Rosary
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
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in ordinary language, a chaplet, a garland. Also, a bed of roses; a place where roses grow; or a coin so called from bearing the figure of a rose, of foreign coinage, about the size of a penny, but worth less than a halfpenny, chiefly smuggled into Ireland. In 1300 it was made death to import them. In comparative religion, a string of beads by means of which account is kept of the number of prayers uttered. In the Roman Catholic Church: (1) A form of prayer in which the "Hail Mary" is recited 150 times in honor of the Virgin Mary. It is divided into 15 decades, each of which begins with the "Our Father" (see LORD'S PRAYER), is accompanied by meditation on one of the mysteries in the life of our Lord, and ends with the doxology. This is properly called the Dominican, or Great Rosary, but the name is often popularly given to the Chaplet, which contains but 50 aves. The 15 Mysteries which should be meditated on during the recitation of the Rosary are divided into three series, each corresponding to a chaplet : 1. Joyful. The Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Jesus within Presenta tion in the Temple, the Finding in the Temple. 2. Sorrowful. - The Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the C6H9 CH3. Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion. 3. Glorious. - The Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption, and the Coronation of the B. V. M. There are also the Rosaries of St. Bridget, of the Seven Dolors, of the Immaculate Conception, of the Five Wounds, and the Crown of Our Saviour. (2) The beads on which any of the foregoing forms of prayers are said.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote this in 1921 it could state flatly that the Rosary has "15 Mysteries" in three series, Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious. That held until October 2002, when John Paul II, in the apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, proposed a fourth set of five Luminous Mysteries (the Mysteries of Light: the Baptism in the Jordan, Cana, the proclamation of the Kingdom, the Transfiguration and the institution of the Eucharist), bringing the full count to 20 decades and 200 Hail Marys. Devotion itself grew rather than faded in the intervening years, pushed hard by the Fatima apparitions of 1917 "" only four years before this entry "" whose message centred on daily recitation of the beads. The rest of the article, including the older senses of the word as a garland or a bed of roses and the list of lesser chaplets such as the Seven Dolors and the Five Wounds, still describes things as they are.
Written for this edition, 2026.