that
one day, complaining of this in pious prayer to our Blessed
Lady, she deigned to reply to him, saying:'Wonder not that
you have obtained so little fruit by your labors, you have
spent them on barren soil, not yet watered with the dew of
Divine grace. When God willed to renew the face of the earth,
He began by sending down on it the fertilizing rain of the
Angelic Salutation. Therefore preach my Psalter composed of
150 Angelic Salutations and 15 Our Fathers, and you will obtain
an abundant harvest.'
The place of the revelation was the church of Prouille and
the time was 1208. The claim of place and time are most strongly
supported by the tradition of the Dominican Order. Pope Leo
XIII affirmed over and over the Dominican origin of the Rosary
and in a letter to the Bishop of Carcassone (1889), he accepts
the tradition of Prouille as the place where the Blessed Virgin
Mary appeared to St. Dominic, revealing this devotion. The
tradition that Mary first revealed the Rosary devotion to
St. Dominic is supported by 13 popes.
St. Dominic went into the villages of the heretics, gathered
the people, and preached to them the mysteries of salvation
- the Incarnation, the Redemption, Eternal Life. As the Holy
Virgin had taught him to do, he distinguished the different
kinds of mysteries and after each short instruction he had
ten Hail Marys recited. St. Dominic found great success in
this new devotion, bringing about the conversion of the Albigensians.
The late Dominican Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who was a teacher
of Pope John Paul II when he was a student at the Angelicum
in Rome, stated: "Our Blessed Lady made known to St.
Dominic a kind of preaching till then unknown; which she said
would be one of the most powerful weapons against future errors
and in future difficulties."
The battle of Muret was fought in 1213 between the Catholic
forces, led by Simon de Montfort and the Albigenses forces,
led by Raymond of Toulouse. The Catholic forces were in the
habit of praying the Rosary, at the suggestion of St. Dominic.
The Catholic force won the battle of Muret, looked upon the
victory as miraculous, and counted it as the fruit of prayer.
The English Dominican historian, Nicholas Trivet wrote, "St.
Dominic warred by prayer, De Montfort by arms. The first chapel
in honor of the Rosary was built, out of gratitude, by Simon
de Montfort in the town of Muret."
The Confraternity of the Rosary was first started by St.
Dominic in Palencia in 1218. It's members pray the 15 decades
of the Rosary during the coarse of each week. Mary has confirmed
the value of the Confraternity in her well-known Rosary promises:
"I have obtained from my Son that all the members of
the Confraternity have in life and in death all the Blessed
as their associates." Pope Clement VIII declared that
St. Dominic established the Confraternity of the Rosary in
the Church of St. Sixtus in Rome. Pope Alexander VI in 1495,
addressed St. Dominic as "the renowned preacher long
ago of the Confraternity of the Rosary, and through his merits,
the whole world was preserved from universal ruin." The
Confraternity retained its first fervor for 100 years after
it was instituted by St. Dominic. After this, it was forgotten.
Divine Providence assigned the restoration of it to the
eminent French Dominican theologian and preacher, Alan de
la Roche. During the 15th century, this son of St. Dominic
restored the Rosary to its former vitality.
On October 7, 1571, members of the Confraternity of the Rosary
in Rome, processed praying the Rosary for a blessing on the
Christian fleet fighting the Turks at Lepanto. Pope St. Pius
V, a Dominican, joined them, and God revealed to him that
Mary had at that hour obtained a glorious victory for the
Christian fleet. This great victory saved Europe from the
Mohammedan peril.
Pope Pius XI stated that the Rosary of Mary is, as it were,
the principle and foundation on which the very Order of St.
Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and
obtaining the salvation of others. The Catholic Church looks
to the Dominicans as official promoters of both the Rosary
and the Rosary Confraternity. If you would like to enroll
in the Confraternity of the Rosary, send your full name and
address to:
Rosary Center-Dominican Fathers
P. 0. Box 3617
Portland, OR 97208
Source: http://www.prayrosary.com/rosaryscapular/history.php3
"One day through the Rosary and the Scapular I will
save the world". These were the words spoken to Saint
Dominic by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 1208 when she
appeared to him. The Rosary as we know it today was in a different
form in it's beginnings. Now let us look at the times before
St. Dominic, at the earlier history of prayer that gave birth
to the Rosary.
At an early date among the monastic orders the practice
of counting prayers established itself not only of offering
Masses, but of saying vocal prayers as a suffrage for their
deceased brethren. For this purpose the private recitation
of the 150 psalms, or of 50 psalms, the third part, was constantly
enjoined. Already in A.D. 800 we learn from the compact between
St. Gall and Reichenau ("Mon. Germ. Hist.: Confrat."
Piper, 140) that for each deceased brother all the priests
should say one Mass and also fifty psalms.
"Ancient Customs of Cluny", collected by Udalrio
in 1096, that when the death of any brother at a distance
was announced, every priest was to offer Mass, and every non-priest
was either to say fifty psalms or to repeat fifty times the
Paternoster (The Lord's Prayer).
To count these accurately there is every reason to believe
that already in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a practice
had come in of using pebbles, berries, or discs of bone threaded
on a string. It is in any case certain that the Countess Godiva
of Coventry (c 1075) left by will to the statue of Our Lady
in a certain monastery "the circlet of precious stones
which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering
them one after another she might count her prayers exactly"
(Malmesbury, "Gesta Pont.", Rolls Series 311). Another
example seems to occur in the case of St. Rosalia (A. D. 1160),
in whose tomb similar strings of beads were discovered. Even
more important is the fact that such strings of beads were
known throughout the Middle Ages - and in some Continental
tongues are known to his day - as "Paternosters"
which are Our Fathers. The evidence for this is overwhelming
and comes from every part of Europe.
In the times before St. Dominic we can see that the, Paternosters,
(The Lord's Prayer) was prayed, and we know from history that
during St. Dominic's time The Lord's Prayer and Our Lady's
Psalter, (The Hail Mary) were prayed on pebbles, or a string
of beads.
St. Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins was
hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into
a forest near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three
days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but
weep and do harsh penance's in order to appease the anger
of Almighty God.
Tradition tells that our Lady appeared to him while he prayed.
The story is told that she spoke to him gently that day in
the forest.
"My son," the Queen of Heaven said, "prayer
and penance are the only way to win souls. Pray my Psalter
and teach it to your people. That prayer, will never fail."
"Our Lady's Psalter? The Hail Mary one hundred and
fifty times? That is not a new prayer," Brother Dominic
said to himself.
He frequently prayed the Psalter as he walked along the
road. Many people did. Those who could not read Holy Scripture
and those who could not understand it often said a Hail Mary
for each of the Psalms. Their simple prayer took the place
of the one hundred and fifty Psalms of David that the learned
ones could read.
Counting prayers was not new either before the birth of
Jesus, the people who belonged to ancient religions had counted
on knotted cords the prayers they said to their gods. After
the coming of our Lord, the hermits who lived in the desert
in the early centuries counted their prayers to God by means
of pebbles.
Even in his own time, the thirteenth century, Brother Dominic
knew that people were using a string of beads called "paternosters."
On these they counted the number of times they repeated the
Lord's Prayer. What did our Lady mean?
The Blessed Mother knew that Brother Dominic was puzzled.
Tradition tells that it was then that she taught him the way
she wanted the Psalter said, the prayer that was to become
her Rosary.
"Make clear to them the mysteries of their religion,
the divine truths that God has revealed but that they cannot
understand. Teach them to picture in their minds the events
of my Sons life. Teach them to see as I saw the joys that
came into the world with the Annunciation. Recall to them
the words of the Angel Gabriel when he announced to me, a
Virgin, that I was to be the Mother of the Savior.
"'Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.'
"Let them journey with me to my cousin Elizabeth and
hear, as I heard, her words of welcome,
"'Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb.'"
The Holy Spirit had let her know that her Child was the
One who would redeem men from their sins.
"Teach them to picture the stable in Bethlehem where
Christ the Lord was born."
The Blessed Mother smiled as though she were seeing again
the little Lord Jesus in His first cradle.
"Let them walk with Joseph and me when we take the
Baby to the great Temple in Jerusalem to receive the blessing
of Almighty God. Make them rejoice with us when we find the
Holy Child who was lost for three long days."
Then a sadness came over the Blessed Mother as she recalled
the sorrows she had shared with her Son. Brother Dominic thought
of the Garden of Gethsemane. He wept as he pictured the drops
of blood and the sweat on the Savior's face when He beheld
the sins of the world.
Brother Dominic had often meditated on the Scourging at
the Pillar, for he had chosen the lash of the whip as his
own frequent penance. He thought of the crown of thorns which
the mocking soldiers had placed upon the head of Christ the
King, the heavy Cross which He carried wearily up the long
hill to Calvary. Brother Dominic saw them all as Mary had.
He raised his tear-filled eyes to the Blessed Mother. How
had she stood so bravely beneath the Cross of her crucified
Son? She had shared with Him all of His joys, sorrows, and
pain, and the glory of His triumph over death. How well had
God prepared her to be the understanding Mother of all mankind!
No one knows the words she spoke to Brother Dominic when
he saw her in his vision. It is not exactly known how long
it took to arrange our Lady's Psalter into the Hail Mary's
separated by the Our Fathers that make up each decade of the
Rosary. It is not known how long it took to gather together
the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries into the fifteen
decades of the entire Rosary. But it is known that Brother
Dominic began at once to preach and teach the Incarnation
and the Redemption as he had been directed to by the Blessed
Mother.
Filled with new zeal, Brother Dominic began to teach his
listeners to picture the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
as they prayed the Rosary. They recited our Lord's own prayer,
the Our Father. Then they repeated over and over again the
Angel Gabriel's words to the Virgin when he announced that
she was to be the Mother of God's Son. As they said the Our
Fathers and Hail Mary's, they learned to see in their own
minds the mystery they named as they began each decade.
The simple words of the prayer kept their thoughts on heavenly
matters for as long as their beads slipped through their fingers.
The Rosary then became a prayer that everyone could understand.
Those with little learning or scholars with profound knowledge
could now picture the divine life, each in his own way.
The Petition "Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us
sinners now and at the hour of our death" had been included
by the common man as "Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for
us sinners, and forms similar to this long before it was made
official by the Church. The prayer book for the dying, by
St. Anselm of Canterbury, a native Italian (died 1109),contains
a Latin prayer in verse in which the last line is a petition
to Mary for assistance at the hour of death. Very much like
the "Holy Mary," it runs as follows: "Mary,
Mother of Grace, Mother of Mercy, protect us against the Evil
Sprit and take us to heaven at the hour of our death."
In 1568 the Hail Mary was added to the Our Father to become
the prescribed form exactly as we pray it today. The Glory-Be
to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost and the O
my Jesus portion of the Rosary have been added and approved
by the Church through the years to arrive at it's present
form as it is prayed today. Each prayer having it's own history
of Praise, Glory, and Worship of God.
The History of the Rosary could go on and on, volume after
volume. Here we attempt to present a short and condensed version
of its' history. There is as yet much more for one to explore
and discover about the Rosary, this most pleasing prayer to
God.
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