St. Dominic
One
Our Lady, St. Dominic, and the Rosary
The habit of praying repetitious Our Fathers and Hail Marys while meditating on the events or teachings of Jesus is an ancient practice. But over time it fell out of practice.
St. Dominic restored the Rosary. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, a great Dominican theologian of the 20th century explained how this happened, “At the end of the 12th century southern France was ravaged by the Albigensian heresy…It was at that moment that 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. Under her inspiration, St. Dominic went into the villages of the Albigensians, gathered the people, and preached to them the truths of salvation — the Incarnation, the redemption, eternal life. As Mary had taught him to do, he distinguished the different kinds of mysteries, and after each short instruction, he had ten Hail Marys recited… And what the word of the preacher was unable to do, the sweet prayer of the Hail Mary did for hearts. As Mary promised, it proved to be a most fruitful form of preaching.”
So, we pray the Rosary according to the ancient tradition re-introduced by St. Dominic, a short teaching from the Word of God, followed by meditating or thinking about the short instruction while we pray the decade, and we do this five times.
Two
The Rosary is supposed to be a meditation on the Word of God, not just a rote saying of words while our mind wanders.
Teresa of Avila says this is not prayer. “Since vocal prayer is prayer, it must be accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking, and of whom, I do not call prayer however much the lips move.” Interior Castles 1:7
She gives us three simple steps for mental prayer:
Read or listen to something from the Word of God in scripture, tradition (the writings of the Saints), or the magisterium (the teaching of the Church).
Reflect or think about what struck you in order to understand supernatural truth, love God for this truth, and apply that truth to your life. Start by asking yourself, Am I living this or not?”
Resolution: Choose something practical and concrete to remember or to do that day based on your meditation to stop a vice and practice the conquering virtue. The resolution is the key to mental prayer. If we practice a resolution flowing from our meditation every day we will change and become a better person. If we don’t practice a resolution, we will get worse, because unchecked vice makes a person worse, not better.
Three
What should we think about during the Rosary?
Our Lady wants us to think about, and meditate on all her Son did and taught. And all He did and taught is contained in the Word of God which consists of three things: Scripture, Tradition (Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux), and the Magisterium (the Official Teaching of the Church).
The best synthesis is found in the Catechism. The traditional mysteries of the Rosary were meant to serve as an outline for the life and teachings of Jesus. They were never meant to limit us to those scenes. Imagine reading the table of contents of a book over and over and never reading the book. Sooner or later, you will lose interest in the table of contents because you want to know more, you desire to go deeper.
This is why St. John Paul II added the Luminous Mysteries and then he said, “Obviously these mysteries neither replace the Gospel nor exhaust its content. The Rosary, therefore, is no substitute for lectio divina; on the contrary, it presupposes and promotes it. Yet, even though the mysteries contemplated in the Rosary, even with the addition of the mysteria lucis, do no more than outline the fundamental elements of the life of Christ, they easily draw the mind to a more expansive reflection on the rest of the Gospel, especially when the Rosary is prayed in a setting of prolonged recollection.” Rosarium 29
Four
In the approved apparition of Cuapa, Nicaragua in 1980, Our Lady gave a vision of how the Rosary began and how she wanted it prayed.
Mary instructed the visionary Bernardo to look up at the sky where he saw something like a movie being played before him, “After seeing the procession of martyrs, there followed a group of saints dressed in white and carrying luminous rosaries in their hands. The rosaries had extremely white beads and gave off light in a variety of different colors. It was made known to him that St. Dominic led the procession while he carried a very large open book. Dominic would read, and after listening they silently meditated. After this period of prayer and silence, they then prayed the Our Father and ten Hail Marys and the Glory Be. When the rosary was finished, Our Lady said to me, “These are the first ones to whom I gave the rosary. That is the way that I want all of you to pray the rosary.”
Our Lady then informed Bernardo that she was not pleased when the rosary was prayed in a rushed mechanical way as our minds wander in distraction. She said, “Pray the Rosary, meditate on the mysteries. Listen to the Word of God spoken in them…Put into practice the Word of God.”
Mary does not want us to just say the Rosary while our minds wander. She wants us to meditate, to think about the Word of God, and then make a resolution we will put into practice to change our lives. That is how Mary wants the Rosary prayed.
Five
When St. Dominic's mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant, she had a dream of a dog with a torch in its mouth, running around the world and setting everything on fire.
She went to the local monastery and asked a monk what it meant. He replied that the child in her womb would be a great preacher, who would set the world ablaze with the fire of his words.” In fact, the word ‘Dominican’ is a play on the Latin, Domini canes, which means ‘dogs of the Lord.”
When Mary gave Dominic her method of the Rosary, she made known to him 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.
Let’s be dogs of the Lord running about setting the world on fire with the Rosary by sharing this podcast with others and inviting them to pray the Rosary with us!