The spoken Rosary
The structure of the Rosary, its very foundation, is the Prayers. I encourage you to review them, and even paraphrase them to think about and understand what each sentence means. From there, consider whether the prayer is one of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and / or supplication.
The Rosary was given to St. Dominic over 800 years ago to combat a common practice of merely repeating prayers and it did this in a unique way. The Rosary includes stories from the life of Christ in addition to the prayers. When you realize that this was prior to the printing press and therefore before each of us was able to have our own copy of the Bible to study, it helps explain its long tradition of teaching the faithful. Today each of us has access to the Bible and most Rosary instructions provide references to chapters that will help expand your Bible study of Jesus’ life to improve your own understanding of His experiences and what He has revealed to us about how to live. Bible passage links are included with the prayers on this website. Between studying the life of Jesus through the mysteries and the prayers, it’s a brief, but thorough, catechism.
The sequence of the prayers
The sign of the cross and the Apostles’ Creed are prayed on the crucifix. On the first bead, pray The Lord’s Prayer. The next three beads, pray three Hail Mary’s, then The Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer. We then begin incorporating the life of Jesus into our thoughts by announcing each mystery and with that story firmly in mind, pray 1 Our Father on the large bead, 10 Hail Mary’s on the smaller beads, and then the Glory Be and the Fatima prayer. That completes one decade of a Rosary which takes about 5 minutes. Praying 5 decades meditating on a set of mysteries is one Rosary which may take you 15-20 minutes. Pray all 4 sets of mysteries and you may spend all of an hour.
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