rosary question

Originally Posted by Izdaari

Any particular reason why?

Romaphobia.

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Confessional Lutheran Christianity: Christ-centered, Cross-focused.
Biblical, historic, traditional, creedal, confessional, liturgical, monergistic, sacramental, evangelical, catholic, orthodox Christianity.

Originally Posted by Rhamiel

all marian devotion is centered on Christ, i can not explain it properly, but when we think why Mary is blessed, it is because of the Grace of God, His saving power, Her Son is what makes our Lady special

Rhamiel, I think that what you said a few posts back covered it sufficiently. As you recall, that was, "i can understand not wanting to pray to the saints." Let's leave it at that.

well it was mentioned that the rosary was for Mary... I was just trying to say how it is hard to articulate the devotional part of the Rosary

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VIVA CRISTO REY

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St.Raphael pray for us

Check out the book "Beads of Love" by Anglo-Catholic Fr David Gentle:

Beads Of Love- A Rosary David Gentle - $14.95 : Connor Court Publishing, Australian Publisher

I occassionally pray the Rosary myself.

Jesus is saying here that we shouldn't think that our prayers are better if they are 'wordy'. We as Catholics, don't think so. Not all repetition is "vain".. the reason we repeat the Hail Mary is to give us enough time to reflect on the mysteries (Incarnation, Birth of Christ, Crucifixion.)

How can these mysteries not be Biblical, if they're taken out of the Bible? so is the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Mary is not dead. She's alive in Heaven.

what is meant in Deutoronomy is that we shouldn't consult dead spirits to ask for information. Well Catholics don't do that. We ask our Blessed Mother in Heaven to pray for us. Do you ever ask your friends to pray for you? Those who were in the Body of Christ during life don't leave it once they die. We're all united by the Holy Spirit..

God bless

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If anyone is interested, here's a bit of info about the Rosary

Christians have always reflected (meditated) upon the events that lead to our redemption... such as the Incarnation, etc. That was around from the beginning.

Then, there developed the custom in monasteries to pray the Psalms.. but not everyone knew the Psalms by heart so they were allowed to pray the Our Father instead. They used prayer beads to count them (I think 150 in total, same number as the Psalms they had to pray.)

There was also the Hail Mary, which is taken from Scripture (Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee - said by Archangel Gabriel - blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus - said by St Elizabeth) and Tradition of the Church - (Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.)

Then came St Dominic.. he was trying to fight a heresy that was deceiving many people at the time. He withdrew to a forest to pray for an end to the heresy and did penance. he was there for several days.. and then saw the Blessed Virgin Mary. She told him about the power of her Psalter (the Rosary)...the Hail Mary was given by God to Mary through St Gabriel, to announce the Incarnation. The Incarnation brought us Jesus so that He could save us. So the Hail Mary is tied to our redemption. The devil hates it. Mary told St Dominic to preach this. He did, and the people in the city began praying the Rosary and were converted and left the heresy.

That's where we get the Rosary as we know it.. but it went through more changes over the years.. for example, there's the prayer from Fatima (Mary appeared at Fatima, Portugal, last century) - "O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are in most need of Thy mercy". Also Pope John Paul II added the 'Luminous Mysteries'.

How we pray the Rosary, is: we first make the sign of the Cross and say the Apostles Creed.. then we say the Our Father and 3 Hail Marys and the Glory Be (Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.).

Then we pray the Our Father and 10 Hail Marys while meditating on a mystery.. there are 4 sets of 5 Mysteries. Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious. They're all connected to events in the lives of Jesus and Mary. When we're done the Hail Mary's, we say the Glory Be and the "O my Jesus" prayer.. and then do the same for the second mystery.. and so forth. 5 in total. The next day, we can do another set of mysteries (for example Glorious on Sunday and Joyful on Monday and Sorrowful on Tuesday etc)

In the end we say the Hail Holy Queen, asking Mary to pray for us:

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope.
To Thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.
To Thee do we send up our sighs mourning
and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious Advocate,
Thine Eyes of Mercy toward us,
and after this our exile show us the
Blessed Fruit of thy Womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
Pray for us O Holy Mother of God
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

The reason we call her Queen is because her Son Jesus is the King, and in the Old Testament we can see that the mother of the king was also called queen. Also before anyone says anything, when we call her "our life, our sweetness and our hope", it doesn't mean that Jesus isn't. We believe Mary leads us to Jesus and there is no competition between them, so she's our hope cause she leads us to Jesus our Hope.

We believe Mary prays for us in Heaven.

The word 'rosary' means 'crown of roses', - referring to the belief that each Hail Mary is like a rose, and when we pray the Rosary, we are giving Mary a whole crown of them.

How to Pray the Rosary

God bless

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I use Anglican prayer beads. It was something I started doing before I was ready to call myself a christian. I used it as a tool to spiritually meditate. I made a pocket one for myself and used it as a tool to clear my head.

I love having the structure/routine of the numbered beads and the physical reminder. For me, it's a reminder not of an obligation but of a gift...the gift of tuning out the world and centering yourself in calm thought and peace.

I love the flexibility of saying whatever prayer comes to mind...whatever is speaking to me. However, I do have a sort of default setting though,lol. I usually prayer the Lord's Prayer on the cross, for the inviatory I say Psalm 19:14 , for the cruciforms the prayer of St.Francis or Julian of Norwich prayer, for the week it's the Serenity prayer or a shortened St.Anselm prayer or some scripture that is sticking in my head. Sometimes, some non biblical quote will make it's way in there. I usually close out with Thanks be to God.

One thing about praying a structured prayer....if I prayer from my own thoughts, it's a reflection of what is going on in my world and it sort of defeats my purpose of stepping out of my own mind and trying to commune with something/SomeOne greater. If left to my own devices, my prayers will reflect my needs/wants for family or friends or myself. That is fine...and I do that too....but praying the "rosary"(I have no problem with the word)/ beads is a way to train myself to reflect on the bigger picture.

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