There are those who claim that Mary giving the rosary to St. Dominic is a pious legend without historical basis
In the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the Holy Father John Paul II once more urged Christian families to pray in their home by reciting the Rosary: “We need to return to the practice of family prayer and prayer for families, continuing to use the Rosary.”
The Secret of the Rosary is a book about the Holy Rosary written by Louis de Montfort, a French priest and Catholic saint who died in 1716.
A young man, the nephew of Stephen the cardinal of [Fossa Nuova monastery], fell with his horse into a ditch and was killed.
Being lifted out, he was laid at the feet of Saint Dominic, who prayed over him and restored him to life.
Is there a biblical basis for the Rosary?
Theologians say the bible does “not” tell us to pray the Rosary because this form of prayer originated only during the middle ages.
The Fifteen Promises is a tradition held by the Order of Preachers (also known as Dominicans) that the Blessed Virgin Mary made 15 specific promises through Dominic de Guzmán and Alan de Rupe, to those who faithfully pray the Rosary
The 15 promises fall under the category of “private revelation,” and as such are a pious tradition, which a person is free to believe or not believe.
Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces.
I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.
The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.
It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the heart of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.
The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.
Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries, shall never be conquered and never overwhelmed by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death (unprepared for heaven). The sinner shall convert. The just shall grow in grace and become worthy of eternal life.
Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have, during their life and at their death, the light of God and the plenitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.
I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in heaven.
You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.
I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.
All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only son Jesus Christ.
Devotion of my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.
The Blessed Virgin Mary promised St. Dominic and all who followed that “Whatever you ask in the Rosary will be granted.”
She also revealed to him 15 specific promises to those who faithfully pray the Rosary: Whosoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.
Beneath Thy Protection (Ancient Greek: Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν; Latin: Sub Tuum Præsidium) is an ancient Christian hymn and prayer.
It is one of the oldest known Marian prayers and among the most ancient preserved hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary that is still in use.
Where did Mary give the Rosary to Saint Dominic?
Theological documents suggest the apparition occurred in southern France, in a small, out-of-the-way spot known as Prouilhe in the Languedoc region.
When St. Dominic was laboring without success to convert souls back to the one true faith, the Virgin Mother gave him a powerful weapon, the Angelic Salutation [i.e. the Angel Gabriel’s greeting to the Virgin Mary at the Incarnation], and the pattern in which it should be prayed to combat the Albigensian heresy (the heresy of the Cathars).
This is a re-emergent form of the ancient Manichean heresy which denied the divinity of Christ and the goodness of the created material world.
And she also gave the rosary “mysteries” which reflected on the Incarnation, Passion, and death of her Son.
The words of the Angelic Salutation combined with meditations on the divine mysteries was to be used as a prayer and catechism tool to teach the people the true Christian faith.
If St. Dominic would preach her rosary and its meditations on the life of Christ, many souls would be converted from their error and saved through her intercession.
Religious documents say the Blessed Virgin said to him: “Wonder not that you have obtained so little fruit by your labors, you have spent them on barren soil, not yet watered with the dew of Divine grace.
“When God willed to renew the face of the earth, He began by sending down on it the fertilizing rain of the Angelic Salutation.
“Therefore preach my Psalter composed of 150 Angelic Salutations and 15 Our Fathers, and you will obtain an abundant harvest.”
There are those who claim that Mary giving the rosary to St. Dominic is a pious legend without historical basis.
But, theologians say, this “legend” is so well supported in the Catholic Church history, and the tradition documented by at least a dozen popes, that its authenticity as a gift from Our Lady to the Church, through the hands of St. Dominic, cannot be reasonably doubted.
One papal encyclical says: “Our merciful God, as you know, raised up against these most direful enemies a most holy man, the illustrious parent and founder of the Dominican Order.
“Great in the integrity of his doctrine, in his example of virtue, and by his apostolic labors, he proceeded undauntedly to attack the enemies of the Catholic Church, not by force of arms; but trusting wholly to that devotion which he was the first to institute under the name of the Holy Rosary, which was disseminated through the length and breadth of the earth by him and his pupils.
“Guided, in fact, by divine inspiration and grace, he foresaw that this devotion, like a most powerful warlike weapon, would be the means of putting the enemy to flight, and of confounding their audacity and mad impiety. Such was indeed its result.
“Thanks to this new method of prayer – when adopted and properly carried out as instituted by the Holy Father St. Dominic – piety, faith, and union began to return, and the projects and devices of the heretics to fall to pieces.
“Many wanderers also returned to the way of salvation, and the wrath of the impious was restrained by the arms of those Catholics who had determined to repel their violence.”
(Supremi Apostolatus Officio, Encyclical of Ppope Leo XIII on Devotion of (sic) the Rosary).
The Dominicans, the Church’s first religious order devoted to itinerant preaching, were given the special task by Our Lady to preach her Holy Rosary across Europe, and the order in which the universal Church prays the rosary today is taken from the original Dominican form.