First Decade

The excellence of the holy Rosary in its origin and its name.

First Rose

9. The Rosary contains two things, namely: mental prayer and vocal prayer. The mental prayer of the holy Rosary is nothing other than meditation on the principal mysteries of the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ and of his most holy Mother. The vocal prayer of the Rosary consists in saying fifteen decades of Hail Marys, each preceded by an Our Father, while meditating and contemplating the fifteen principal virtues that Jesus and Mary practiced in the fifteen mysteries of the holy Rosary. In the first chaplet, which is of five decades, one honors and considers the five Joyful Mysteries; in the second, the five Sorrowful Mysteries; and in the third, the five Glorious Mysteries. Thus the holy Rosary is a sacred composition of vocal and mental prayer, designed to honor and imitate the mysteries and virtues of the life, death, passion, and glory of Jesus Christ and of Mary.

Second Rose

10. The holy Rosary, in its essence and substance, being composed of the prayer of Jesus Christ and the Angelic Salutation — namely, the Our Father and the Hail Mary — and of the meditation on the mysteries of Jesus and Mary, is without doubt the first prayer and the first devotion of the faithful, which has been in use since the time of the apostles and disciples, from century to century, down to our own day.

11. However, the holy Rosary, in its present form and the method by which it is now recited, was not inspired to his Church, nor given by the Blessed Virgin to St. Dominic for the conversion of the Albigensian heretics and sinners, until the year 1214, in the manner I shall now relate, as reported by Blessed Alan de la Roche in his famous book entitled De Dignitate Psalterii. St. Dominic, seeing that the crimes of men were obstructing the conversion of the Albigensians, entered a forest near Toulouse and spent three days and three nights in continual prayer and penance. He never ceased to groan, weep, and mortify his body with blows of the discipline in order to appease the wrath of God, until at last he fell half-dead. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him, accompanied by three princesses of heaven, and said to him: "Do you know, my dear Dominic, what weapon the Holy Trinity used to reform the world?" "O Lady," he replied, "you know better than I, for after your Son Jesus Christ you have been the principal instrument of our salvation." She added: "Know that the principal weapon was the Angelic Psalter, which is the foundation of the New Testament. Therefore, if you wish to win these hardened hearts for God, preach my Psalter." The saint arose, fully consoled, and burning with zeal for the salvation of those people, he entered the cathedral church. Immediately the bells rang by the ministry of angels to assemble the inhabitants, and at the beginning of his preaching a fearful storm arose: the earth shook, the sun was darkened, thunder and lightning redoubled and made all his hearers grow pale and tremble; their terror increased when they saw an image of the Blessed Virgin, set up in a prominent place, raise her arms three times toward heaven to call down God's vengeance upon them if they did not convert and have recourse to the protection of the holy Mother of God. Heaven intended, by these prodigies, to increase the new devotion of the holy Rosary and make it more renowned. The storm at last ceased through the prayers of St. Dominic. He continued his discourse and explained with such fervor and power the excellence of the holy Rosary that nearly all the people of Toulouse embraced it, renounced their errors, and in a short time a great change of morals and conduct was seen throughout the city.

Third Rose

12. This miraculous establishment of the holy Rosary, which bears some resemblance to the manner in which God gave his law to the world on Mount Sinai, clearly shows the excellence of this divine practice. And so St. Dominic, inspired by the Holy Spirit, instructed by the Blessed Virgin, and guided by his own experience, preached the holy Rosary for the rest of his life, by example and by word of mouth, in cities and in the countryside, before the great and the small, before the learned and the ignorant, before Catholics and heretics. The holy Rosary, which he recited every day, was his preparation before preaching and his meeting place after preaching.

13. One day, the feast of St. John the Evangelist, when the saint was at Notre-Dame de Paris, behind the high altar, in a chapel, preparing to preach by reciting the holy Rosary, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said: "Dominic, although what you have prepared to preach is good, here is a far better sermon that I bring you." St. Dominic received from her hands the book containing this sermon, read it, savored it, understood it, and gave thanks to the Blessed Virgin. When the hour of the sermon came, he went up into the pulpit and, after saying nothing in praise of St. John the Evangelist other than that he had merited to be the guardian of the Queen of heaven, he told the whole assembly of great men and doctors who had come to hear him — accustomed as they were to hearing only elaborate and polished discourses — that he, for his part, would not speak in the learned words of human wisdom, but in the simplicity and the power of the Holy Spirit. Then St. Dominic preached the holy Rosary to them and explained the Angelic Salutation word by word, as to little children, using the very simple comparisons he had read in the paper the Blessed Virgin had given him.

14. Here are the very words of the learned Carthagena, drawn in part from the book of Blessed Alan de la Roche entitled De Dignitate Psalterii: B. Alanus Patrem sanctum Dominicum sibi haec in revelatione dixisse testatur: "Tu praedicas, fili, sed uti caveas ne potius laudem humanam quaerans quam animarum fructum, audi quid mihi Parisiis contigit. Debebam in majori ecclesia beatae Mariae praedicare, et volebam curiose non jactantiae causa, sed propter astantium facultatem et dignitatem. Cum igitur more meo per horam fere ante sermonem in psalterio meo (Rosarium intelligit) quadam capilla post altare majus orarem, subito factus in raptum, cernebam amicam meam Dei Genitricem afferentem mihi libellum et dicentem: 'Dominice, et si bonum est quod praedicare disposuisti sermonem, tamen longe meliorem attuli.' Laetus librum capio, lego constanter, ut dixit, reperio, gratias ago, adest hora sermonis, adest parisiensis Universitas tota, dominorumque numerus magnus. Audiebant quippe et videbant signa magna quae per me Dominus operabatur; itaque ambonem ascendo. Festum est sancti Joannis Evangelistae. De eo aliud non dico nisi quod custos singularis esse meruit Reginae coeli. Deinde auditores sic alloquor: Domini et Magistri praestantissimi, aures reverentiae vestrae solitae sunt curiosos audire sermones et auscultare. At nunc ego non in doctis humanae sapientiae verbis, sed in ostentione spiritus et virtutis loquar." Tunc, ait Carthagena post beatum Alanum, stans Dominicus eis explicavit Salutationem angelicam comparationibus et similitudinibus familiaribus hoc modo.

15. And Blessed Alan de la Roche, as the same Carthagena reports, relates several other apparitions of Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin to St. Dominic, pressing and encouraging him more and more to preach the holy Rosary in order to destroy sin and convert sinners and heretics. He says in one place: Beatus Alanus dicit sibi a beata Virgine revelatum fuisse Christum Filium suum apparuisse post se sancto Dominico et ipsi dixesse: "Dominice, gaudeo quod non confidas in tua sapientia, sed cum humilitate potius affectas salvare animas quam vanis hominibus placere. Sed multi praedicatores statim volunt contra gravissima peccata instare, ignorantes quod ante gravem medicinam debet fieri praeparatio, ne medicina sit inanis et vacua: quapropter prius homines debent induci ad orationis devotionem et signanter ad psalterium meum angelicum; quoniam, si omnes coeperint hoc orare, non dubium est quin perseverantibus aderit pietas divinae clementiae. Praedica ergo psalterium meum."

16. He says in another place: Omnes sermocinantes et praedicantes christicolis exordium pro gratia impetranda a Salutatione angelica faciunt. Hujus rei ratio sumpta est ex revelatione facta beato Dominico cui beata Virgo dixit: "Dominice, fili, nil mireris quod concionando minime proficias. Enimvero aras solum a pluvia non irrigatum. Scitoque, cum Deus renovare decrevit mundum Salutationis angelicae pluviam praemisit; sicque ipse in melius est reformatus. — Hortare igitur homines in concionibus ad Rosarii mei recitationen, et magnos animarum fructus colliges." Quod sanctus Dominicus strenue executus uberes ex suis concionibus animarum fructus retulit.

17. I have taken pleasure in reporting word for word these Latin passages from these good authors, for the benefit of preachers and learned persons who might call into question the marvelous power of the holy Rosary. As long as preachers, following the example of St. Dominic, preached the devotion of the holy Rosary, piety and fervor flourished in the religious orders that practiced this devotion, and in the Christian world; but since this gift from heaven was neglected, nothing but sin and disorder was seen everywhere.

Fourth Rose

18. As all things, even the most holy, when they depend particularly on the will of men, are subject to change, it is not surprising that the confraternity of the holy Rosary subsisted in its first fervor for only about a hundred years after its institution, and then was almost buried in oblivion. Besides, the malice and envy of the devil no doubt contributed greatly to making the holy Rosary neglected, in order to halt the flow of God's graces that this devotion drew down upon the world. In fact, divine justice afflicted all the kingdoms of Europe in the year 1349 with the most terrible plague ever seen, which, from the East, spread through Italy, Germany, France, Poland, and Hungary, and from there nearly all these lands were devastated; for out of a hundred men, scarcely one remained alive. Cities, towns, villages, and monasteries were utterly deserted during the three years that this contagion lasted. And this scourge of God was followed by two others: the heresy of the Flagellants and a disastrous schism in 1376.

19. After these miseries had ceased, by the mercy of God, the Blessed Virgin directed Blessed Alan de la Roche, a famous doctor and celebrated preacher of the Order of St. Dominic, of the convent of Dinan in Brittany, to renew the ancient confraternity of the holy Rosary, so that, as this famous confraternity had originated in that province, a religious of the same province might have the honor of restoring it. This blessed Father began to work at this great task in the year 1460, especially after Our Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself relates, said to him one day in the sacred Host, while he was celebrating Holy Mass, in order to move him to preach the holy Rosary: "What then," said Jesus Christ, "you crucify me once again!" "How, Lord?" replied Blessed Alan, quite terrified. "It is sinners who crucify me," Jesus Christ answered him, "and I would rather be crucified once more than see my Father offended by the sins you formerly committed. And you crucify me again now, because you have the knowledge and all that is necessary to preach the Rosary of my Mother, and by this means to instruct and rescue many souls from sin; you would save them and prevent great evils. And since you fail to do so, you are guilty of the sins they commit." These terrible reproaches determined Blessed Alan to preach the Rosary unceasingly.

20. The Blessed Virgin also said to him one day, to encourage him ever more to preach the holy Rosary: "You were a great sinner in your youth, but I obtained your conversion from my Son. I prayed for you, and I would have desired, if it had been possible, every kind of suffering to save you, because converted sinners are my glory, and to make you worthy to preach my Rosary everywhere." St. Dominic, revealing to him the great fruits he had gathered among the people by this beautiful devotion that he continually preached to them, said to him: "Vides quomodo profecerim in sermone isto; id etiam facies et tu, et omnes Mariae amatores, ut sic trahatis omnes populos ad omnem scientiam virtutum." "See the fruit I have won by preaching the holy Rosary; do the same, you and all who love the Blessed Virgin, so that by this holy exercise of the Rosary you may draw all peoples to the true knowledge of the virtues." Such, in brief, is what history tells us of the establishment of the holy Rosary by St. Dominic and its renewal by Blessed Alan de la Roche.

Fifth Rose

21. There is properly speaking only one kind of Rosary confraternity, composed of 150 Hail Marys; but according to the fervor of those who practice it, there are three sorts: the ordinary Rosary, the perpetual Rosary, and the daily Rosary. The confraternity of the ordinary Rosary requires that one recite it only once a week. That of the perpetual Rosary, only once a year. But the daily Rosary requires that one say it every day in its entirety — that is, 150 Hail Marys. None of these Rosaries binds under pain of sin, not even venial sin, if one fails to say it, because this commitment is voluntary and of supererogation; but one should not enroll in the confraternity without a firm intention to recite it as the confraternity requires, as far as one is able, without neglecting the obligations of one's state in life. Thus when the recitation of the holy Rosary conflicts with a duty required by one's state in life, one should prefer that duty to the Rosary, however holy the Rosary may be. When illness prevents one from saying it entirely or in part without worsening one's condition, one is not obliged to say it. When through legitimate obedience, involuntary forgetfulness, or pressing necessity, one has been unable to say it, there is no sin whatever, not even venial; one still shares in the graces and merits of the other brothers and sisters of the holy Rosary who say it throughout the world. Christian, even if you fail to say it out of pure negligence, without any formal contempt, you do not sin either, strictly speaking, but you lose your share in the prayers, good works, and merits of the confraternity; and by your unfaithfulness in small and supererogatory matters, you will gradually fall into unfaithfulness in great and essential obligations, for: Qui spernit modica paulatim decidet.

Sixth Rose

22. From the time that St. Dominic established this devotion until the year 1460, when Blessed Alan de la Roche renewed it by order of heaven, it was called the Psalter of Jesus and of the Blessed Virgin, because it contains as many Angelic Salutations as the Psalter of David contains psalms, and because simple and unlearned people, unable to recite the Psalter of David, find in the recitation of the holy Rosary a fruit equal to that derived from the psalms of David, and even a more abundant one: first, because the Angelic Psalter bears a nobler fruit, namely the Incarnate Word, whereas the Psalter of David merely foretells him; second, as truth surpasses the figure and the body surpasses the shadow, so the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin surpasses the Psalter of David, which was only its shadow and figure; third, because the Most Holy Trinity directly composed the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, or the Rosary, composed of the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Here is what the learned Carthagena reports on this subject: "Sapientissimus Aquensis, libro ejus de Rosacea Corona ad Imperatorum Maximilianum conscripto, dicit: 'Salutandae Mariae ritus novitiis inventis haud quaquam adscribitur. Si quidem cum ipsa pene ecclesia pullulavit; nam cum inter ipsa nascentis ecclesiae primordia, perfectiores quoque fideles tribus illis Davidicorum psalmorum quinquagenis, divinas laudes assidue celebrarent, ad rudiores quoque qui modo arctius divinis vacabant piis moris aemulatio est derivata... rati id quod erat, cuncta illorum sacramenta psalmorum in coelesti hoc elogio delitescere, si quidem eum quem psalmi venturum concinunt, hunc jam adesse, haec formula nuntiavit; sicque trinas salutationum quinquagenas Mariae Psalterium appellare coeperunt, oratione utique dominica in singulas decades ubique preposita prout a psalmidicis observari ante adverterunt.'"

23. The Psalter or Rosary of the Blessed Virgin is divided into three chaplets of five decades each: first, to honor the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity; second, to honor the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ; third, to imitate the Church Triumphant, to aid the Church Militant, and to relieve the Church Suffering; fourth, to imitate the three parts of the psalms, the first of which is for the purgative way, the second for the illuminative way, and the third for the unitive way; fifth, to fill us with grace during life, with peace at death, and with glory in eternity.

Seventh Rose

24. Since Blessed Alan de la Roche renewed this devotion, popular opinion — which is the voice of God — has given it the name of Rosary, meaning a crown of roses; that is to say, every time one says the Rosary properly, one places upon the heads of Jesus and Mary a crown composed of 153 white roses and 16 red roses from paradise, which will never lose either their beauty or their splendor. The Blessed Virgin has approved and confirmed this name of Rosary, revealing to several people that they presented to her as many agreeable roses as they recited Hail Marys in her honor, and as many crowns of roses as they said Rosaries.

25. Brother Alphonsus Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus, recited his Rosary with such ardor that he often saw, at each Our Father, a red rose issue from his mouth, and at each Hail Mary, a white one, equal in beauty and fragrance and differing only in color. The chronicles of St. Francis relate that a young religious had the praiseworthy custom of saying the crown of the Blessed Virgin every day before his meal. One day, by some accident, he failed to say it. When the dinner bell rang, he asked the superior's permission to recite it before going to table. With this permission, he retired to his room; but as he was taking too long, the superior sent a religious to call him. This religious found him in his room, radiant with heavenly light, and the Blessed Virgin, with two angels beside him. As he said each Hail Mary, a beautiful rose came forth from his mouth; the angels took the roses one by one and placed them on the head of the Blessed Virgin, who received them with pleasure. Two other religious, sent to find out why the others were delayed, saw the whole mystery, and the Blessed Virgin did not disappear until the crown had been fully recited. The Rosary, then, is a great crown, and the chaplet a small garland of flowers, a little crown of heavenly roses, that one places upon the heads of Jesus and Mary. The rose is the queen of flowers; likewise, the Rosary is the rose and the first of all devotions.

Eighth Rose

26. It is impossible to express how highly the Blessed Virgin esteems the Rosary above all other devotions, and how generous she is in rewarding those who labor to preach it, establish it, and promote it; and, on the other hand, how terrible she is against those who oppose it. St. Dominic had nothing more at heart during his life than to praise the Blessed Virgin, to preach her greatness, and to inspire the whole world to honor her by her Rosary. This powerful Queen of heaven, in return, never ceased to pour down blessings upon the saint in abundance. She crowned his labors with a thousand prodigies and miracles; he never asked anything of God that he did not obtain through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin; and, as a crowning favor, she made him victorious over the Albigensian heresy and made him the father and patriarch of a great order.

27. What shall I say of Blessed Alan de la Roche, the restorer of this devotion? The Blessed Virgin honored him several times with her visits, to instruct him in the means of working out his salvation, of becoming a good priest, a perfect religious, and an imitator of Jesus Christ. During the terrible temptations and persecutions of the demons, which reduced him to extreme sadness and almost to despair, she consoled him and dispelled, by her gentle presence, all those clouds and shadows. She taught him the method of saying the Rosary, its excellences and its fruits. She favored him with the glorious title of her new spouse, and as a pledge of her chaste affections, she placed a ring upon his finger, a necklace made of her hair about his neck, and gave him a Rosary. Abbot Trithemius, the learned Carthagena, the scholar Martin of Navarre, and others speak of him with high praise. After drawing more than a hundred thousand souls to the confraternity of the Rosary, he died at Zwolle, in Flanders, on September 8, 1475.

28. The devil, jealous of the great fruits that Blessed Thomas of St. John, a celebrated preacher of the holy Rosary, was producing through this practice, reduced him, by his ill treatment, to a long and painful illness, from which the doctors despaired of curing him. One night, when he believed he would certainly die, the devil appeared to him in a terrifying form; but raising his eyes and his heart directly toward an image of the Blessed Virgin that was near his bed, he cried out with all his strength: "Help me, come to my aid, O my most sweet Mother!" Scarcely had he finished these words when the Blessed Virgin stretched out her hand from the holy image, took his arm, and said to him: "Fear not, my son Thomas. I am here to help you. Rise and continue to preach the devotion of my Rosary as you have begun. I will defend you against all your enemies." At these words of the Blessed Virgin, the devil fled. The sick man arose in perfect health and gave thanks to his good Mother with a torrent of tears, and continued to preach the Rosary with marvelous success.

29. The Blessed Virgin not only favors the preachers of the Rosary; she also gloriously rewards those who, by their example, draw others to this devotion. Alphonsus, King of Leon and Galicia, wishing all his household to honor the Blessed Virgin by the Rosary, took it upon himself, to inspire them by his example, to carry a large Rosary at his side, though without actually reciting it; this obliged all his courtiers to say it devoutly. The king fell gravely ill and was at death's door. When he was believed to be dead, he was carried in spirit before the tribunal of Jesus Christ. He saw the devils accusing him of all the sins he had committed, and the Judge was about to condemn him to eternal punishment when the Blessed Virgin appeared on his behalf before her Son. A balance was brought: all the king's sins were placed in one pan, and the Blessed Virgin placed in the other the large Rosary he had carried in her honor, together with all those that others had said because of his example — and it outweighed all his sins. Then, looking upon him with a gracious countenance, she said to him: "I have obtained from my Son, as a reward for the small service you rendered me in carrying the Rosary, the extension of your life for some years. Use them well, and do penance." When the king came back from this rapture, he cried out: "O blessed Rosary of the Blessed Virgin, by which I have been delivered from eternal damnation!" After he had recovered his health, he spent the rest of his life in devotion to the holy Rosary and recited it every day. Let the devout servants of the Blessed Virgin strive to gain as many of the faithful as they can for the confraternity of the holy Rosary, after the example of these saints and of this king, and they will have here below her good graces and eternal life hereafter. Qui elucidant me vitam aeternam habebunt.

Ninth Rose

30. But let us now see what an injustice it is to hinder the progress of the confraternity of the holy Rosary, and what punishments God has inflicted upon many who have despised and sought to destroy the confraternity of the holy Rosary. Although the devotion of the holy Rosary has been authorized from heaven by many prodigies and approved by the Church through several papal bulls, there are only too many freethinkers, ungodly people, and worldly spirits of the age who try either to discredit the confraternity of the holy Rosary or at least to turn the faithful away from it. It is easy to see that their tongues are poisoned with the venom of hell and that they are driven by the evil spirit; for no one can disapprove of the devotion of the holy Rosary without condemning what is most holy in the Christian religion — namely, the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, and the mysteries of the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ and of his holy Mother. These freethinkers, who cannot bear to hear the Rosary said, often fall, without realizing it, into the condemned opinions of heretics who hold the chaplet and the Rosary in horror. It is a departure from God and true piety to abhor confraternities, since Jesus Christ assures us that he is present in the midst of those assembled in his name. It is not being a good Catholic to neglect the many great indulgences that the Church grants to confraternities. In short, it is to be an enemy of the salvation of souls to dissuade the faithful from the holy Rosary, since through it they leave the ways of sin to embrace piety. If St. Bonaventure was right in saying that he who neglects the Blessed Virgin will die in his sin and be damned — "Qui negligerit illam morietur in peccatis suis" (in psalterio suo) — what punishments must those expect who turn others away from her devotion!

Tenth Rose

31. When St. Dominic was preaching this devotion in Carcassonne, a heretic ridiculed his miracles and the fifteen mysteries of the holy Rosary, which hindered the conversion of the heretics. God, to punish this wicked man, permitted fifteen thousand demons to enter his body. His parents brought him to the blessed Father to be delivered from these evil spirits. He began to pray and exhorted the whole company to recite the Rosary aloud with him, and at each Hail Mary the Blessed Virgin caused a hundred demons to leave the body of the heretic in the form of burning coals. After he had been delivered, he abjured his errors, was converted, and enrolled in the confraternity of the Rosary, together with many of his party who had been touched by this punishment and by the power of the Rosary.

32. The learned Carthagena, of the Order of St. Francis, together with several other authors, relates that in the year 1482, when the Venerable Father James Sprenger and his fellow religious were working with great zeal to restore the devotion and the confraternity of the holy Rosary in the city of Cologne, two famous preachers, jealous of the great fruits they were producing by this practice, tried to discredit it in their sermons. As they were talented and had great influence, they dissuaded many people from enrolling. One of these preachers, the better to accomplish his pernicious design, prepared a sermon expressly for this purpose and announced it for a certain Sunday. When the hour of the sermon came, the preacher was nowhere to be seen. They waited for him, searched for him, and at last found him dead, without anyone having been able to help him. The other preacher, persuading himself that this was a natural accident, resolved to supply his companion's place and abolish the confraternity of the Rosary. When the day and hour of the sermon arrived, God struck this preacher with a paralysis that deprived him of both movement and speech. He recognized his fault and that of his companion. He had recourse to the Blessed Virgin in his heart, promising to preach the Rosary everywhere with as much zeal as he had fought against it. He begged her to restore his health and his speech for this purpose, which the Blessed Virgin granted him. Finding himself suddenly healed, he arose and, like another Saul, from a persecutor became a defender of the holy Rosary. He made public reparation for his fault and preached the excellence of the holy Rosary with great zeal and eloquence.

33. I do not doubt that the freethinkers and critics of this age who read the stories in this little treatise will call them into question, as they have always done, although I have done nothing other than transcribe them from very good contemporary authors and in part from a book recently composed by the Reverend Father Antonin Thomas, of the Order of Friars Preachers, entitled The Mystical Rose Bush. Everyone knows that there are three different kinds of faith to be given to different kinds of stories. To the stories of Holy Scripture we owe a divine faith; to profane histories that are not contrary to reason and are written by good authors, a human faith; and to pious histories related by good authors, which are in no way contrary to reason, to the faith, or to good morals, even though they are sometimes extraordinary, a pious faith. I admit that we should be neither too credulous nor too critical, and that we should hold the middle ground in all things in order to find the point of truth and virtue. But I also know that, as charity readily believes all that is not contrary to faith or good morals — Charitas omnia credit — so pride leads men to deny nearly all well-attested histories, under the pretext that they are not in Holy Scripture. This is the snare of Satan into which the heretics who deny tradition have fallen, and into which the critics of the present day are imperceptibly falling, disbelieving what they do not understand or what does not suit them, for no other reason than the pride and self-sufficiency of their own minds.