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PART I

WHAT THE ROSARY IS

First Rose

The Prayers of the Rosary

THE ROSARY is made up of two things: mental prayer and vocal prayer. In the Holy Rosary mental
prayer is none other than meditation of the chief mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus
Christ and of His Blessed Mother. Vocal prayer consists in saying fifteen decades of the Hail Mary,
each decade headed by an Our Father. while at the same time meditating on and contemplating the
fifteen principal virtues which Jesus and Mary practiced in the fifteen mysteries of the Holy
Rosary.
In the first five decades we must honor the five Joyous Mysteries and meditate on them; in the
second five decades the Sorrowful Mysteries and in the third group of five, the
Glorious Mysteries. So the Rosary is a blessed blending of mental and vocal prayer by which we
honor and learn to imitate the mysteries and the virtues of the life. death, passion and glory
of Jesus and Mary.

Second Rose

Origin

Since the Holy Rosary is composed, principally and in su
stance, of the Prayer of Christ and the Angelic Salutation,
that is, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, it was without
doubt the first prayer and the first devotion of the faithful