History of the Rosary, Part 2

The Rosary
by Garry Wills

(Page 4 of 4)

One reason why use of the rosary became confined to Catholics was a curse that was given in the form of a blessing. From the fifteenth century on, indulgences - papal dispensations from time in purgatory - were attached to its recitation. The sale of indulgences was one reason for Luther's break with the church, and the rosary was tarred with the brush of this corrupt practice. The very idea of indulgences was tainted from the outset. The claim that the pope could give partial or total reprieves from time spent in purgatory is absurd on the face of it. Who knows what time would mean in purgatory - does it follow the Gregorian calendar? The offer of such a reprieve was improvised by those preaching the First Crusade (1095), when Rome had not authorized the idea and had no theological argument on which to base it. Yet the grant was so desired and clamored after - and eventually so lucrative - that lame excuses were confected for it.

Indulgences have been dying a decent death in modern times, in the quiet way the church has of forgetting embarrassments. Paul VI does not mention indulgences in his list of reasons for praying the rosary, and John Paul II says nothing of indulgences for the rosary itself, though he offers one for an appended prayer for his intentions (37). But the indulgences had their sad effect for a long time. Racing through the requisite number of prayers just to get the indulgence worked against the whole concept of contemplative calm. Besides, it was thought that the indulgence inhered in the beads themselves. If you had no beads at hand, it made no sense to say the prayers, since you got no indulgence. To add superstition to superstition, it was thought that the indulgence depended on using beads blessed by a priest. If they could be blessed by the pope himself, they would be especially potent. That is why, at papal audiences, hundreds of people held up rosaries when he blessed the crowd - some holding fistsful of many rosaries, for their family and friends. John Paul admits (28) that this can reduce the rosary to the status of a magic amulet.

My own contemporaries grew up in a culture that led to such indulgence hunting. This trend was at its worst on All Souls Day, the day after All Saints Day (All Hallows, following on Hallows Eve, Halloween). On All Souls Day, a special indulgence could be won by visiting a church - so there was a rush to duck into many churches, to tally up the indulgences. In the same way, the rosary was rattled off, as fast and as frequently as possible, to get indulgences given to its recitation. This explains why many Catholics who remember preconciliar days have sour memories of the rosary. John Paul II says (4) that such bad memories have led to "a crisis of the rosary." He, like Paul VI, has tried to remove the offensive connections with past error. Both stress the quiet and calm mood in which the rosary should be said. John Paul says (28) that the prayers, though "usually" said to the beads, can be said without them. Both popes stress freedom in the use of the prayers, recommending improvisations like the addition of clauses or other prayers, and rejecting all fetishisms regarding the physical beads themselves.

John Paul has, in this spirit, opened a welcome new chapter in the history of the rosary by adding a new set of five mysteries to the traditional fifteen. He calls these the luminous mysteries, or mysteries of light, since they show Christ revealing the meaning of his ministry - the five are Christ's Baptism, the Marriage at Cana, the Sermon on the Mount, the Transfiguration, and the Last Supper. Adding these mysteries breaks with the psalter numerology of the devotion's past history. The use of three sets of mysteries entailed the saying of 150 Hail Marys in the decades of the whole - or 100 or 50 if one said two sets or just one. That is one reason the restricted number of mysteries was adopted in the first place. The pope has broken those confines now, since the twenty mysteries are not reducible to the old schema of 150-100-50.

Why this innovation in a deeply traditional practice? The previous list of gospel events omitted the whole of the public ministry of Jesus. The glad set covered Christ's childhood. The sad set covered his passion and death. The glorious set covered Christ's resurrection and the subsequent life of the church. This not only gave a drastically truncated version of Christ's life but - for those who said the rosary in connection with the liturgical seasons - led to an imbalance in the use of the beads. The glad mysteries were said only in the time from the beginning of Advent to the beginning of Lent. The sad mysteries were used only in Lent. That left most of the year to repetition of the glorious mysteries. Now there is a new set of meditations for the post-pentecostal time.

Of course, one does not have to say the rosary in accord with the liturgical seasons. John Paul suggests (8) another practice, the keying of different mysteries to different days of the week. But I could never remember what day called for what mysteries, even when there were only fifteen of them. Having twenty makes that even more complicated. Besides, when the recitation is attuned to the whole church's concern with the different moods of the liturgical year, this makes it transcend individual whim. One breathes, as it were, with the whole body of believers.

Yet one does not have to follow any pattern. Indeed, one does not have to say the rosary. But if one does, it should be a personal exercise as well as a communal discipline. If a mystery evokes a special response, one can dwell on it at length and spend less time on the others - or omit them altogether. At Christmastime, I repeat just the third mystery, Christ's Birth, on all five decades of the beads. The rosary is not an assignment, just a help to contemplation and to prayer. The point of having a full course of mysteries to contemplate is simply to provide a framework within which to structure one's reflection. The uses to which one puts that framework can and should differ from person to person.

Well, if that is the case, why use the beads at all? One does not have to. The ability to pray should not be limited by the accident of having the beads whenever one wants to pray the rosary. Counting the prayers is not a difficult matter for people who have ten fingers. William F. Buckley Jr. records a common occurrence for Catholics of his (and my) generation in his published diary Overdrive:

Having twice checked the alarm clock, because I am due at the airport at 9 a.m., I read something about somebody and, turning off the light, remember to count on my fingers the five decades of the rosary, a lifelong habit acquired in childhood and remembered about half the time. That half of my life, I like to think, I behave less offensively to my Maker than the other half.

Nonetheless, the fingers' transit along the beads, if one strips them of fetishistic connections, can help put one in a prayerful mood - the use of worry beads and other prayer aids indicates that. There is a kind of tactile memory evoked in their use, helping recall other times of prayer. The British author Eamon Duffy, in his book Faith of Our Fathers, says that the click of rosary beads brings back childhood memories of his grandmother praying through sleepless nights, with her "muttered preamble - This one is for Tom, for Molly, for Lily - as she launched on yet another decade." (Praying for different members of the family on different decades can be a useful practice.)

There is a natural symbolism in their threaded continuity. I am reminded of the fresco Good Government in Siena, in which the citizens hold on to a rope that goes up to the figure of Justice, a sign of linked activity and mutual support. Even better, perhaps, is Michelangelo's great figure of the angel in his Last Judgment, who reaches down and pulls up two risen souls using the rosary as a rope to bring them safely home. The beads can, indeed, hold us together.

© 2006 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine's Childhood, Saint Augustine's Memory, and Saint Augustine's Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.