The Greatest Marian Prayer

The Church’s Magisterium has granted plenary indulgences (full remission of temporal punishment due to sin) under the appropriate conditions for the praying of the Rosary. A plenary indulgence may be gained by praying the Rosary (five decades said continuously, with meditation on the mysteries) in any of the following manners: 1) praying the Rosary together as a family; 2) when members of a religious community or pious association pray the Rosary together; 3) praying the Rosary in a church or public oratory. All acts for plenary indulgences must also include Holy Communion, Confession, prayers for the intentions of the pope, and a complete detachment from sin. (33)

The Family Rosary

The Magisterium has also strongly praised the profound spiritual effects of praying the Family Rosary. Since the Family Rosary is endowed with particularly rich indulgences and most highly recommended, the popes have tried to lead Christian families to the spiritual graces and protection received when the family prays the Rosary together daily. As Pope John Paul II (quoting Pope Paul VI) says in his 1981 document on the Christian family:

John Paul’s 2002 Rosary document contains the plea to families to make the Family Rosary a daily event, with the assurance of these extraordinary effects for today’s family:

The special means of spiritual protection and spiritual grace received from the daily praying of the Family Rosary should not be underestimated. This daily practice performed by the family as the Ecclesia Domestica, or Domestic Church, is of tremendous spiritual efficacy and is strongly encouraged by the universal Church.

Further, the testimony by the saints over the last half millennium has provided enthusiastic praise of the efficacy of praying the daily Rosary. Saints of the spiritual stature of St. Teresa of Avila, doctor of the Church on Prayer, St. Francis de Sales, St. Louis Marie de Montfort, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Don Bosco, St. Bernadette, and many more, have not only extolled the ineffable graces received in praying the Rosary daily, but have also identified the Rosary as their favorite prayer.

The Rosary Call in Marian Apparitions

A primary source bespeaking the great spiritual value of the Rosary, particularly in our present age, is the testimony of the Blessed Virgin herself through her apparitions to the modern world.

At Lourdes, France in 1858, Mary invited the world to pray the Rosary by her own example. In the first Marian apparition to Bernadette Soubirous on February 11, 1858, the visionary reported that the Blessed Virgin was offering the world the example of praying the Rosary: "The Lady dressed in white...ran the beads of hers through her fingers." Bernadette prepared for each of the seventeen following apparitions of Mary by praying the Rosary, a practice also adopted by the surrounding crowds. (36)

At Fatima, Portugal in 1917, Mary appeared to three Portuguese children under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary, to make clear the crucial importance of this prayer for the contemporary world quest for salvation and peace. Our Lady of the Rosary explicitly exhorted the world to the daily praying of the Rosary in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of World War I: "Pray the Rosary every day in order to obtain peace in the world and the end of the war" (May 13, 1917). In her last Fatima apparition in 1917, Our Lady of Fatima called the human family to continue always the practice of praying the Rosary daily: "I am the Lady of the Rosary. Always continue to pray the Rosary every day" (October 13, 1917). (37)

More recently, in several reported contemporary apparitions of Mary, the emphatic Marian call for daily Rosary, and even for the full twenty decade daily Rosary, for the conversion of the world has reached an historical climax.

In the reported apparitions of the Queen of Peace at Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina (presently under Church investigation), the Virgin Mary has requested the daily praying of the fifteen decade Rosary for both spiritual and global peace. Her reported message of August 8, 1985 underscores the spiritual power and protection of the Rosary against Satan, Our Lady’s ancient adversary (cf. Gen 3:15):

And on June 25, 1985 from the Queen of Peace:

Protestant Christians and the Rosary

A final indication of the efficacy and value of the Rosary can be seen today in the new openness by many Protestant Christians, probably as never before since the Reformation, to the praying of the Rosary. As summarized by one author:

In sum, the Church’s Magisterium, the writings of the saints, and even the realm of Marian private revelation have singled out the Rosary as the greatest Marian prayer in history, a supernatural prayer which sanctifies, protects, and saves. We conclude with this moving passage by Bl. Bartolo Longo, modern "Apostle of the Rosary," with which John Paul II likewise ended his monumental Rosarium Virginis Mariae:

This article was excerpted from Introduction to Mary: The Heart of Marian Doctrine and Devotion, Queenship, Third Edition, June 2006, and is available from Queenship Publishing at 1-800-647-9882, www.queenship.org., or PO Box 220, Goleta, California, 93116, U.S.A.

Notes

(1) John Paul II, angelus message, October 29, 1978, L’Osservatore Romano.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Cf. Leo XIII, Apostolic Letter Salutaris ille, December 24, 1883.

(4) Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, No. 174; AAS 38, 1947.

(5) John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 16, 2002, No. 4.

(6) Cf. Ibid., No. 21.

(7) R. Garrigou-LaGrange, O.P., Mother of Our Savior and the Interior Life, tr. Bernard Kelly, C.S.Sp., Golden Eagle Book, Dublin, Ireland, 1948, p. 293.

(8) Cf. John Hardon, S.J., "Albigensianism," Colliers Encyclopedia, 1994, Vol. 1, pp. 495-496.

(9) R. Garrigou-LaGrange, O.P., Mother of Our Savior, p. 297.

(10) Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Octobri mense, September 22, 1891, No. 8; AAS 24; Pius XI, Encyclical Ingravescentibus malis, September 29, 1937, No. 12; AAS 29, 1937; George Shea, "The Dominican Rosary," Juniper Carol, O.F.M., ed., Mariology, Vol. III, Milwaukee: Bruce, 1961. For diverse opinions, cf. Michael O’Carroll C.S.Sp, "Rosary," Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Delaware, Michael Glazier, Inc., 1983.

(11) Cf. Emmanuele Testa, O.F.M., Maria Terra Vergine, Vol. II: Il Culto mariano palestinese, Jerusalem, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, 1984.

(12) Ibid.

(13) Cf. A. Walz, O.P., Compendium Historiae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ed. 2, Romae, 1948.

(14) Cf. Shea, "The Dominican Rosary," Mariology, III.

(15) Cf. John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, No. 19.

(16) Ibid.

(17) Cf. St. Pius V, Apostolic Constitution Consueverunt Romani Pontifices, 1569.

(18) Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, February 2, 1974, No. 42.

(19) In the thirteenth century, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary on the Hail Mary that consisted of a treatment of what we today consider to be only the first part of the prayer, concluding with the name, "Jesus."

(20) John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, No. 1.

(21) Paul VI, Marialis Cultus, No. 46.

(22) Leo XIII, Encyclical Iucunda semper, September 8, 1894, No. 7; ASS 27, 1894-1895.

(23) Cf. St. Louis Marie de Montfort, Secret of the Rosary, Ch. 1-3.

(24) Maisie Ward, The Splendor of the Rosary, 1945, p. 11-12.

(25) Cf. Blessed Louis of Granada, O.P., Summa of the Christian Life, Vol. I.

(26) Pius XI, Encyclical Ingravescentibus malis, Nos. 12, 13.

(27) Pius XII, Encyclical Ingruentium malorum, September 15, 1951, No. 9; AAS 43, 1951.

(28) Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, First Mansion.

(29) John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, No. 5.

(30) Garrigou-LaGrange, O.P., Mother of Our Savior, p. 294.

(31) Rev. Gerard McGinnity, Celebrating with Mary, Dublin, Veritas, 1987, p. 28.

(32) Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos., 1031-1032, 1471-1479.

(33) Handbook of Indulgences: Norms and Grants, 1985 English edition, 1988, No. 48.

(34) John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, November 22, 1981, No. 61.

(35) John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Nos. 41, 42.

(36) René Laurentin, Lourdes, Documents Authentiques as translated in Alan Heame, The Happenings at Lourdes, London: Catholic Book Club, 1968, pp. 82-131.

(37) Sr. Lucia, Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words: Sister Lucia’s Memoirs, Fourth Memoir.

(38) Miravalle, The Message of Medjugorje: The Marian Message to the Modern World, University Press of America, 1986, Ch. I.

(39) Ibid.

(40) McGinnity, Celebrating with Mary, p. 30.

(41) Bl. Bartolo Longo, Supplication to the Queen of the Holy Rosary, 1883.