When praying the Rosary, it is traditional to do one set of five mysteries (eg, The Joyous Mysteries) – also known as five decades – at a time, although another pious practice is to do three Mysteries a day as a minimum. My personal practice is five decades a day, although I do not get them all at once (more on that below). At the end of the last decade, including the concluding Gloria, it is traditional to end your Rosary with these prayers:
The Salve Regina
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
Hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry,
Poor banished children of Eve;
To thee do we send forth our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
Thine eyes of mercy toward us;
And after this our exile,
Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.
℣. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
℟. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ, thy Son.
O GOD, Who by the life, death, and resurrection of Thy only-begotten Son, hath purchased for us the rewards of eternal salvation, grant, we beseech Thee, that meditating on these mysteries of the most holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
℣. May the Divine Help remain with us always,
℟. And with those who are absent from us.
℣. May the souls of the faithful through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
℟. Amen.
In my own practice I end each set of five decades this way, but if I have to stop “in the middle” as it were, I say instead, only this prayer, which is the oldest known prayer to the Blessed Virgin (dating back at least to 250 AD):
Under thy protection we flee, O Holy Theotokos; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.
There are various traditions of how to pray this and on what days to pray what. You can see various suggestions around the net. I stick with doing the Glorious Mysteries on Sunday, and starting the Joyous Mysteries on Monday. However:
The traditional Dominican Rosary, as we have it today, with the three sets of five decades as we have included it in this series, is the method of praying the rosary that survived the Middle Ages. There were other methods at that time: I’ve heard one scholar say that at one time there were 150 different mysteries, one “Ave” for each. I don’t know about that… but the point is made that the Rosary went through an evolution before Dominic de Guzman and his Preachers made it popular in a standard form. It survived that way for nearly 775 years, until Pop John Paul suggested five more mysteries. With these it is the practice to pray this way:
Monday: the Joyous Mysteries
Tuesday: the Dolorous Mysteries
Wednesday: the Glorious Mysteries
Thursday: The Luminous Mysteries
Friday: The Dolorous Mysteries
Saturday: The Joyous Mysteries
Sunday: The Glorious Mysteries
The older format (which I like, I admit) is to use Sundays as sort of a “Seasonal Flavor”:
Monday: the Joyous Mysteries
Tuesday: the Dolorous Mysteries
Wednesday: the Glorious Mysteries
Thursday: The Joyous Mysteries
Friday: The Dolorous Mysteries
Saturday: The Glorious Mysteries
Sunday: The Joyous Mysteries (From Advent until Lent), or the Dolorous Mysteries (in Lent), or the Glorious Mysteries (the rest of the year until Advent).
For me… leaning on both traditions, I like the following:
Monday: the Joyous Mysteries
Tuesday: the Dolorous Mysteries
Wednesday: the Glorious Mysteries
Thursday: the Joyous Mysteries
Friday: the Dolorous Mysteries
Saturday: the Glorious Mysteries
Sunday: The Joyous Mysteries (From Advent until Lent), or the Dolorous Mysteries (in Lent), or the Glorious Mysteries (In Easter), and the Luminous Mysteries during Ordinary Time.
This allows me to add all four traditional Marian Antiphons:
Joyous Mysteries – Alma Redemptoris Mater
Luminous Mysteries – Salve Regina
Dolorous Mysteries – Ave Regina Caelorum
Glorious Mysteries – Regina Coeli
And that’s it. I hope this is useful. Byzantine text is so rich, so meditative. This series was a good thing 5 years ago and seems a good thing now. Do not hesitate to let me know of any feedback.
Doxos 