Saint Dominic Receives the Rosary (detail)/ Plautilla Nelli

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ON OCTOBER 9, 1774 while he was in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress, John Adams walked into a Roman Catholic chapel as a diversion from the pressing matters of politics. There he found Catholics praying the rosary during Mass.

He was disgusted. After all, he envisioned a world in which such superstitions would be abolished — and he set about institutionalizing such a world politically.

He wrote to his wife, Abigail:

This afternoon, led by curiosity and good company, I strolled away to mother church, or rather grandmother church. I mean the Romish chapel. I heard a good, short moral essay upon the duty of parents to their children, founded in justice and charity, to take care of their interests, temporal and spiritual. This afternoon’s entertainment was to me most awful and affecting; the poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting Latin, not a word of which they understood; their pater nosters and ave Marias; their holy water; their crossing themselves perpetually; their bowing to the name of Jesus, whenever they hear it; their bowings, kneelings and genuflections before the altar. The dress of the priest was rich white lace. His pulpit was velvet and gold. The altar-piece was very rich, little images and crucifixes about; wax candles lighted up. But how shall I describe the picture of our Savior in a frame of marble over the altar, at full length, upon the cross in the agonies, and the blood dropping and streaming from his wounds! The music, consisting of an organ and a choir of singers, went all the afternoon except sermon time, and the assembly chanted most sweetly and exquisitely.

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination–everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell. Adieu.

Today, on the Feast of the Holy Rosary, it is truly marvelous to reflect on the survival of the rosary beads Adams refers to, this “mystical garland,” in a world in which the “enlightened” views of Adams have been dominant for hundreds of years.

Today’s feast originated in the 16th century in recognition of a great victory in battle, a fact which should have given Adams pause. On October 7, 1571, Muslim forces were defeated at the Battle of Lepanto. The victory was attributed to the praying of the rosary, after Pope Pius V ordered that it be prayed in chapels in Rome.

On October 7th, 1571 a fleet of ships assembled by the combined forces of Naples, Sardinia, Venice, the Papacy, Genoa, Savoy and the Knights Hospitallers fought an intense battle with the fleet of the Ottoman Empire. The battle took place in the Gulf of Patras located in western Greece.  Though outnumbered by the Ottoman forces, the so-called “Holy League” possessed of superior firepower would win the day. This victory would severely curtail attempts by the Ottoman Empire to control the Mediterranean, causing a seismic shift in international relations from East to West. [Source]

But the feast actually derives its origins from much earlier times. The rosary was not devised by human beings. It is in itself a mystical revelation, one of the most ancient prayers of Christian civilization and its survival through all the currents of history in itself is a miracle. It continues to be viewed as not just an aid to meditation on the mysteries of the Incarnation but a spiritual weapon.

In the early centuries, monks first began to use stones to pray. This ritual foreshadowed the formal establishment of the rosary in the 13th century.

“THE hermits of the first centuries, who could not read the psalter, used to recite one Our Father and one Hail Mary in the place of every psalm; and in order to note the number they said, they made use of small stones, or of seeds strung on a cord. St. Dominic was the first who made the custom general of substituting one hundred and fifty Hail Marys for the one hundred and fifty psalms; hence the rosary used to be called the Psalter of Mary. When, about the year 1200, the heresies of the Albigenseans wrought great mischief in the south of France and the north of Italy, St. Dominic was commissioned by the Pope to preach in refutation of their erroneous tenets. His efforts availed little, and he besought the aid of the Mother of God. She appeared to him, and bade him make use of the rosary as a weapon against her enemies. He accordingly introduced it everywhere, and before long it had effected the conversion of more than a hundred thousand heretics. The use of the Rosary soon spread throughout Christendom, and it became a most popular devotion. It is a method of prayer at once simple and sublime; the prayers are so easy that a child can repeat them, and the mysteries are so profound that they supply a subject for meditation to the most learned theologians. It is a prayer of contemplation as well as a prayer of supplication, for it places before the mind the principal truths of the faith. The Rosary is a compendium of the Gospels; a complete and practical manual of instruction wherein the chief points of Christian doctrine are presented under the guise of prayer. By meditation on the events of Our Lord’s life faith and charity are increased; from the example of our divine Redeemer we learn to be humble, gentle, obedient; we are incited to imitate the virtues which the mysteries teach, to strive after what they promise us. Moreover the union of vocal and mental prayer makes the Rosary easy, pleasant, and profitable. As a method of prayer it is unrivaled; the longer and more devoutly it is practiced, the more one appreciates its excellence and becomes convinced of its supernatural origin.”

“1. The Rosary is well pleasing to God, because of its humility, and because it is an imitation of the unceasing song of praise sung by the angels….” [Source]

Non-Catholics have often viewed the rosary as Adams did, as a robotic chant.

Pope Pius XI wrote of this view in 1937 when he said:

But those wander from the path of truth who consider this devotion merely an annoying formula repeated with monotonous sing-song intonation, and refuse it as good only for children and silly women!

In this regard, it is to be noted that both piety and love, though always renewing the same words, do not always repeat the same thing, but always express something new issuing from the intimate sentiment of devotion. And besides, this mode of prayer has the perfume of evangelic simplicity and requires humility of spirit; and, if we disdain humility, as the Divine Redeemer teaches, it will be impossible for us to enter the heavenly kingdom: “Amen, I say to you, unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matth. XVIII, 3).

Nevertheless, if men in our century, with its derisive pride, refuse the Holy Rosary, there is an innumerable multitude of holy men of every age and every condition who have always held it dear. They have recited it with great devotion, and in every moment they have used it as a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight, to preserve the integrity of life, to acquire virtue more easily, and in a word to attain real peace among men.

In the 20th century, before Vatican II and as the Church expanded in America, ordinary Americans would openly profess their love of the rosary. Mario Lanza, the famous tenor and Hollywood actor, sings ‘The Rosary,’ below, with an Orchestra conducted by Ray Sinatra for a radio broadcast on September 23, 1951. Can you imagine a pop singer today singing of the rosary?

The Rosary

The hours I spent with Thee, Dear Heart!
Are as a string of pearls to Thee,
I count them over, every one apart,
My rosary, my rosary.

Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung,
I tell each bead unto the end,
And there a cross is hung.

Oh, memories that bless and burn,
Oh, barren gain and bitter loss,
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn,
To kiss the cross, Sweet Heart,
To kiss the cross.

 Here is a lovely version of “Queen of the Holy Rosary,” a hymn often sung in Catholic schools, by the Daughters of Mary.

1. O Queen of the Holy Rosary,
O bless us as we pray,
And offer thee our roses
In garlands day by day,
While from our Father’s garden,
With loving hearts and bold,
We gather to thine honor
Buds white and red and gold.

2. O Queen of the Holy Rosary,
Each myst’ry blends with thine
The sacred life of Jesus
In ev’ry step divine.
Thy soul was His fair garden,
Thy virgin breast His throne,
Thy thoughts His faithful mirror,
Reflecting Him alone.

3. Sweet Lady of the Rosary,
White roses let us bring,
And lay them round thy footstool,
Before our Infant King.
For, resting in thy bosom,
God’s Son was fain to be
The child of thy obedience
And spotless purity.

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