The Secret Of The Rosary – How To Pray The Rosary – Part 2

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(St. Louis Marie de Montfort)

Forty-sixth Rose

Of all the ways of saying the Rosary, the most glorious to God, most salutary to our souls, and the most terrible to the devil is that of saying or chanting the Rosary publicly in two choirs.

God is very pleased to have people gathered together in prayer. All the angels and the blessed unite to praise him unceasingly. The just on earth, gathered together in various communities, pray in common, night and day. Our Lord expressly recommended this practice to his apostles and disciples, and promised that whenever there would be at least two or three gathered in his name he would be there in the midst of them (Matthew. 18:19).

What a wonderful thing to have Jesus Christ in our midst! And all we have to do to have him with us is to come together to say the Rosary. That is why the first Christians met so often to pray together, in spite of the persecutions of the Emperors, who had forbidden them to assemble. They preferred to risk death rather than to miss their gatherings where our Lord was present.

This way of praying is of the greatest benefit to us:

Because our minds are usually more alert during public prayer than when we pray alone;
When we pray in common, the prayer of each one belongs to the whole group and make all together but one prayer, so that if one person is not praying well, someone else in the same gathering who is praying better makes up for his deficiency. In the same way, those who are strong uphold the weak, those who are fervent inspire the lukewarm, the rich enrich the poor, the bad are merged with the good. How can a measure of cockle be sold? This can be done very easily by mixing it with four or five bushels of good wheat.
One who says his Rosary alone only gains the merit of one Rosary; but if he says it with thirty other people he gains the merit of thirty Rosaries. This is the law of public prayer. How profitable, how advantageous this is!
Urban VIII, who was very pleased to see how the devotion of the holy Rosary had spread to Rome and how it was being said in two groups or choirs, particularly at the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, attached a hundred days’ extra indulgence toties quoties, whenever the Rosary was said in two choirs. This is set out in his brief Ad perpetuam rei memoriam, of the year 1626. So every time you say the Rosary in common, you gain a hundred days’ indulgence.
Public prayer is more powerful than private prayer to appease the anger of God and call down his mercy, and the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, has always advocated it in times of disasters and general distress.
In his Bull on the Rosary, Pope Gregory XIII declares that we must believe, on pious faith, that the public prayers and processions of the members of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary were largely responsible for the great victory over the Turkish navy at Lepanto, which God granted to the Christians on the first Sunday of October 1571.

When King Louis the Just, of blessed memory, was besieging La Rochelle, where the rebellious heretics had their strongholds, he wrote to his mother to beg her to have public prayers offered for a victorious outcome. The Queen-Mother decided to have the Rosary recited publicly in Paris in the Dominican church of Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and this was carried out by the Archbishop of Paris. It was begun on May 20th, 1628.

Both the Queen and the Queen-Mother were present, with the Duke of Orleans, Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, Cardinal de Bérulle, and several prelates. The court turned out in full force as well as a great number of the general populace. The Archbishop read the meditations on the mysteries aloud and then began the Our Father and Hail Mary of each decade, while the congregation of religious and lay-folk answered. At the end of the Rosary a statue of the Blessed Virgin was carried solemnly in procession while the Litany of our Lady was sung.

This devotion was continued every Saturday with admirable fervour and resulted in a manifest blessing from heaven, for the King triumphed over the English at the Island of Ré and made his triumphant entry into La Rochelle on All Saints Day of the same year. This shows us the power of public prayer.

Finally, when the Rosary is said in common, it is far more formidable to the devil, because in this public prayer it is an army that is attacking him. He can often overcome the prayer of an individual, but if it is joined to that of others, the devil has much more trouble in getting the best of it. It is easy to break a single stick; but if you join it to others to make a bundle, it cannot be broken. Vis unita fit fortior. Soldiers join together in an army to overcome their enemies; immoral people often come together for parties of debauchery and dancing; evil spirits join forces in order to make us lose our souls. Why, then, should not Christians join forces to have Jesus Christ present with them, to appease the anger of God, to draw down his grace and mercy on us, and to frustrate and overcome the devil more forcefully?

Dear friend of the Confraternity, whether you live in the town or the country, near the parish church or a chapel, go there at least every evening, with the approval of the parish priest, together with all those who want to recite the Rosary in two choirs. If a church or chapel is not available, say the Rosary together in your own or a neighbour’s house.

This is a holy practice, which God, in his mercy, has set up in places where I have preached missions, in order to safeguard and increase the good brought about by the mission and to prevent further sin. Before the Rosary was established in these little towns and villages, dances and parties of debauchery went on; dissoluteness, wantonness, blasphemy, quarrels and feuds flourished; one heard nothing but evil songs and double-meaning talk. But now nothing is heard but hymns and the chant of the Our Father and Hail Mary. The only gatherings to be seen are those of twenty, thirty or a hundred or more people who, at a fixed time, sing the praises of God as religious do.

There are even places where the Rosary is said in common every day, at three different times of the day. What a blessing from heaven that is! As there are wicked people everywhere, do not expect to find that the place you live in is free of them; there will be people who avoid going to church for the Rosary, who may even make fun of it and do all they can, by what they do and say, to stop you from going. But do not give up. As those wretched people will have to be separated from God and heaven forever, already here on earth they have to be separated from the company of Jesus and his servants.

Forty-seventh Rose

People of God, cut yourselves adrift from those who are damning themselves by their impious lives, laziness and lack of devotion without delay, and say the Rosary often with faith, humility, confidence and perseverance.

Our Lord told us to pray always, after the example he has given us, because of our endless need of prayer, on account of the darkness of our minds, our ignorance, and weakness, and the number of our enemies. Anyone who really gives heed to this commandment of our Master will surely not be satisfied with saying the Rosary once a year, as the Perpetual Members do, or once a week, like the Ordinary Members, but will say it every day without fail, as a member of the Daily Rosary, even though the only obligation he has is that of his own salvation. “We ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke. 18:1).

These are the eternal words of our Blessed Lord himself. And we must believe his words and abide by them if we do not want to be damned. You can explain them as you wish so long as you do not interpret them as the world does and observe them in a worldly way. Our Lord gave us the true explanation of his words in the examples he left us: “I have given you an example that as I have done to you, so you do also” (John. 13:5.). And “he spent the whole night in prayer to God” (Luke. 6:12), as if the day was not sufficient for it.

Often he repeated to his Apostles these two words, “Watch and pray” (Matthew. 26:41). The flesh is weak, temptation is everywhere and always around you. If you do not keep up your prayers, you will fall. And because some of them evidently thought that these words of our Lord constituted only a counsel, they completely missed the point. That is why they fell into temptation and sin, even though they were in the company of Jesus Christ.

Dear friend of the Confraternity, if you want to lead a fashionable life and belong to the world – by this I mean if you do not mind falling into mortal sin from time to time and then going to confession, and avoiding conspicuous sins which the world considers vile, while keeping up the “respectable” ones – then, of course, there is no need for you to say so many prayers and Rosaries. To be “respectable” you only need to say a little prayer morning and evening, an occasional Rosary given to you for your penance, a few decades said in a casual way, when the fancy takes you – that is quite enough for any good-living person. If you did less, you might be branded as a freethinker or profligate; if you do more, you are becoming an eccentric or a fanatic.

But if you want to lead a true Christian life and genuinely want to save your soul and walk in the footsteps of the saints and not fall into serious sin, if you wish to break all the snares of the devil and extinguish all his flaming darts, you must pray always as our Lord taught and commanded you to do.

If you really have this wish at heart, then you should at least say your Rosary every day, or its equivalent.

I repeat “at least,” because probably all that you will accomplish through your Rosary will be to avoid mortal sin and temptation. This is because you are exposed to the strong current of the world’s wickedness by which many a strong soul is swept away; you are in the midst of the thick, clinging darkness which often blinds even the most enlightened souls; you are surrounded by evil spirits who, being more experienced than ever and knowing that their time is short, are more subtle and more effective in tempting you.

It will indeed be a marvel of grace wrought by the holy Rosary if you manage to keep out of the clutches of the world, the devil and the flesh and sin, and gain eternal life.

If you do not want to believe what I say, at least learn from your own experience. I should like to ask you if, when you were in the habit of saying no more prayers than people usually say in the world, and saying them in the way they usually say them, you were able to avoid serious faults and sins that were grievous but seemed of little account to you in your blindness. Now at last you must wake up, and if you want to live and die without sin, at least serious sin, pray always; say your Rosary every day, as all members used to do in the early days of the Confraternity.

When our Blessed Lady gave the Rosary to St. Dominic, she ordered him to say it every day and to get others to say it daily. St. Dominic never let anyone join the Confraternity unless he were fully determined to say it every day. If nowadays people are allowed to be Ordinary members through saying the Rosary once a week, it is because fervour has dwindled and charity grown cold. You get what you can from one who is poor in prayer. “It was not so in the beginning” (Matthew. 19:8).

Three things must be noted here.

The first is that if you want to be enrolled in the Confraternity of the Daily Rosary and share in the prayers and merits of its members, it is not enough to be enrolled in the Ordinary Rosary or simply to make a resolution to say it every day. In addition, you must give your name to those who have the power of enrolling. It is also a very good thing to go to confession and Communion for this intention. The reason for this is that the Ordinary Rosary membership does not include that of the Daily Rosary, but this latter does include the former.
The second point I want to make is that, absolutely speaking, it is not even a venial sin to fail to say the Rosary every day, or every week, or every year.
The third point is that whenever illness, or obedience to a lawful superior, or necessity, or involuntary forgetfulness has prevented you from saying the Rosary, you do not forfeit your share in the merits and you do not lose your participation in the Rosaries of the other Confraternity members. So it is not absolutely necessary for you to say two Rosaries on the following day to make up for the one you missed, as I suppose, through no fault of your own. If, however, when you are ill, your sickness is such that you are still able to say part of your Rosary, you have to say that part.

“Blessed are those who stand before you always” (1 Kings. 10:8). “Happy those who dwell in your house, O Lord, they praise you continually” (Psalm. 83:5). Lord Jesus, blessed are the brothers and sisters of the Daily Rosary Confraternity who, day after day, are present in and around your throne in heaven, so that they may meditate and contemplate your joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries. How happy they are on earth because of the wonderful graces you bestow on them, and how blessed shall they be in heaven where they will praise you in a special way forever and ever.

The Rosary should be said with faith, for our Blessed Lord said, “Believe that you will receive and it will be granted” (Mark. 11:24). If you believe that you will receive what you ask from God, he will grant your petitions. He will say to you, “As you have believed, so be it done to you” (Matthew. 8:13). If anyone needs wisdom, let him ask God with faith, and without hesitating, and – through his Rosary – it will be given him (James. 1:5,6).

Thirdly, we must pray with humility, like the publican; he was kneeling on the ground, on two knees, not on one knee as proud and worldly people do, or one knee on the bench. He was at the back of the church and not in the sanctuary as the Pharisee was; his eyes were cast down, for he dared not look up to heaven; he did not hold his head up and look about him like the Pharisee; he beat his breast, confessing himself a sinner and asking for forgiveness: “Be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke. 18:13), and not like the Pharisee who boasted of his good works, who despised others in their prayers. Do not imitate the prayer of the proud Pharisee which only hardened his heart and increased his guilt; imitate rather the humility of the tax-collector, whose prayer obtained him the remission of his sins.

You must be on your guard against giving yourself to what is extraordinary and asking or even desiring knowledge of extraordinary things, visions, revelations, or other miraculous graces which God has occasionally given to some of the saints while they were saying the Rosary. “Sola fides sufficit” (Hymn “Pange lingua”): Faith alone suffices now that the Gospel and all the devotions and pious practices are sufficiently established.

Even if you suffer from dryness of soul, distaste for prayer and interior discouragement, never give up the least part of your Rosary; this would be a sign of pride and infidelity; but like a brave champion of Jesus and Mary, say your Our Fathers and Hail Marys in your dryness, without seeing, feeling, or appreciating, and concentrating as best you can on the mysteries.

You ought not to look for sweets or jam to eat with your daily bread, as children do; but to imitate Jesus more perfectly in his agony you could say your Rosary more slowly sometimes when you find it particularly hard to say: “Being in agony, he prayed the longer” (Luke. 22:43), so that what was said of our Lord when he was in his agony of prayer may be said of you: he prayed all the longer.

Pray with great confidence, with confidence based on the goodness and infinite generosity of God and on the promises of Jesus Christ. God is the spring of living water which flows unceasingly into the hearts of those who pray. The eternal Father yearns for nothing so much as to share the life-giving waters of his grace and mercy with us. He entreats us, “All you who thirst, come to the waters” (Isaiah. 55:1), that is, come and drink of my spring through prayer, and when we do not pray to him he sorrowfully says that we are forsaking him, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water” (Jeremiah. 2:13).

We please our Lord when we ask him for graces, and if we do not ask he makes a loving complaint, “Until now you have not asked anything…. Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you” (John. 16:24; Matthew. 7:7).

Furthermore, to give us more confidence in praying to him, he has bound himself by a promise: that his eternal Father would grant everything we ask in his name.

Forty-eighth Rose

As a fifth point, I must add perseverance and prayer. Only he who perseveres in asking, seeking, and knocking, will receive, will find and will enter. It is not enough to ask God for certain graces for a month, a year, ten or twenty years; we must never tire of asking. We must keep on asking until the very moment of death, and even in this prayer, which shows our confidence in God, we must join the thought of death to that of perseverance and say, “Although he should kill me, I will trust in him” (Job 13:15), will trust him to give me what I ask.

Prominent and rich people of the world show their generosity by foreseeing people’s wants and ministering to them, even before they are asked for anything. God’s munificence, on the other hand, is shown by his making us seek and ask, over a long period of time, for the graces which he wishes to bestow, and the more precious the grace, the longer he takes to grant it:

in order to increase the grace still more;
in order that the recipient may more deeply appreciate it;
in order that the one who receives it may guard against losing it; for people do not appreciate very much what they obtain quickly and at little cost.

So, dear members of the Confraternity, persevere in asking God for all your needs, both spiritual and material, through the holy Rosary; especially should you pray for divine Wisdom, which is “an infinite treasure” (Wisdom. 7:14), and there can be no possible doubt that you will receive it sooner or later, provided you do not give up and do not lose courage in the middle of your journey. “You still have a great way to go” (1 Kings. 19:7).

You have a long way to travel, there will be bad times to weather, many difficulties to overcome, and many enemies to defeat before you will have stored up enough treasures for eternity, enough Our Fathers and Hail Marys with which to buy your way to heaven and win the glorious crown which awaits each faithful brother and sister of the Confraternity.

“Let no one take your crown” (Revelations. 3:11): take care that your crown is not appropriated by another who has been more faithful than you in saying his Rosary every day. “Your crown”: it was yours, God had prepared it for you; it was yours, you had already half obtained it by your Rosaries well said. But because you stopped on the way when you were running so well, another has left you behind and got there first; another who is more diligent and more faithful has paid, by his Rosaries and good works, what was required to obtain that crown.

“You began your race well; who has hindered you?” (Galatians. 5:7). Who has prevented you from having the crown of the holy Rosary? Alas, none other than the enemies of the Rosary, who are so numerous.

Believe me, it is only the violent who take it by force (Matthew. 11:12). These crowns are not for the timid who are afraid of this world’s taunts and threats, neither are they for the lazy and indolent who only say their Rosary carelessly, or hastily, just for the sake of getting it over with. The same applies to people who say it intermittently, as the spirit moves them. These crowns are not for cowards who lose heart and lay down their arms as soon as they see hell is let loose against their Rosary.

Dear fellow-members, if you want to serve Jesus and Mary by saying the Rosary every day, you must be prepared for temptation: “If you aspire to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation” (Sirach. 2:1). Heretics, licentious people, the so-called respectable people of the world, persons of superficial piety, and false prophets, hand in glove with your fallen nature and all hell itself – all will wage terrible battles against you in an endeavour to make you give up this holy practice.

To help you to be better armed against their onslaught – not so much of acknowledged heretics and profligates as those who are considered “respectable” in the eyes of the world, and even those who are devout but have no use for the Rosary – I am going to tell you simply some of the things these people are always saying and thinking.

“What does this babbler want to say?” (Acts 17:18). “Come, let us attack him, for he is against us” (Wisdom. 2:12). What is he doing, saying so many Rosaries? What is it he is always mumbling? Such laziness! He does nothing but keep on sliding those beads along, he would do much better to work without amusing himself with such foolishness. Oh yes, it’s quite true, all you have to do is to say the Rosary and a fortune will fall from heaven into your lap. The Rosary brings you all you need without lifting a finger. But hasn’t it been said, “God helps those who help themselves”? Why load yourself with so many prayers? Brevis oratio penetrat coelos; an Our Father and a Hail Mary well said are quite sufficient. God has never commanded us to say the Rosary; of course it’s all right, it’s not a bad devotion when you’ve got the time, but don’t think for one minute that people who say the Rosary are any more sure of heaven than we are. Just look at the saints who never said it!

Far too many people want everyone to see through their own eyes, people who lack prudence and carry everything to extremes, scrupulous people who see sin almost everywhere, who say that those who do not say the Rosary will be damned.

Oh yes, the Rosary is all right for old women who can’t read. But surely the Little Office of our Lady is much more worthwhile, or the seven penitential psalms? Is there anything more beautiful than those psalms which have been inspired by the Holy Spirit?

You say you have undertaken to say the Rosary every day; that’s just a flash in the pan, you know it won’t last. Wouldn’t it be better to undertake less and be more faithful about it? Come, my friend, take my word for it, say your morning and night prayers, work hard during the day and offer it up. God does not ask any more than that. If you didn’t have your living to earn, as you have, you could commit yourself to saying your Rosary. But as it is, say your Rosary on Sundays and Holidays when you have plenty of time, but not on days when you have to work.

But really and truly, what are you doing with that enormous pair of beads? I’ve seen a rosary of only one decade, it’s just as good as one of fifteen decades. Why on earth are you wearing it on your belt, fanatic that you are? Why don’t you go the whole way and wear it round your neck like the Spaniards? They are great lovers of rosaries; they carry a big rosary in one hand, while in the other they have a dagger to give a treacherous stab. For goodness’ sake drop these exterior devotions; true devotion is in the heart. And so on.

Similarly, not a few clever people and learned scholars may occasionally try to dissuade you from saying the Rosary, proud and critical people, I mean. They would rather you said the seven penitential psalms or some other prayers. If a good confessor has given you a Rosary for your penance, to be said for a fortnight or a month, all you have to do to get your penance changed to a few other prayers, fasts, alms or Masses, is to go to confession to one of those gentlemen.

If you consult even some people who live lives of prayer in the world, but who have never tried the Rosary, they will not only not encourage it but will turn people away from it to get them to learn contemplation, as if the Rosary and contemplation were incompatible, as if all the saints who have been devoted to the Rosary had not reached the heights of contemplation.

Your closest enemies will attack you all the more cruelly because they are within you. I mean the powers of your soul and your bodily senses, the distractions of the mind, distress and uncertainty of the will, dryness of the heart, exhaustion and illness of the body – all that will combine with the evil spirits to say to you, “Give up your Rosary, that is what is giving you such a headache; give up your Rosary, there is no obligation under pain of sin; at least say only a part of it; the difficulties you are having are a sign that God does not want you to say it; you can say it tomorrow when you are more in the mood.” And so on.

Finally, my dear brothers and sisters, the daily Rosary has so many enemies that I look upon the grace of persevering in it until death as one of the greatest favours God can give us.

Persevere in it and your fidelity will be rewarded with the wonderful crown which is prepared for you in heaven: “Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelations. 2:10).

Forty-ninth Rose

This is the time to say a little about the indulgences which have been granted to Rosary Confraternity members, so that you may gain as many as possible.

An indulgence, in general, is a remission or relaxation of temporal punishment due to actual sins, by the application of the super-abundant satisfactions of Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints, which are contained in the treasury of the Church.

A plenary indulgence is a remission of the whole punishment due to sin; a partial indulgence of, for instance, a hundred or a thousand years can be explained as the remission of as much punishment as could have been expiated during a hundred or a thousand years, if one had been given a corresponding number of the penances prescribed by the Church’s ancient Canons.

Now these Canons exacted seven and sometimes ten or fifteen years’ penance for a single mortal sin, so that a person who was guilty of twenty mortal sins would probably have had to perform a seven year penance at least twenty times, and so on.

Members of the Rosary Confraternity who want to gain the indulgences must:

Be truly repentant and go to confession and Communion, as the Papal Bull of indulgences states.
Be entirely free from affection for venial sin, because if affection for sin remains, the guilt also remains, and if the guilt remains the punishment cannot be lifted.
Say the prayers and perform the good works designated by the Bull. If, in accordance with what the Popes have said, one can gain a partial indulgence (for instance, of a hundred years) without gaining a plenary indulgence, it is not always necessary to go to confession and Communion in order to gain it. Many such partial indulgences are attached to the Rosary (either of five or fifteen decades), to processions, blessed rosaries, etc. Do not neglect these indulgences.

Flammin and a great number of other writers tell the story of a young girl of noble station named Alexandra, who had been miraculously converted and enroled by St. Dominic in the Confraternity of the Rosary. After her death, she appeared to him and said she had been condemned to seven hundred years in purgatory because of her own sins and those she had caused others to commit by her worldly ways. So she implored him to ease her pains by his prayers and to ask the Confraternity members to pray for the same end. St. Dominic did as she had asked.

Two weeks later she appeared to him, more radiant than the sun, having been quickly delivered from purgatory by the prayers of the Confraternity members. She also told St. Dominic that she had come on behalf of the souls in purgatory to beg him to go on preaching the Rosary and to ask their relations to offer their Rosaries for them, and that they would reward them abundantly when they entered into glory.

Fiftieth Rose

To make the recitation of the Rosary easier for you, here are several methods which will help you to say it in a good and holy way, with the meditation on the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries of Jesus and Mary. Choose whichever method pleases you and helps you the most: or you can make up one for yourself, as several holy people have done.