Stogus:
You can pray the Rosary as often as you like. There's no "set limit".
Here is an archived post of mine that I keep on hand for this occasion---it will hopefully answer your questions. If it doesn't, let me know and I will try to clarify.
Blessings,
----Wols.
The Rosary got its start in the late 1st and 2nd centuries, when Christian monks in the Syrian and Egyptian deserts used to carry around a leather bag with 150 pebbles inside, one for each of the 150 Psalms. During the course of the day, they would remove a pebble, recite a prayer, and slip the pebble into their pocket. When the bag was empty and the pocket was full, they knew they'd said a prayer for each Psalm.
As time went on, this system evolved into knots tied in a cord, and eventually to beads strung on a string or a chain. A crucifix was added some time later, and the prayers began to get standardized. The Rosary in its present form dates from the 12th century, when a Spanish friar named Dominic Guzman (the founder of the Dominican Order) began to popularize it as a daily devotion.
The beads themselves consist of a circle, joined together by a medal; attatched to the medal is a smaller string, or "tail", with a crucifix on the end of it. A rosary can be made of just about anything; various types of wood are popular, as is glass in various colors. Plastic is used in two types---standard and "glow-in-the-dark". Metal can be used, anything from aluminum to sterling silver and 24-karat gold. I have seen rosaries with beads made from pressure-compressed rose petals and from seeds of plants from Palestine. Mother Teresa used to carry a plain wooden rosary with different colored wood beads, the same type that we usually buy for little children; these are cheap and quickly made, and she was constantly handing them out to people who didn't have one.
Usually a rosary will have a large bead right after the crucifix, followed by three small beads in a series, and then another large one. You then have the medal, which you skip, and you have ten small beads in a series, then another large one, and so on, until you come back to the medal again; you have five sets of ten small beads each, all of them interspersed by one large bead. It sounds more complicated than it actually is, but if you look at a Catholic rosary, you can see that it's a relatively simple device.
The large beads are "our Father" beads, on which is recited the Lord's Prayer. The smaller beads are "Hail Mary" beads, on which are recited a prayer called the Hail Mary, which goes like this:
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death, amen."
(Keep in mind that Catholics believe that Mary and the saints can receive our requests and can intercede for us with God.)
In the space between the last Hail Mary bead in each sequence of beads, the "Glory Be" is recited, which goes like this:
"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."
This is sometimes followed up by the "Fatima Prayer", which goes like this:
"O my Jesus, forgive us our sins; save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, espcially those most in need of Your mercy, amen."
Okay; those are the basic prayers. To pray the Rosary, you start out by reciting the Apostle's Creed on the crucifix. Then, you recite one Our Father followed by three Hail Marys and one Glory Be (the short "tail" of beads). You then recite another Our Father on the next large bead, skip over the medal, and recite ten Hail Marys, one for each small bead in the next ten-bead sequence, then, another Glory Be. You continue in this fashion for all five of the ten-bead series, until you come back around to the medal. On the medal, you recite the Hail Holy Queen, which is another prayer addressed to the Virgin Mary. This particular prayer usually gives Protestants some problems---to them, it sounds utterly and completely blasphemous, so hold on:
"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, O most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb: Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary; pray for us, O most holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ, amen."
I had a dear Protestant friend who was scandalized by this prayer. He said, "It is Jesus Who is 'our life, our sweetness and our hope', not Mary!" And I agreed with him. I said, "Look at it this way: Jesus is our life, sweetness, and hope, correct? And Mary is the mother of Jesus, correct? Well, that's exactly what this prayer calls her: the mother of our life, our sweetness, and our hope." To be honest, if one took this prayer on its own, completely isolated from the rest of all Catholic Marian theology and what the Church teaches about her, it would sound perhaps a bit shady---but it has to be taken in context with everything else the Church says about Mary....and the Church says we are saved by Jesus, not Mary.
You finish the Rosary off by reciting the Prayer after the Rosary, which goes like this:
"O most merciful God, Whose only-begotten Son, by His life, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life; grant, we beseech Thee, that by meditating upon these sacred mysteries of the most holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that we may imitate what they contain, and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ, our Lord, amen."
Then you're done. This is only the mechanics of the thing, however; the Rosary is supposed to be a meditative prayer---there are fifteen sets of "mysteries" that you're supposed to be thinking about as you recite the prayers on the beads; they are as follows:
The Joyful Mysteries:
1. The Annunciation---Gabriel greets Mary
2. The Visitation---Mary visits Elizabeth
3. The Nativity---Jesus is born in Bethlehem
4. The Circumcision---Jesus is dedicated to God
5. The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
The Sorrowful Mysteries:
1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
2. Jesus is scourged at the pillar
3. Jesus is crowned with thorns
4. Jesus carries the cross
5. Jesus is crucified
The Glorious Mysteries:
1. The Resurrection
2. the Ascension
3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit
4. The Assumption of Mary
5. The Coronation of Mary
(The last two are from Sacred Tradition; we believe that Mary was assumed into Heaven, body and soul, as Enoch, Elijah,and Jesus were. She was "raptured", if you like. We also believe that Mary was crowned as Queen of Heaven, based on Revelation 12:1-2.)
Vatican II stated that there are many more sets of mysteries that can be prayed, in addition to these fifteen, which are the old standard ones. I personally have several sets which I have devised, and I pray them as a change of pace. For example, Healing Mysteries:
1. Jesus heals the man born blind
2. Jesus raises Jairus' daughter
3. Jesus heals the Gadarene demoniac
4. Jesus heals the woman with the issue of blood
5. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead
I also have Resurrection Mysteries:
1. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene
2. Jesus appears on the road to Emmaus
3. Jesus heals Thomas' doubt
4. Jesus re-instates Peter on the beach
5. Jesus appears to Paul on the road to Damascus
And so on.
The Rosary doesn't pay more homage to Mary than to Jesus simply because of the disproportionate number of Hail Marys as opposed to other prayers; remember that there are many types of prayer, and the Rosary is a meditative prayer. This means it comes more from the head than from the heart, as opposed to something like petitional prayer, which comes more from the heart than from the head. You're not even supposed to be paying attention to the Hail Marys you recite---you're supposed to be paying attention to the mystery you're meditating upon. All that the recitation of the prayer does is to keep your mind focused and to establish a rhythm---sort of like repeating a mantra over and over in some Eastern religions.
The way I keep focused is to concentrate on one aspect of the mystery in question for each bead, keeping that in my mind as I recite the Hail Mary. For example, let's say that we're doing the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery, Jesus Carries the Cross; ten beads, ten Hail Marys, ten pictures to focus on:
1. Jesus was shoved into a carpenter's shop and a heavy, rough-hewn pine beam was thrown across His shoulders and lashed to His arms with ropes. The smell of the fresh wood shavings gave him a pang, thinking of the happy days He had spent as a child in Joseph's carpenter shop.
2. The soldiers shoved Jesus into the street, where He fell and skinned one knee on the rough paving stones. He struggled to His feet and staggered forward.
3. The streets were lined with people screaming for His death, spitting on Him, mocking Him. Also in the crowd were those who loved Him, who wept with horror and sorrow as He passed by.
4. Weak from carrying the crossbeam, Jesus fell to both knees. A woman came out of the crowd with a cloth and mercifully wiped the sweat and blood from Jesus' face.
5. As the procession turned a corner, Jesus came face-to-face with His mother. Mary's heart twisted within her when she saw what they had done to Him, and she began to weep unconsolably.
6. A group of women stood nearby, weeping as Jesus passed. Gasping under the weight of the crossbeam, Jesus said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me; weep rather for yourselves, and for your children."
7. Jesus fell again, this time full-length upon His chest. He tried to rise and could not, even though the soldiers kicked Him and cursed Him.
8. One of the soldiers yanked Jesus to His feet by His hair, while another yanked a man out of the crowd and forced him to help Jesus carry the crossbeam; this man's name was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.
9. At length, the place of execution was reached; this was a garbage dump outside the city wall of Jerusalem. This place was called in the Hebrew tongue "Golgotha", and in the Latin tongue "Calvarium", which means "The Place of the Skull".
10. Jesus was tripped by the soldiers and thrown flat on His back; the wind was knocked out of Him and He gasped for air. As He struggled to breathe, two of the soldiers approached Him on either side, bearing heavy iron hammers and long, sharp, rusty iron spikes.
And so on. It takes a while to go through five decades this way, but it really helps to keep you focused.
The only thing left to say is that the Rosary is a devotion, which means it's entirely optional. You can be a faithful Catholic and never say a Rosary in your entire life. If it's for you and it helps you, you should use it. If it doesn't, then find another devotion that does.
