The Garland of Prayers

The Rosary is a devotion of the Roman Catholic Church combining vocal prayer with meditation on events in the lives of Jesus and Mary, counted on a looped string of beads that gives the practice its name and its structure. The worshipper recites a sequence of prayers, principally the Hail Mary, said in sets of ten called "decades," each decade framed by the Lord's Prayer and a doxology, while holding in mind one of the "mysteries," a scene such as the Annunciation, the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. The beads free the hands and mind from counting, allowing the repeated words to become a quiet ground over which the meditation on the mystery unfolds.

The repetitive vocal prayer is thus not an end in itself but a support: the tradition understands the Rosary as a contemplation of the life of Christ made "through the eyes of Mary," the rhythm of the familiar words settling the mind so that it can dwell on the sacred scenes.