The Secret of the Rosary

The Admirable Secret of the Most Holy Rosary, for Conversion and Salvation

PUBLIC-DOMAIN EDITION · FRESH ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort
Translated directly from the public-domain French text
August 2026
Translation dedicated under CC0 1.0 Universal

Public-Domain Edition

The French source text is in the public domain. This is a newly worded English translation made directly from the French; no earlier English translation was used as translation copy. Every part was checked against the French through source-facing reconciliation and structural review.

To the extent that any copyright or neighboring rights may exist in this translation, it is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal. It may be copied, printed, modified, redistributed, or used commercially without requesting permission.

For the source witnesses, integrity hashes, comparison result, and public-domain rationale, see the accompanying Source_and_Public_Domain_Note.md.

Translator's Note

Montfort's numbered paragraphs 1–154 are retained. The Fiftieth Rose is given complete, with all five of Montfort's methods for praying the Rosary.

The complete French witness followed for most of the Fiftieth Rose prints the first, second, fourth, and fifth methods, and notes only that the third was composed for the Daughters of Wisdom without supplying it. The third method does survive, in full, in the Montfortian edition of the Rosary methods, and it is translated here from that edition and marked as such where it stands. No method of Montfort's is omitted from this edition.

Terminology. In Montfort's historical usage a Rosary normally means all fifteen decades, while a chaplet means five decades. la sainte Vierge is rendered the Blessed Virgin throughout, and la très sainte Vierge the Most Holy Virgin. confrère is rendered confrere — a member of the Confraternity of the Rosary — because Montfort's argument repeatedly turns on that membership.

Latin. Latin passages are preserved as the French witnesses print them, and followed by English renderings in brackets when the French supplies no translation. Where a witness's Latin is itself defective, its reading is kept and the defect is noted rather than mended in silence.

Editorial repairs. Obvious typographic faults in the French witnesses — broken words, dropped accents, scanning artefacts — are resolved silently. Anything that changes sense, number, name, or citation is either kept as the witness prints it or flagged in brackets where it stands. Scripture references are given in modern chapter-and-verse form; where a witness prints a different or defective reference, the modern form is used and the witness's reading noted at the point of difference.

Miracle narratives, historical assertions, indulgence references, and devotional promises are translated as the author wrote them. This edition does not present them as newly verified historical or canonical findings. Readers wishing to apply indulgence disciplines should consult current Church norms.

Contents

Prefatory Roses — White Rose, Red Rose, Mystic Rosebush, Rosebud (paragraphs 1–8)

First Decade — The excellence of the Rosary in its origin and its name (First to Tenth Rose, paragraphs 9–33)

Second Decade — The excellence of the Rosary in the prayers of which it is composed (Eleventh to Twentieth Rose, paragraphs 34–59)

Third Decade — The excellence of the Rosary in the meditation of the life and Passion of Our Lord (Twenty-first to Thirtieth Rose, paragraphs 60–97)

Fourth Decade — The excellence of the Rosary in the wonders God has worked in its favor (Thirty-first to Fortieth Rose, paragraphs 98–115)

Fifth Decade — The holy manner of reciting the Rosary (Forty-first to Forty-ninth Rose, paragraphs 116–154)

Fiftieth Rose — Montfort's five methods for praying the Rosary

First Method — with the offering of each decade and its grace

Second, Shorter Method — a word added to each Hail Mary

Third Method — for the use of the Daughters of Wisdom

Fourth Method — a summary of the life, Passion, death, and glory of Jesus and Mary

Fifth Method — a Rosary of 150 reasons for saying the Rosary

White Rose

1. Ministers of the Most High, preachers of the truth, trumpets of the Gospel, permit me to present to you the white rose of this little book, to place in your hearts and in your mouths the truths which are therein exposed simply, without literary ornament. In your hearts, to take up the holy practice of the Rosary and savor its fruits. In your mouths, to preach to others the excellence of this practice and to convert them by this means. Take great care, please, not to regard this practice as trivial or of little consequence, as ordinary people and even many proud scholars do; it is truly great, sublime, and divine. Heaven has given it to us for the conversion of the most hardened sinners and the most obstinate heretics. God has attached to it grace in this life and glory in the next. The saints have practiced it and the Sovereign Pontiffs have authorized it. How blessed is the priest or director of souls to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed this secret unknown to the greater part of men or who knows it only superficially! If he gains a practical knowledge of it, he will recite it every day and will have others recite it. God and His holy Mother will pour grace abundantly into his soul, making him an instrument of His glory; and he will bear more fruit through his preaching, however simple, in one month, than other preachers do in several years.

2. Let us not, therefore, my dear brothers, be content with advising others of it; we must practice it ourselves. We may be convinced in spirit of the excellence of the holy Rosary, but if we do not practice it, little heed will be paid to our advice, for no one gives what he does not possess: "Coepit Jesus facere et docere" [Jesus began to do and to teach]. Let us imitate Jesus Christ, who began by doing what He taught. Let us imitate the Apostle, who knew and preached only Jesus Christ crucified. This is what we shall do by preaching the holy Rosary which, as you will see hereafter, is not only a composition of Our Father and Hail Mary, but a divine abridgment of the life, the passion, the death, and the glory of Jesus and Mary. If I believed that the experience God has given me of the efficacy of the preaching of the holy Rosary for converting souls could determine you to preach the holy Rosary despite the fashion among preachers to the contrary, I would tell you of the marvelous conversions I have seen happen by preaching the holy Rosary; but I content myself with reporting to you in this abridgment some ancient and well-approved stories. For your benefit, I have inserted several Latin passages taken from good authors which prove what I explain to the people in French.

Red Rose

3. It is to you, poor sinners, men and women, that a greater sinner than you offers this red rose, reddened by the blood of Jesus Christ, to bring you to flower and to save you. The impious and unpenitent sinners cry out every day: "Coronemus nos rosis" [Let us crown ourselves with roses]. Let us also sing: Let us crown ourselves with the roses of the holy Rosary. Ah! how different their roses are from ours; their roses are their carnal pleasures, their vain honors, and their perishable riches, which will soon wither and rot; but ours, which are the Our Fathers and Hail Marys we recite well, joined with our good works of penance, shall never wither nor pass away, and their brilliance will be as bright in a hundred thousand years from now as it is at present. Their so-called roses have only the appearance of roses; they are, in essence, nothing but thorns that sting during life by the remorse of conscience, piercing at death by repentance, and burning for all eternity by rage and despair. If our roses have thorns, they are the thorns of Jesus Christ, who converts our thorns into roses. If our roses sting, they sting only for a time; they sting only to heal us from sin and to save us.

4. Let us vie with one another in crowning ourselves with such roses from paradise, reciting every day a Rosary, that is to say, three chaplets of five decades each, or three small bouquets of flowers or crowns: 1. to honor the three crowns of Jesus and of Mary, the crown of grace of Jesus in His incarnation, His crown of thorns in His passion, and His crown of glory in Heaven, and the triple crown that Mary received in Heaven from the most holy Trinity; 2. to receive from Jesus and from Mary three crowns, the first of merit during life, the second of peace at death, and the third of glory in paradise. If you are faithful to say it, despite the greatness of your sins, devoutly until death, believe me: "Percipietis coronam immarcescibilem" [You shall receive an imperishable crown], you shall receive a crown of glory that shall never wither. Even if you were on the edge of the abyss, even if you already had one foot in hell, even if you had sold your soul to the devil like a sorcerer, even if you were a hardened and obstinate heretic like a demon, you will sooner or later be converted and you will be saved, provided that—I repeat it, and note the words and terms of my counsel—you say the holy Rosary every day devoutly until death, to know the truth and to obtain contrition and the forgiveness of your sins. You will see in this work several stories of great sinners converted by the virtue of the holy Rosary. Read them and meditate upon them. God alone.

Mystic Rosebush

5. Do not take it amiss, devout souls enlightened by the Holy Spirit, that I give you a little rosebush from heaven to plant in the garden of your soul; it will not damage the fragrant flowers of your contemplations. It is very fragrant and entirely divine; it will spoil nothing in the order of your flowerbed; it is very pure and well-ordered; it brings everything to order and to purity: it grows to such a prodigious height and becomes of such a great extent, if it is watered and cultivated properly every day, that not only does it not prevent, but even preserves and perfects all other devotions. You who are spiritual, you understand me well! This rosebush is Jesus and Mary in life, in death, and in eternity.

6. The green leaves of this mystic rosebush express the joyful mysteries of Jesus and of Mary; the thorns, the sorrowful; and the flowers, the glorious. The roses in bud are the childhood of Jesus and of Mary; the open roses represent Jesus and Mary in their sufferings, and the full-blown roses show Jesus and Mary in their glory and their triumph. The rose delights by its beauty: there we see Jesus and Mary in the Joyful Mysteries. It pricks with its thorns: there we see them in the Sorrowful Mysteries. And it delights by the sweetness of its fragrance: there at last we see them in the Glorious Mysteries. Do not despise, therefore, my happy and divine plant; plant it yourselves in your soul by taking the resolution to recite your Rosary; cultivate it and water it by reciting it faithfully every day and by doing good works, and you will see that this seed, which presently appears so small, will become with time a great tree where the birds of heaven, that is to say, the predestined souls elevated in contemplation, will make their nest and their dwelling, to be, under the shade of its leaves, sheltered from the sun's heat, to be preserved by its height from the wild beasts of the earth, and finally to be tenderly nourished by its fruit, which is none other than the adorable Jesus, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. So be it. God alone.

Rosebud

7. I offer you, my little children, a beautiful rosebud; it is one of the small beads of your chaplet, which may seem so insignificant to you! How precious this grain is! Oh! how admirable this rosebud is; oh! how fully it will blossom if you say your Hail Mary devoutly! It would be too much to ask you to recite a full Rosary every day. Say at least your chaplet every day very devoutly, which is a small crown of roses that you will place upon the head of Jesus and of Mary. Believe me, listen to this beautiful story and remember it well.

8. Two little girls, both sisters, while devoutly saying their chaplet at the door of their home, saw a beautiful Lady appear to them; approaching the youngest, who was only six or seven years old, she took her by the hand and led her away. Her elder sister, quite astonished, searched for her, and not being able to find her, returned home in tears and said that her sister had been taken away. The father and the mother searched in vain for three days. At the end of the third day, they found her at the door with a cheerful and joyful face; they asked her where she had come from; she said that the lady to whom she was saying her chaplet had taken her to a beautiful place and had given her good things to eat and had placed a lovely little child in her arms, whom she had kissed so much. The father and the mother, who were newly converted to the faith, summoned the Jesuit priest who had instructed them in the faith and devotion of the Rosary; they told him what had happened. It is from him that we learned it. This happened in Paraguay. Imitate, my little children, these little girls, and say your chaplet every day as they did, and you will thereby merit to enter paradise and to see Jesus and Mary, if not in this life, then after death, for all eternity. So be it. May the scholars and the ignorant, the just and the sinners, the great and the small, praise and greet Jesus and Mary day and night through the holy Rosary. "Salutate Mariam, quae multum laboravit in vobis" [Greet Mary, who labored much in you] (Rom 16:6).

First Decade

The excellence of the holy Rosary in its origin and its name.

First Rose

9. The Rosary contains two things, namely: mental prayer and vocal prayer. The mental prayer of the holy Rosary is nothing other than the meditation on the principal mysteries of the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ and of His most holy Mother. The vocal prayer of the Rosary consists in saying fifteen decades of Hail Mary preceded by an Our Father, while one meditates upon and contemplates the fifteen principal virtues that Jesus and Mary practiced in the fifteen mysteries of the holy Rosary. In the first chaplet, which is of five decades, one honors and considers the five Joyful Mysteries; in the second, the five Sorrowful Mysteries; and in the third, the five Glorious Mysteries. Thus, the holy Rosary is a sacred composition of vocal and mental prayer to honor and imitate the mysteries and the virtues of the life, death, passion, and glory of Jesus Christ and of Mary.

Second Rose

10. The holy Rosary, in its essence and in its substance, being composed of the prayer of Jesus Christ and the Angelic Salutation, namely the Our Father and the Hail Mary, and of the meditation on the mysteries of Jesus and Mary, is without doubt the first prayer and the first devotion of the faithful, which, since the apostles and the disciples, has been in use from age to age down to us.

11. However, the holy Rosary, in the form and method by which it is recited today, was inspired for the Church and given by the Most Holy Virgin to Saint Dominic to convert the Albigensian heretics and sinners, in the year 1214, in the manner that I am about to say, as Blessed Alan de la Roche reports in his famous book entitled: "De Dignitate psalterii". Saint Dominic, seeing that the crimes of men obstructed the conversion of the Albigensians, entered a forest near Toulouse and spent there three days and three nights in continual prayer and penance; he did not cease to groan, to weep, and to scourge his body, in order to appease the wrath of God, so much so that he fell half dead. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him, accompanied by three princesses of heaven, and said to him: "Do you know, my dear Dominic, with what weapon the Holy Trinity used to reform the world? — O Lady," he replied, "you know it better than I, for after your Son Jesus Christ, you have been the principal instrument of our salvation." She added: "Know that the principal piece of artillery was the angelic psalter, which is the foundation of the New Testament; therefore, if you wish to win these hardened hearts for God, preach my psalter." The saint rose, filled with consolation and, burning with zeal for the salvation of these people, he entered the cathedral church; immediately the bells rang by the ministry of the angels to assemble the inhabitants, and at the beginning of the preaching, a fearful storm arose; the earth trembled, the sun darkened, and the repeated thunderclaps and flashes of lightning made all the listeners pale and tremble; and their terror increased when they saw an image of the Blessed Virgin, displayed in a prominent place, raise her arms three times toward heaven to ask vengeance from God against them, if they did not convert and did not resort to the protection of the sacred Mother of God. Heaven willed, through these prodigies, to increase the new devotion of the holy Rosary and to make it more famous. The storm finally ceased through the prayers of Saint Dominic. He continued his discourse and explained with such fervor and strength the excellence of the holy Rosary, that almost all the people of Toulouse embraced it and almost all renounced their errors, and one saw, in a short time, a great change in morals and life within the city.

Third Rose

12. This miraculous establishment of the holy Rosary, which has some relation to the manner in which God gave His law to the world on Mount Sinai, evidently shows the excellence of this divine practice; therefore Saint Dominic, inspired by the Holy Spirit, instructed by the Blessed Virgin and by his own experience, preached for the rest of his life the holy Rosary by example and by word of mouth in cities and in the countryside, before the great and the small, before the learned and the ignorant, before Catholics and heretics. The holy Rosary, which he recited every day, was his preparation before preaching and his appointment after preaching.

13. When the saint was, on a day of Saint John the Evangelist, at Notre-Dame de Paris, behind the high altar, in a chapel, preparing himself to preach by reciting the holy Rosary, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said to him: "Dominic, although what you have prepared for preaching is good, nevertheless here is a much better sermon that I bring to you." Saint Dominic receives from her hands the book where this sermon was contained, reads it, tastes it, and understands it, giving thanks to the Blessed Virgin. When the hour of the sermon arrived, he ascended to the pulpit and, after having said nothing to the praise of Saint John the Evangelist other than that he had deserved to be the guardian of the Queen of Heaven, he said to the entire assembly of great men and doctors who had come to hear him, who were accustomed to hearing only elaborate and polished discourses, that for his part, he would not speak in the learned words of human wisdom, but in the simplicity and strength of the Holy Spirit. Then Saint Dominic preached the holy Rosary to them and explained to them word for word, as if to children, the Angelic Salutation, using the very simple comparisons that he had read in the paper which the Blessed Virgin had given him.

14. Here are the very words of the learned Cartagena, which he has drawn in part from the book of Blessed Alan de la Roche entitled "De Dignitate psalterii" [On the Dignity of the Psalter]: B. Alanus Patrem sanctum Dominicum sibi haec in revelatione dixisse testatur: "Tu praedicas, fili, sed uti caveas ne potius laudem humanam quaeras quam animarum fructum, audi quid mihi Parisiis contigit. Debebam in majori ecclesia beatae Mariae praedicare, et volebam curiose non jactantiae causa, sed propter astantium facultatem et dignitatem. Cum igitur more meo per horam fere ante sermonem in psalterio meo (Rosarium intelligit) quadam in capella post altare majus orarem, subito factus in raptum, cernebam amicam meam Dei Genitricem afferentem mihi libellum et dicentem: "Dominice, et si bonum est quod praedicare disposuisti sermonem, tamen longe meliorem attuli." Laetus librum capio, lego constanter, ut dixit, reperio, gratias ago, adest hora sermonis, adest parisiensis Universitas tota, dominorumque numerus magnus. Audiebant quippe et videbant signa magna quae per me Dominus operabatur; itaque ambonem ascendo. Festum erat sancti Joannis Evangelistae. De eo aliud non dico nisi quod custos singularis esse meruit Reginae coeli. Deinde auditores sic alloquor: Domini et Magistri praestantissimi, aures reverentiae vestrae solitae sunt curiosos audire sermones et auscultare. At nunc ego non in doctis humanae sapientiae verbis, sed in ostensione spiritus et virtutis loquar." [Blessed Alan testifies that the holy Father Dominic told him these things in a revelation: "You preach, my son; but that you may take care not to seek human praise rather than the fruit of souls, hear what happened to me at Paris. I was to preach in the greater church of blessed Mary, and I wished to do it elaborately — not for the sake of boasting, but because of the ability and dignity of those who would be present. And so, praying as I am accustomed in my Psalter (he means the Rosary), in a certain chapel behind the high altar about an hour before the sermon, I was suddenly caught up in a rapture, and I saw my friend the Mother of God bringing me a little book and saying: 'Dominic, even if the sermon you have prepared for preaching is good, nevertheless I have brought a far better one.' Joyfully I take the book; I read it steadily; as she said, so I find it; I give thanks. The hour of the sermon is at hand; the whole University of Paris is present, and a great number of lords. For they were hearing and seeing the great signs which the Lord was working through me; and so I ascend the ambo. It was the feast of Saint John the Evangelist. Of him I say nothing else except that he deserved to be the singular guardian of the Queen of Heaven. Then I address the listeners thus: Most excellent Lords and Masters, the ears of your Reverences are accustomed to hear and to listen to elaborate discourses. But now I shall speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom, but in the showing forth of spirit and of power."] Then, says Cartagena after blessed Alan, standing, Dominic explained to them the Angelic Salutation with familiar comparisons and similitudes in this manner.

15. And Blessed Alan de la Roche, as the same Cartagena says, reports several other apparitions of Our Lord and of the Blessed Virgin to Saint Dominic to urge and animate him more and more to preach the holy Rosary, in order to destroy sin and to convert sinners and heretics: he says in one place: "Beatus Alanus dicit sibi a beata Virgine revelatum fuisse Christum Filium suum apparuisse post se sancto Dominico et ipsi dixisse: 'Dominice, gaudeo quod non confidas in tua sapientia, sed cum humilitate potius affectas salvare animas quam vanis hominibus placere. Sed multi praedicatores statim volunt contra gravissima peccata instare, ignorantes quod ante gravem medicinam debet fieri praeparatio, ne medicina sit inanis et vacua: quapropter prius homines debent induci ad orationis devotionem et signanter ad psalterium meum angelicum; quoniam, si omnes coeperint hoc orare, non dubium est quin perseverantibus aderit pietas divinae clementiae. Praedica ergo psalterium meum'." [Blessed Alan says that it was revealed to him by the Blessed Virgin that Christ her Son had appeared to Saint Dominic after her and had said to him: "Dominic, I rejoice that you do not trust in your own wisdom, but that in humility you seek rather to save souls than to please vain men. But many preachers wish at once to press against the gravest sins, not knowing that before a strong medicine a preparation must be made, lest the medicine be empty and void. Therefore men must first be led to the devotion of prayer, and above all to my angelic Psalter; for if all begin to pray it, there is no doubt that the mercy of the divine clemency will be present to those who persevere. Preach, therefore, my Psalter."]

16. He says in another place: "Omnes sermocinantes et praedicantes christicolis exordium pro gratia impetranda a Salutatione angelica faciunt. Hujus rei ratio sumpta est ex revelatione facta beato Dominico cui beata Virgo dixit: 'Dominice, fili, nil mireris quod concionando minime proficias. Enimvero aras solum a pluvia non irrigatum. Scitoque, cum Deus renovare decrevit mundum Salutationis angelicae pluviam praemisit; sicque ipse in melius est reformatus. - Hortare igitur homines in concionibus ad Rosarii mei recitationem, et magnos animarum fructus colliges.' Quod sanctus Dominicus strenue executus uberes ex suis concionibus animarum fructus retulit." [All who discourse and preach to Christ's people make the Angelic Salutation their beginning, in order to obtain grace. The reason for this was taken from a revelation made to Blessed Dominic, to whom the Blessed Virgin said: 'Dominic, my son, do not wonder that you profit so little by preaching. For in truth you are ploughing ground that is not watered by rain. And know that, when God decreed to renew the world, He first sent the rain of the Angelic Salutation; and thus the world itself was reformed for the better. Exhort men, therefore, in your sermons to the recitation of my Rosary, and you shall gather great fruits of souls.' Which Saint Dominic vigorously carried out, and he brought back abundant fruits of souls from his sermons.] (Hoec in Libro miraculorum sancti Rosarii, italice conscripto, et in Justino, discursu 143.) [These things are in the Book of the Miracles of the Holy Rosary, written in Italian, and in Justinus, discourse 143.]

17. I have taken pleasure in reporting word for word these Latin passages from these good authors in favor of the preachers and learned persons who might call into doubt the marvelous virtue of the holy Rosary. While, following the example of Saint Dominic, preachers preached the devotion of the holy Rosary, piety and fervor flourished in the religious orders that practiced this devotion, and in the Christian world; but since this gift sent from heaven has been neglected, nothing but sins and disorders are seen everywhere.

Fourth Rose

18. As all things, even the most holy, are subject to change, particularly when they depend upon the will of men, it should not be a cause for surprise that the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary did not subsist in its first fervor for more than about one hundred years after its institution; thus, it was almost buried in oblivion. Furthermore, the malice and envy of the demon undoubtedly contributed greatly to causing the Holy Rosary to be neglected, in order to stop the course of God's graces that this devotion drew to the world. Indeed, divine justice afflicted all the kingdoms of Europe in the year 1349 with the most terrible plague that has ever been seen, which, from the East, spread into Italy, Germany, France, Poland, and Hungary, and from there almost all these lands were devastated, for of barely one hundred men, scarcely one remained alive; the cities, towns, villages, and monasteries were almost entirely deserted during the three years that this contagion lasted. And this scourge from God was followed by two others: that of the heresy of the Flagellants and an unfortunate schism in 1376.

19. After these miseries had ceased through the mercy of God, the Blessed Virgin ordered Blessed Alan de la Roche, a celebrated doctor and famous preacher of the Order of Saint Dominic from the convent of Dinan in Brittany, to renew the ancient Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, so that, since this famous Confraternity had originated in that province, a religious of the same province might have the honor of restoring it. This Blessed Father began to work upon this great work in the year 1460, particularly after Our Lord Jesus Christ, as He reports Himself, had said to him one day in the Holy Host, while he was celebrating the Holy Mass, in order to determine him to preach the Holy Rosary: "What then," said Jesus Christ to him, "you crucify Me anew! — How, Lord?" replied Blessed Alan, all terrified. "It is sins that crucified Me," Jesus Christ replied to him, "and I would rather be crucified once more than see My Father offended by the sins which you formerly committed. And you crucify Me again even now, because you have the knowledge and what is necessary to preach the Rosary of my Mother and by this means instruct and withdraw many souls from sin; and you would save them and prevent great evils; and by not doing so, you are guilty of the sins which they commit." These terrible reproaches caused Blessed Alan to resolve to preach the Rosary incessantly.

20. The Blessed Virgin also said to him one day, to encourage him all the more to preach the Holy Rosary: "You were a great sinner in your youth, but I obtained from my Son your conversion; I prayed for you and I would willingly have endured every kind of suffering to save you, had that been possible, because converted sinners are my glory, and to make you worthy to preach my Rosary everywhere." Saint Dominic, revealing to him the great fruits he had produced among the people through this beautiful devotion which he continually preached to them, said to him: "Vides quomodo profecerim in sermone isto; id etiam facies et tu, et omnes Mariae amatores, ut sic trahatis omnes populos ad omnem scientiam virtutum" ["See how I have profited in this discourse; you also shall do this, and you, and all lovers of Mary, so that you may thus draw all peoples to the full knowledge of virtues"]. "See the fruit that I have produced through the preaching of the Holy Rosary; do the same, you and all others who love the Blessed Virgin, so that you may draw, through this holy exercise of the Rosary, all peoples to the true knowledge of virtues." This is, in brief, what history teaches us regarding the establishment of the Holy Rosary by Saint Dominic and its restoration by Blessed Alan de la Roche.

Fifth Rose

21. Strictly speaking, there is only one sort of confraternity of the Rosary, composed of 150 Hail Marys; but with respect to the fervor of the different persons who practice it, there are three sorts, namely: the common or ordinary Rosary, the perpetual Rosary, and the daily Rosary. The confraternity of the ordinary Rosary requires it only to be recited once a week. That of the perpetual Rosary, once a year; but that of the daily Rosary demands that it be said every day in its entirety, that is to say, 150 Hail Marys. None of these Rosaries commits one to sin, not even venial, if one should fail to fulfill it, because this commitment is voluntary and an act of supererogation; but one must not enroll in the confraternity if one does not have the determined will to recite it according to what the confraternity demands, as much as one can without failing in the obligations of one's state. Thus, when the recitation of the holy Rosary finds itself in competition with an action to which one's state commits, one must prefer that action to the Rosary, however saintly it may be. When, in sickness, one cannot say it either in its entirety or in part without increasing one's ailment, one is not obliged to do so. When, through a legitimate obedience, or through an involuntary oversight, or through a pressing necessity, one has not been able to say it, there is no sin, even venial; one does not cease to participate in the graces and merits of the other brothers and sisters of the holy Rosary who say it in the world. Christian, if you fail to say it even through pure negligence, without any formal contempt, you do not sin either, absolutely speaking, but you lose the participation in the prayers and the good works and merits of the confraternity, and by your infidelity in small things and of supererogation, you will fall imperceptibly into infidelity toward great things and toward essential obligation; for: "Qui spernit modica paulatim decidet" [He who despises small things falls gradually].

Sixth Rose

22. From the time that Saint Dominic established this devotion until the year 1460, when Blessed Alan de la Roche, by the order of heaven, renewed it, it has been called the Psalter of Jesus and of the Blessed Virgin, because it contains as many Angelic Salutations as the Psalter of David contains Psalms, and because, the simple and the ignorant being unable to recite the Psalter of David, one finds in the recitation of the holy Rosary a fruit equal to that which is drawn from the recitation of the Psalms of David, and even more abundant: 1. Because the Angelic Psalter has a nobler fruit, namely: the Word Incarnate, whereas the Psalter of David merely foretells Him; 2. Just as truth surpasses figure and body surpasses shadow, so too the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin surpasses the Psalter of David, which was only its shadow and its figure; 3. Because the Holy Trinity has immediately made the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, or the Rosary, composed of the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Here is what the learned Cartagena reports on this subject: "Sapientissimus Aquensis, libro ejus de Rosacea Corona ad Imperatorum Maximilianum conscripto, dicit: 'Salutandae Mariae ritus novitiis inventis haud quaquam adscribitur. Si quidem cum ipsa pene ecclesia pullulavit; nam cum inter ipsa nascentis ecclesiae primordia, perfectiores quoque fideles tribus illis Davidicorum psalmorum quinquagenis, divinas laudes assidue celebrarent, ad rudiores quoque qui modo arctius divinis vacabant piis moris aemulatio est derivata... rati id quod erat, cuncta illorum sacramenta psalmorum in coelesti hoc elogio delitescere, si quidem eum quem psalmi venturum concinunt, hunc jam adesse, haec formula nuntiavit; sicque trinas salutationum quinquagenas "Mariae Psalterium" appellare coeperunt, oratione utique dominica in singulas decades ubique preposita prout a psalmidicis observari ante adverterunt.' [The most wise man of Aix, in his book On the Rosy Crown written for the Emperor Maximilian, says: 'The rite of saluting Mary is by no means to be ascribed to novel inventions. Indeed, it sprang up with the Church herself almost from the beginning; for since, among the very first beginnings of the infant Church, the more perfect of the faithful also celebrated the divine praises assiduously with those three fifties of the Davidic Psalms, an emulation of that pious custom passed also to the simpler sort, who gave themselves to divine things less closely... judging the matter to be as it was — that all the mysteries of those Psalms lay hidden in this heavenly praise, since this formula announced that He whom the Psalms sing as about to come was now already present. And so they began to call the three fifties of salutations the "Psalter of Mary," the Lord's Prayer being everywhere set before each of the decades, just as they had observed to be done before by the psalmists.']"

23. The Psalter or the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin is divided into three chaplets of five decades each: 1. to honor the three Persons of the Holy Trinity; 2. to honor the life, the death, and the glory of Jesus Christ; 3. to imitate the Church Triumphant, to aid the Church Militant, and to relieve the Church Suffering; [4.] to imitate the three parts of the Psalms, the first being for the purgative way, the second for the illuminative way, and the third for the unitive way; 5. to fill us with graces during life, with peace at death, and with glory in eternity. (The French witnesses print no fourth number; the bracketed numeral is supplied.)

Seventh Rose

24. Since Blessed Alan de la Roche renewed this devotion, the public voice, which is the voice of God, has given it the name of Rosary, which means a crown of roses; that is to say, every time one says their Rosary as it should be said, one places upon the heads of Jesus and Mary a crown composed of one hundred and fifty-three white roses and 16 red roses from paradise, which shall never lose either their beauty or their radiance. The Blessed Virgin has approved and confirmed this name of Rosary, revealing to many that they presented to her as many delightful roses as they recite Hail Marys in her honor, and as many crowns of roses as they say Rosaries.

25. Brother Alphonse Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus, recited his Rosary with such ardor that he often saw, at each Our Father, a vermilion rose emerge from his mouth, and at each Hail Mary, a white one equal in beauty and fragrance and only different in color. The chronicles of Saint Francis recount that a young religious brother had this laudable custom of saying the crown of the Blessed Virgin every day before his meal. One day, through some unknown accident, he missed it; the dinner bell having rung, he begged the superior to permit him to recite it before going to the table. With this permission, he withdrew to his chamber; but as he lingered too long, the superior sent a religious brother to call him. This brother found him in his chamber, all radiant with a celestial light, and the Blessed Virgin with two angels beside him; as he said a Hail Mary, a beautiful rose emerged from his mouth, the angels took the roses one after another and placed them upon the head of the Blessed Virgin, who testified to their pleasantness. Two other religious brothers sent to see the cause of the delay saw this entire mystery, and the Blessed Virgin did not disappear until the crown had been recited. The Rosary is therefore a great crown, and the chaplet a small hat of flowers or a small crown of celestial roses that one places upon the heads of Jesus and Mary. The rose is the queen of flowers; likewise, the Rosary is the rose and the first of all devotions.

Eighth Rose

26. It is impossible to express how much the Blessed Virgin esteems the Rosary above all other devotions, and how magnificent she is in rewarding those who labor to preach, establish, and cultivate it; and conversely, how terrible she is against those who wish to oppose it. Saint Dominic had nothing so close to his heart during his life as praising the Blessed Virgin, preaching her greatness, and animating all people to honor her through her Rosary. This powerful Queen of heaven also never ceased to pour out blessings upon this saint with full hands; and she crowned his labors with a thousand prodigies and miracles; he never asked anything of God that he did not obtain through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin; and, to the height of favor, she made him victorious over the heresy of the Albigensians and made him father and patriarch of a great order.

27. What shall I say of Blessed Alan de la Roche, the restorer of this devotion? The Blessed Virgin honored him several times with her visit to instruct him in the means of achieving his salvation, of making himself a good priest, a perfect religious, and an imitator of Jesus Christ. During the temptations and the horrible persecutions of demons which reduced him to extreme sadness and almost to despair, she consoled him and dissipated all those clouds and darknesses by her sweet presence. She taught him the method of saying the Rosary, its excellences, and its fruits; she granted him the glorious title of her new spouse, and as a pledge of her chaste affections, she placed a ring on his finger, a necklace made of her hair around his neck, and gave him a Rosary. Abbot Trithemius, the learned Cartagena, the erudite Martin Navarre, and others speak of him with praise. After having attracted more than one hundred thousand souls to the Confraternity of the Rosary, he died at Zwolle, in Flanders, on September 8, 1475.

28. The demon, jealous of the great fruits which the blessed Thomas de Saint-Jean, a famous preacher of the holy Rosary, produced through this practice, reduced him, through his ill treatments, to a long and troublesome illness in which doctors despaired of him. One night, when he believed himself to be infallibly dying, the demon appeared to him in a terrifying figure; but raising his eyes and his heart directly toward an image of the Blessed Virgin which was near his bed, he cried with all his strength: "Help me, succor me, oh my most sweet Mother!". Scarcely had he finished these words, when the Blessed Virgin extended to him the hand of the holy image, and clasped his arm, saying to him: "Fear not, my son Thomas, behold, I am here to your aid; arise and continue to preach the devotion of my Rosary as you have begun. I will defend you against all your enemies." At these words of the Blessed Virgin, the demon fled. The sick man rose in perfect health, and he gave thanks to his good Mother with a torrent of tears, and continued to preach the Rosary with marvelous success.

29. The Blessed Virgin not only favors the preachers of the Rosary; she also richly rewards those who, by their example, attract others to this devotion. Alphonse, King of León and of Galicia, desiring that all his servants honor the Blessed Virgin through the Rosary, decided to encourage them by his example, wearing a large Rosary at his side even though he did not recite it: which obliged all the people of his court to say it devoutly. The king fell mortally ill, and when he was believed to be dead, he was caught up in spirit to the tribunal of Jesus Christ. He saw the devils who accused him of all the crimes he had committed, and the judge being on the point of condemning him to eternal punishments, the Blessed Virgin presented herself in his favor before her Son; a scale was brought, all the king's sins were placed inside a basin, and the Blessed Virgin placed the large Rosary that he had worn in her honor, and those which he had caused to be said by his example, which weighed more than all his sins, and then, looking at him with a favorable eye, she said to him: "I have obtained from my Son, as a reward for the small service you rendered me by wearing the Rosary, an extension of your life for a few years. Use them well, and do penance." Returning from this rapture, the king cried out: "O blessed Rosary of the Blessed Virgin, by which I have been delivered from eternal damnation." After he had recovered his health, he spent the rest of his life in the devotion of the holy Rosary and recited it every day. May the devotees of the Blessed Virgin strive to win as many faithful as they can to the Confraternity of the holy Rosary, following the example of these saints and this king; they shall have here below her good graces and eternal life. Qui elucidant me vitam aeternam habebunt [They that make me known shall have eternal life] (Sir 24:31).

Ninth Rose

30. But let us see now what an injustice it is to impede the progress of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, and what the punishments are with which God has punished many unfortunate persons who have despised and sought to destroy the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Although the devotion of the Holy Rosary has been authorized from Heaven by many prodigies and has been approved by the Church by many papal bulls, there are found far too many libertines, impious men, and freethinkers of our day, who attempt either to disparage the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary or at least to distance the faithful from it. It is easy to know that their tongues are infected with the venom of hell and that they are driven by an evil spirit; for no one can disapprove of the devotion of the Holy Rosary without condemning that which is most pious in the Christian religion, namely: the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, and the mysteries of the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ and His holy Mother. These freethinkers, who cannot endure hearing the Rosary mentioned, often fall, without even thinking of it, into the reprobate mindset of the heretics who hold the chaplet and the Rosary in horror. To abhor Confraternities is to distance oneself from God and from true piety, since Jesus Christ assures us that He is present in the midst of those assembled in His name. It is not to be a good Catholic to neglect so many and such great indulgences as the Church grants to Confraternities. Finally, it is to be an enemy of the salvation of souls to dissuade the faithful from being part of the Holy Rosary, since, by this means, they leave the party of sin to embrace piety. If Saint Bonaventure was right to say that he shall die in his sin and be damned who neglects the Blessed Virgin: "Qui negligerit illam morietur in peccatis suis" [He who neglects her shall die in his sins] (in his psalter), what punishments must await those who turn others away from her devotion!...

Tenth Rose

31. When Saint Dominic was preaching this devotion in Carcassonne, a heretic ridiculed his miracles and the 15 mysteries of the holy Rosary, which prevented the conversion of heretics. God, to punish this impious man, permitted fifteen thousand demons to enter his body; his relatives brought him to the blessed Father to deliver him from these evil spirits. He entered into prayer and exhorted the entire company to recite the Rosary aloud with him, and behold, at each Hail Mary, the Blessed Virgin made one hundred demons emerge from the body of this heretic in the form of burning coals. After he was delivered, he abjured his errors, converted, and enrolled himself in the confraternity of the Rosary along with several of his party who were touched by this punishment and by the virtue of the Rosary.

32. The learned Cartagena, of the Order of Saint Francis, along with several authors, reports that in the year 1482, when the venerable Father Jacques Sprenger and his religious were working with great zeal to re-establish the devotion and the confraternity of the holy Rosary in the city of Cologne, two famous preachers, jealous of the great fruits they were producing through this practice, sought to disparage it through their sermons; and as they possessed talent and great influence, they dissuaded many persons from enrolling in it. One of these preachers, to better accomplish his pernicious design, prepared a special sermon and assigned it to a Sunday. When the hour of the sermon arrived, the preacher did not appear; he was awaited, he was sought, and finally, he was found dead without having been aided by anyone. The other preacher, persuading himself that this accident was natural, resolved to take his place in order to abolish the confraternity of the Rosary. When the day and hour of the sermon arrived, God chastised this preacher with paralysis that took away his movement and his speech. He recognized his own fault and that of his companion; he had recourse to the Blessed Virgin in his heart, promising her to preach the Rosary everywhere with as much force as he had fought against it. He prayed to her to restore his health and his speech because of this, which the Blessed Virgin granted him, and finding himself suddenly healed, he rose like another Saul, from persecutor to defender of the holy Rosary. He made public reparation for his fault, and preached with much zeal and eloquence the excellence of the holy Rosary.

33. I do not doubt that the freethinkers and critics of this time, who will read the stories of this little treatise, will cast them into doubt, as they have always done, although I have done nothing other than transcribe them from very good contemporary authors and partly from a book newly composed by the Reverend Father Antonin Thomas, of the Order of Preachers, entitled: "The Mystical Rose Garden." Everyone knows that there are three kinds of faith regarding different histories. To the histories of Holy Scripture, we owe a divine faith; to profane histories which do not repugn reason and are written by good authors, a human faith; and to pious histories reported by good authors and in no way contrary to reason, to faith, or to good morals, although they are sometimes extraordinary, a pious faith; I admit that one must be neither too credulous nor too critical, and that one must hold the middle ground in everything to find the point of truth and virtue; but I also know that, just as charity easily believes all that is not contrary to faith or to good morals: Charitas omnia credit [Charity believes all things], likewise pride leads to denying almost all well-established histories, under the pretext that they are not in Holy Scripture. This is the snare of Satan, into which the heretics who deny tradition have fallen, and where the critics of the time fall imperceptibly, not believing what they do not understand, or what does not pertain to them, with no other reason than the pride and self-sufficiency of their own minds.

Second Decade

The excellence of the holy Rosary in the prayers of which it is composed.

Eleventh Rose

34. The Creed, or the Symbol of the Apostles, which is recited upon the cross of the Rosary or of the chaplet, being a sacred shortcut and an abbreviation of Christian truths, is a prayer of great merit, because faith is the basis, the foundation, and the beginning of all Christian virtues, of all eternal virtues, and of all the prayers that are pleasing to God. "Accedentem ad Deum credere oportet" [He who approaches God must believe]. He who approaches God through prayer must begin by believing, and the more faith he has, the more strength and merit his prayer will have in itself, and the more glory it will render to God. I shall not stop to explain the words of the Symbol of the Apostles; but I cannot refrain from declaring that these first three words: "Credo in Deum: I believe in God," enclosing the acts of the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity—possess a marvelous efficacy for sanctifying the soul and vanquishing the demon. It is with these words that many saints have overcome temptations, particularly those against faith, hope, or charity, whether during life or at the hour of death. These were the last words that Saint Peter the Martyr wrote as best he could with his finger upon the sand, when, having his head split in two by a blow from a saber dealt by a heretic, he was near death.

35. As faith is the only key that allows us to enter into all the mysteries of Jesus and Mary enclosed within the holy Rosary, it is necessary to begin it by reciting the Creed with great attention and devotion, and the more our faith is lively and strong, the more meritorious the Rosary will be. It is necessary that this faith be lively and animated by charity; that is to say, in order to properly recite the holy Rosary, one must be in a state of grace with God or in pursuit of this grace; it is necessary that faith be strong and constant; that is to say, one must not seek in the practice of the holy Rosary only sensible sweetness and spiritual consolation; that is to say, one must not abandon it because of a multitude of involuntary distractions in the mind, a strange distaste in the soul, an overwhelming boredom, and an almost continual drowsiness in the body; there is no need for sweetness, consolation, or sighs, nor ecstasies, nor tears, nor the continual application of the imagination, to properly recite one's Rosary. Pure faith and good intention suffice. "Sola fides sufficit" [Faith alone suffices].

Twelfth Rose

36. The Our Father, or the Lord's Prayer, derives its primary excellence from its Author, who is not a man or an angel, but the King of angels and men, Jesus Christ. "It was necessary," says Saint Cyprian, "that He who came to give us the life of grace as Savior, should teach us the manner of praying as a heavenly Master." The wisdom of this divine Master appears clearly in the order, sweetness, strength, and clarity of this divine prayer; it is short, yet it is rich in instruction, intelligible to the simple, and filled with mysteries for the learned. The Our Father contains all the duties we owe to God, the acts of all the virtues, and the requests for all our spiritual and bodily needs. It contains, says Tertullian, the summary of the Gospel. It surpasses, says Thomas à Kempis, all the desires of the saints; it contains in summary all the sweet sentences of the psalms and the canticles; it asks for everything that is necessary to us; it praises God in an excellent manner; it elevates the soul from the earth to heaven and unites it closely with God.

37. Saint Chrysostom says that he who does not pray as the divine Master prayed and taught how to pray, is not His disciple, and God the Father does not listen pleasingly to the prayers that the human spirit has formed, but rather to those of His Son, which He has taught us. We must recite the Lord's Prayer with the certainty that the eternal Father will grant it, since it is the prayer of His Son, whom He always hears, and since we are His members; for what can such a good Father refuse to a request so well conceived and supported by the merits and recommendation of so worthy a Son? Saint Augustine assures that the Our Father, when well recited, erases venial sins. The just man falls seven times. The Lord's Prayer contains seven requests through which he can remedy his falls and strengthen himself against his enemies. It is short and easy, so that, since we are fragile and subject to many miseries, we may receive more prompt help by reciting it more often and more devoutly.

38. Disabuse yourselves, then, O devout souls, who neglect the Prayer that the very Son of God composed and which He commanded all the faithful; you who have esteem only for the prayers that men have composed, as if man, even the most enlightened, knew better than Jesus Christ how we ought to pray. You seek in the books of men the way to praise and pray to God, as if you were ashamed to use that which His Son has prescribed for us. You persuade yourselves that the prayers found in books are for the learned and the rich, and that the Rosary is only for women, for children, and for the common people, as if the praises and prayers you read were more beautiful and more pleasing to God than those contained in the Lord's Prayer. It is a dangerous temptation to become weary of the Prayer that Jesus Christ has recommended to us in order to take up the prayers that men have composed. It is not that we disapprove of those which the saints have composed to excite the faithful to praise God, but we cannot suffer that they prefer them to the Prayer which issued from the mouth of Incarnate Wisdom, and that they leave the fountain to run after the streams, and disdain the clear water to drink the turbid water. For finally, the Rosary, composed of the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, is this clear and perpetual water which flows from the fountain of grace, while the other prayers they seek in books are but very small streams that flow from it.

39. We can call happy he who, in reciting the Prayer of the Lord, attentively weighs each word; there he finds everything he needs, everything he can desire. When we recite this admirable prayer, first of all, we captivate the heart of God by invoking Him by the sweet name of Father. "Our Father," the tenderest of all fathers, almighty in creation, all-admirable in His preservation, all-lovable in His Providence, all-good and infinitely good in Redemption. God is our Father, we are all brothers, heaven is our homeland and our inheritance. Is there not here enough to inspire us, at once, with the love of God, the love of neighbor, and detachment from all the things of the earth? Let us love such a Father, then, and let us say to Him a thousand and a thousand times: "Our Father, who art in heaven." You who fill heaven and earth with the immensity of Your essence, who are present everywhere; You who are in the saints by Your glory, in the damned by Your justice, in the just by Your grace, in sinners by Your patience which suffers them, make us always remember our celestial origin, that we may live as Your true children; that we may always strive toward You alone with all the ardor of our desires. "Hallowed be Thy name." The name of the Lord is holy and formidable, says the prophet-king, and heaven, according to Isaiah, resounds with the praises that the seraphim never cease to give to the holiness of the Lord, God of hosts. We ask here that all the earth may know and adore the attributes of this God so great and so holy; that He may be known, loved, and adored by the pagans, the Turks, the Jews, the Barbarians, and all the infidels; that all men may serve Him and glorify Him by a living faith, a firm hope, by an ardent charity, and by the renunciation of all errors: in a word, that all men may be holy because He Himself is holy. "Thy kingdom come." That is to say, that You may reign in our souls by Your grace, during this life, so that we may merit, after our death, to reign with You in Your kingdom, which is the sovereign and eternal felicity, which we believe, which we hope for, and which we await—this felicity which is promised to us by the goodness of the Father, which is acquired for us by the merits of the Son, and which is revealed to us by the lights of the Holy Spirit. "Thy will be done on earth as in heaven." Undoubtedly, nothing can evade the dispositions of Divine Providence, which has foreseen and arranged everything before the event; no obstacle diverts it from the end it has proposed for itself, and when we ask God that His will be done, it is not because we fear, says Tertullian, that someone might effectively oppose the execution of His designs, but that we may humbly acquiesce to all that He has been pleased to ordain regarding us; that we may always accomplish, in all things, His most holy will, which is known to us by His commandments, with as much promptness, love, and constancy as the angels and the blessed obey Him in heaven.

40. "Give us this day our daily bread." Jesus Christ teaches us to ask God for everything necessary for the life of the body and the life of the soul. By these words of the Lord's Prayer, we make the humble confession of our misery and pay homage to Providence, declaring that we believe, and that we wish to hold from His goodness all temporal goods. Under the name of bread, we ask for what is simply necessary for life; the superfluous is not included. This bread we ask for today, that is to say, we limit all our concerns to the present day, resting upon Providence for tomorrow. We ask for our daily bread, thus avowing our ever-renewing needs and showing the continual dependence we have upon the protection and help of God. "Forgive us our offenses as we forgive those who have offended us." Our sins, say Saint Augustine and Tertullian, are as many debts as we contract toward God, and His justice demands their payment down to the last mite. Now, we all have these sad debts. Despite the number of our iniquities, let us approach Him, then, with confidence and say to Him with true repentance: Our Father, who art in heaven, forgive us the sins of our heart and of our mouth, the sins of action and omission which render us infinitely guilty in the eyes of Your justice, because, as children of a Father so Clement and merciful, we forgive by obedience and by charity those who have offended us. And "do not permit," because of our infidelity to Your graces, "that we succumb to the temptations" of the world, of the demon, and of the flesh. But "deliver us from evil," which is sin, from the evil of temporal punishment and from the evil of eternal punishment, which we have deserved. "Amen." A word of great consolation, which is, says Saint Jerome, like the seal that God places at the end of our requests to assure us that He has granted them, as if He Himself were responding to us: Amen!!! May it be done as you ask; you have obtained it in truth, for that is what this word Amen signifies.

Thirteenth Rose

41. We honor the perfections of God by reciting every word of the Lord's Prayer. We honor His fecundity by the name of Father, who from all eternity begets a Son who is God as you are, eternal, consubstantial, who is of the same essence, the same power, the same goodness, and the same wisdom as you, Father and Son, who, loving one another, produce the Holy Spirit, who is God as you are, three adorable Persons, who are one single God. Our Father! That is to say, Father of men through creation, through preservation, and through redemption, merciful Father of sinners, Father friend of the just, magnificent Father of the blessed. Who art. By these words, we admire the infinity, the grandeur, and the fullness of the essence of God, who is truly called He Who Is, that is to say, who exists essentially, necessarily, and eternally, who is the Being of beings, the cause of all beings; who eminently contains within Himself the perfections of all beings; who is in all things by His essence, by His presence, and by His power, without being enclosed by them. We honor His sublimity, His glory, and His majesty by these words: Who art in Heaven, that is to say, seated as if upon Your throne, exercising Your justice over all men. We adore His holiness by desiring that His name be sanctified. We recognize His sovereignty and the justice of His laws, by wishing that His kingdom may come, and that men may obey Him on earth as the angels obey Him in heaven. We believe in His Providence, by praying Him to give us our daily bread. We invoke His clemency, by asking Him for the remission of our sins. We resort to His power, by praying Him not to let us succumb to temptation. We entrust ourselves to His goodness, by hoping that He will deliver us from evil. The Son of God has always glorified His Father by His works; He came into the world to have Him glorified by men; He taught them the manner of honoring Him, through this prayer which He deigned to dictate to us Himself. We must, therefore, recite it often, with attention, and in the same spirit in which He composed it.

Fourteenth Rose

42. When we attentively recite this divine Prayer, we perform as many acts of the noblest Christian virtues as we utter words. In saying: Our Father who art in heaven, we form acts of faith, adoration, and humility. In desiring that His name be sanctified and glorified, we manifest an ardent zeal for His glory. In asking Him for the possession of His kingdom, we perform an act of hope. In wishing that His will be done on earth as in heaven, we show a spirit of perfect obedience. In asking Him for our daily bread, we practice poverty of spirit and detachment from the goods of the earth. In praying Him to forgive us our sins, we perform an act of repentance. And in forgiving those who have offended us, we exercise mercy in its highest perfection. In asking Him for His help in temptations, we perform acts of humility, prudence, and fortitude. In awaiting that He deliver us from evil, we practice patience. Finally, in asking for all these things, not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbor and for all the members of the Church, we perform the duty of true children of God, we imitate Him in His charity which embraces all men, and we fulfill the commandment of love for our neighbor.

43. We detest all sins and observe all the commandments of God when, in reciting this Prayer, our heart accords with our tongue, and we have no intentions contrary to the sense of these divine words. For when we reflect that God is in heaven, that is to say, infinitely exalted above us by the grandeur of His majesty, we enter into sentiments of the deepest respect in His presence; seized with fear, we flee pride and humble ourselves unto nothingness. When, in pronouncing the name of the Father, we remember that we hold our existence from God through the means of our parents, and even our instruction through the means of our teachers, who hold the place of God for us here, of whom they are living images, we feel obliged to honor them or, rather to say, to honor God in their persons, and we take great care not to despise or afflict them. When we desire that the holy Name of God be glorified, we are far from profaning it. When we regard the kingdom of God as our inheritance, we renounce all attachment to the goods of this world; when we sincerely ask for our neighbor the same goods that we desire for ourselves, we renounce hatred, dissension, and envy. In asking God for our daily bread, we detest gluttony and voluptuousness which feed upon abundance. In praying God truly to forgive us, as we forgive those who have offended us, we restrain our anger and our vengeance, we render good for evil, and we love our enemies. In asking God not to let us fall into sin at the moment of temptation, we show that we flee sloth, and that we seek the means to combat vices and to achieve our salvation. In praying God to deliver us from evil, we fear His justice, and we are happy, for the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; it is through the fear of God that every man avoids sin.

Fifteenth Rose

44. The Angelic Salutation is so sublime, so exalted, that Blessed Alan de la Roche believed that no creature can understand it and that only Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, can explain it. It derives its excellence principally from the Most Holy Virgin to whom it was addressed, from the purpose of the Incarnation of the Word, for which it was brought from heaven, and from the Archangel Gabriel who first uttered it. The Angelic Salutation summarizes, in the most concise abbreviation, the whole of Christian theology regarding the Blessed Virgin. Within it, one finds both a praise and an invocation. The praise contains everything that constitutes the true greatness of Mary; the invocation contains everything we must ask of her, and what we may expect from her goodness toward us. The Most Holy Trinity revealed its first part; Saint Elizabeth, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, added the second; and the Church, in the first Council of Ephesus, held in the year 430, provided the conclusion, after having condemned the error of Nestorius and defined that the Blessed Virgin is truly Mother of God. The Council ordered that the Blessed Virgin be invoked under this glorious title by these words: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, poor sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

45. The Blessed Virgin Mary was the one to whom this divine Salutation was addressed to bring about the greatest and most important event in the world: the Incarnation of the eternal Word, the peace between God and men, and the redemption of the human race. The ambassador of this happy news was the Archangel Gabriel, one of the first princes of the heavenly court. The Angelic Salutation contains the faith and the hope of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the apostles. It is the constancy and the strength of the martyrs, the learning of the Doctors, the perseverance of the confessors, and the life of the religious (Blessed Alan). It is the new canticle of the law of grace, the joy of angels and of men, the terror and the confusion of demons. Through the Angelic Salutation, God became man, a Virgin became Mother of God, the souls of the just were delivered from Limbo, the ruins of heaven were repaired and the empty thrones were filled, sin was forgiven, grace was given to us, the sick were healed, the dead were resurrected, the exiles were recalled, the Most Holy Trinity was appeased, and men obtained eternal life. Finally, the Angelic Salutation is the rainbow, the sign of the mercy and grace that God has bestowed upon the world (Blessed Alan).

Sixteenth Rose

46. Although there is nothing so great as the divine majesty, nor anything so abject as man considered as a sinner, this supreme Majesty nevertheless does not disdain our homage; God is honored when we sing His praises. And the angelic Salutation is one of the most beautiful canticles that we can direct to the glory of the Most High. "Canticum novum cantabo tibi: I will sing to You a new song." This new song, which David predicted would be sung at the coming of the Messiah, is the Salutation of the Archangel. There is an ancient song and a new song. The ancient one is that which the Israelites sang in recognition of creation, of preservation, of deliverance from their captivity, of the passage through the Red Sea, of the manna, and of all the other favors from heaven. The new song is that which Christians sing in thanksgiving for the Incarnation and the Redemption. As these prodigies were accomplished by the Angelic Salutation, we repeat this same salutation to thank the Most Holy Trinity for its inestimable benefits. We praise God the Father because He so loved the world that He gave His only Son as Savior. We bless the Son because He descended from heaven to earth, because He became man, and because He redeemed us. We glorify the Holy Spirit because He formed in the womb of the Blessed Virgin that most pure body which was the victim of our sins. It is in this spirit of gratitude that we ought to recite the angelic Salutation, producing acts of faith, hope, love, and thanksgiving for this benefit of our salvation.

47. Although this new song is addressed directly to the Mother of God and contains her praises, it is nevertheless very glorious to the Holy Trinity, because all the honor we render to the Blessed Virgin returns to God as the cause of all her perfections and all her virtues. God the Father is glorified because we honor the most perfect of His creatures. The Son is glorified because we praise His most pure Mother. The Holy Spirit is glorified because we admire the graces with which He has filled His Spouse. Just as the Blessed Virgin, through her beautiful canticle Magnificat, returned to God the praises and blessings that Saint Elizabeth gave her on her eminent dignity as Mother of the Lord, so too she promptly returns to God the praises and blessings that we give her through the angelic Salutation.

48. If the angelic Salutation renders glory to the Holy Trinity, it is also the most perfect praise that we can direct to Mary. Saint Mechtilde [editorially identified as Mechtilde of Hackeborn], desiring to know by what means she could better testify the tenderness of her devotion to the Mother of God, was ravished in spirit; and upon this thought, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her bearing upon her breast the angelic Salutation written in letters of gold, and said to her: "Know, my daughter, that no one can honor me with a salutation more pleasing than that which the most adorable Trinity has caused to be presented to me, and by which It has raised me to the dignity of Mother of God. By the word 'Ave', which is the name of Eve, Eva, I learned that God, by His omnipotence, had preserved me from all sin and from the miseries to which the first woman was subject. The name 'Mary', which signifies Lady of Lights, marks that God has filled me with wisdom and light, like a brilliant star, to enlighten heaven and earth. These words: 'full of graces', represent to me that the Holy Spirit has overwhelmed me with so many graces that I can share them abundantly with those who ask for them through my mediation. By saying: 'The Lord is with you', the ineffable joy that I felt when the eternal Word was incarnated in my womb is renewed in me. When it is said to me, 'you are blessed among all women', I praise the divine mercy which has raised me to this high degree of happiness. At these words: 'Jesus, the fruit of your womb, is blessed', all heaven rejoices with me to see Jesus, my adored and glorified Son, for having saved men."

Seventeenth Rose

49. Among the admirable things that the Blessed Virgin revealed to Blessed Alan de la Roche (and we know that this great devotee of Mary confirmed his revelations by oath), there are three of the most remarkable: the first, that it is a probable and near sign of eternal reprobation to have negligence, lukewarmness, and aversion toward the Angelic Salutation which has repaired the world; the second, that those who have devotion for this divine salutation bear a very great sign of predestination; the third, that those who have received from heaven the favor of loving the Blessed Virgin and serving her with affection must be extremely careful to continue loving and serving her until she has had them placed in heaven by her Son at the degree of glory suitable to their merits (Alanus).

50. All heretics, who are all children of the devil and who bear the evident marks of reprobation, have horror of the Ave Maria; they still learn the Pater, but not the Ave Maria; they would rather carry a serpent upon them than a chaplet or a Rosary. Among Catholics, those who bear the mark of reprobation care little for the chaplet nor the Rosary, neglecting to say it or saying it only with lukewarmness and in haste. Even if I were to add no pious faith to what was revealed to Blessed Alan de la Roche, my experience is sufficient for me to be persuaded of this terrible and sweet truth. I do not know, and I do not even see evidently, how it can be that a devotion so small in appearance is the infallible mark of eternal salvation, and its lack the mark of reprobation. Nevertheless, nothing is so true. We even see that the people of new doctrines of our day, condemned by the Church, with all their apparent piety, greatly neglect devotion to the chaplet and the Rosary and often remove them from the minds and hearts of those who approach them, under the most beautiful pretexts in the world; they refrain from openly condemning, as Calvinists do, the chaplet, Rosary, or scapular; but the manner in which they go about it is all the more pernicious because it is more subtle. We shall speak of this in the following parts.

51. My Ave Maria, my Rosary, or my chaplet, is my prayer, and my very sure touchstone, for distinguishing those who are led by the Spirit of God from those who are in the illusion of the evil spirit. I have known souls who seemed to fly, like eagles, up to the clouds through their sublime contemplation, and who nevertheless were unfortunately deceived by the demon, and I discovered their illusions only by the Ave Maria and the chaplet, which they rejected as being beneath them. The Ave Maria is a celestial and divine dew which, falling into the soul of a predestined, communicates to it an admirable fecundity for producing all kinds of virtues, and the more the soul is watered by this prayer, the more it becomes enlightened in the spirit, enflamed in the heart, and fortified against all its enemies. The Ave Maria is a piercing and inflamed arrow which, being united by a preacher to the word of God that he announces, gives him the strength to pierce, to touch, and to convert the most hardened hearts, even though he may otherwise have little natural talent for preaching. It was this secret arrow that the Blessed Virgin, as I have already said, taught to Saint Dominic and to Blessed Alan, to convert heretics and sinners. It is from this that the practice of preachers saying an Ave Maria at the beginning of their preaching came, as Saint Antonin assures.

Eighteenth Rose

52. This divine Salutation draws down upon us the abundant blessing of Jesus and Mary, for it is an infallible principle that Jesus and Mary lavishly reward those who glorify them: they return a hundredfold the blessings given to them. Ego diligentes me diligo, ut ditem diligentes me et thesauros eorum repleam [I love those who love me, that I may enrich those who love me and fill up their treasures] (Prov 8:17, 21). This is what Jesus and Mary were crying aloud: "We love those who love us; we enrich them and we fill their treasures." Qui seminat in benedictionibus, de benedictionibus et metet [He who sows in blessings shall also reap of blessings] (2 Cor 9:6): "Those who sow blessings shall gather blessings." Now, is it not to love, bless, and glorify Jesus and Mary to recite properly the Angelic Salutation? In every Hail Mary, we offer two blessings to Jesus and Mary. Blessed are you among all women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Through each Hail Mary, you render to Mary the same honor that God rendered to her by greeting her through the Archangel Gabriel. Who could believe that Jesus and Mary, who often do good to those who curse them, would give their curses to those men and women who bless them and honor them by the Hail Mary? The Queen of Heaven, say Saint Bernard and Saint Bonaventure, is no less grateful and courteous than well-bred people of rank in this world: she even surpasses them in this virtue as in all other perfections; she will therefore never allow us to honor her respectfully without repaying us a hundredfold. Mary, says Saint Bonaventure, greets us with grace, if we greet her with the Hail Mary: "Ipsa salutabit nos cum gratia si salutaverimus eam cum Ave Maria" [She will greet us with grace if we shall have greeted her with the Hail Mary]. Who could understand the graces and blessings that the greeting and gracious regard of the Blessed Virgin produce within us? In the moment that Saint Elizabeth heard the greeting given to her by the Mother of God, she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and the child she carried in her womb leaped for joy. If we make ourselves worthy of the reciprocal greeting and blessing of the Blessed Virgin, undoubtedly we shall be filled with grace, and a torrent of spiritual consolations shall flow into our souls.

Nineteenth Rose

53. It is written: "Give, and it shall be given to you." Let us take the comparison of Blessed Alan: "If I were to give you one hundred and fifty diamonds every day, even if you were my enemy, would you not forgive me? Would you not treat me as a friend, with all the graces you could? Do you wish to enrich yourself with the goods of grace and glory? Greet the Most Holy Virgin, honor your good Mother." "Sicut qui thesaurizat, ita et qui honorificat matrem" (Sir 3:5; the French witness cites Ecclesiasticus 4): "He who honors his Mother, the Blessed Virgin, is like a man who gathers treasures." Present to her each day at least fifty Hail Marys, of which each contains fifteen precious stones, which are more pleasing to her than all the riches of the earth. What should you not expect from her liberality? She is our Mother and our friend. She is the Empress of the universe who loves us more than all mothers and queens together have ever loved a mortal man; for, as Saint Augustine says, the charity of the Virgin Mary exceeds all the natural love of all men and all the angels.

54. One day, Our Lord appeared to Saint Gertrude while He was counting gold coins; she had the boldness to ask Him what He was counting. "I am counting, Jesus Christ replied to her, your Hail Marys; that is the currency with which my paradise is purchased." The devout and learned Suarez, of the Society of Jesus, esteemed the merit of the Angelic Salutation so much that he said he would have gladly given all his learning for the price of one well-said Hail Mary.

55. "Let him who loves you, O divine Mary—thus says Blessed Alan de la Roche, listen and taste: Heaven is in joy, the earth is in admiration, every time I say: Hail Mary; I have horror of the world, I have the love of God in my heart, when I say: Hail Mary; my fears vanish, my passions are mortified, when I say: Hail Mary; I grow in devotion, I find compunction, when I say: Hail Mary; my hope is strengthened, my consolation increases, when I say: Hail Mary; my spirit rejoices, my sorrow is dissipated, when I say: Hail Mary; for the sweetness of this benign salutation is so great that there are no words to explain it properly, and after one has spoken of its wonders, it remains so hidden and so profound that it cannot be discovered. It is short in words, but great in mysteries; it is sweeter than honey and more precious than gold; it must very frequently be held in the heart to meditate upon it, and in the mouth to read and repeat it devoutly." "Auscultet tui nominis amator, O Maria, coelum gaudet, omnis terra stupet cum dico Ave Maria; Satan fugit, infernus contremiscit, cum dico Ave Maria; mundus vilescit, cor in amore liquescit, cum dico Ave Maria; terror evanescit, caro marcescit, cum dico Ave Maria; crescit devotio, oritur compunctio, cum dico Ave Maria; spes proficit, augetur consolatio, cum dico Ave Maria; recreatur animus, et in bono confortatur aeger affectus, cum dico Ave Maria. Siquidem tanta suavitas hujus benignae salutationis, ut humanis non possit explicari verbis, sed semper manet altior et profundior quam omnis creatura indagare sufficiat. Haec oratio parva est verbis, alta mysteriis, brevis sermone, alta virtute, super mel dulcis, super aurum pretiosa; ore cordis est jugiter ruminanda labiisque puris frequentissime legenda ac devote repetenda. [Let the lover of your name listen, O Mary: heaven rejoices, all the earth is astounded when I say Hail Mary; Satan flees, hell trembles when I say Hail Mary; the world withers, the heart melts in love when I say Hail Mary; terror vanishes, the flesh withers when I say Hail Mary; devotion grows, compunction arises when I say Hail Mary; hope advances, consolation is increased when I say Hail Mary; the soul is refreshed, and the sickly affection is strengthened in good when I say Hail Mary. Indeed, such is the sweetness of this benign salutation, that it cannot be explained with human words, but it always remains higher and more profound than any creature can probe. This prayer is small in words, high in mysteries, brief in speech, high in virtue, sweeter than honey, more precious than gold; it must be incessantly ruminated upon by the mouth of the heart and most frequently read and devoutly repeated with pure lips.] The same Blessed Alan reports, in chapter 69 of his psalter, that a nun very devoted to the Rosary appeared after her death to one of her sisters and said to her: "If I could return to my body to say only one Hail Mary, even without much fervor, to obtain the merit of this prayer, I would gladly suffer all the pains I suffered before dying all over again." It should be noted that she had suffered violent pains on her bed for several years.

56. Michel de Lisle, Bishop of Salubre, disciple and colleague of Blessed Alan de la Roche in the restoration of the holy Rosary, says that the Angelic Salutation is the remedy for all the evils that afflict us, provided that we recite it devoutly in honor of the Blessed Virgin.

Twentieth Rose

Brief Explanation of the Ave Maria

57. Are you in the misery of sin? Invoke the divine Mary, and say to her: Ave, which means: I hail you in very profound respect, O you who are without sin and without misfortune. She will deliver you from the evil of your sins. Are you in the darkness of ignorance or error? Come to Mary, and say to her: Ave Maria, that is to say, Illuminated by the rays of the sun of justice; and she will share her lights with you. Are you astray from the path of heaven? Invoke Mary, which means: Star of the sea and the pole star which guides our navigation in this world, and she will lead you to the port of eternal salvation. Are you in affliction? Have recourse to Mary, which means: bitter sea which was filled with bitterness in this world and which is presently changed into a sea of pure sweetness in heaven; she will convert your sorrows into joy and your afflictions into consolations. Have you lost grace? Honor the abundance of graces with which God has filled the Blessed Virgin, and say to her: "Full of graces" and of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and she will share her graces with you. Are you alone, deprived of the protection of God? Address yourself to Mary, and say to her: "The Lord is with you" more nobly and intimately than in the just and the saints, for you are one with Him; being your Son, His flesh is your flesh, you are with the Lord by a most perfect resemblance and by a mutual charity; for you are His Mother. Say to her finally: All the Most Holy Trinity is with you, whose precious Temple you are; and she will place you under the protection and safeguard of God. Have you become the object of God's curse? Say: "You are blessed above all women" and of all nations, for your purity and fecundity; you have changed the divine curse into a blessing; and she will bless you. Do you hunger for the bread of grace and the bread of life? Approach her who bore the living bread which descended from Heaven, and say to her: "Blessed is the fruit of your womb", which you conceived without any loss of your virginity, which you bore without hardship and brought forth without pain. "Jesus" be blessed, who has redeemed the captive world, healed the sick world, resurrected the dead man, brought back the banished man, justified the criminal man, saved the damned man. Without doubt your soul shall be satiated with the bread of grace in this life and with eternal glory in the next. So be it.

58. Conclude your prayer with the Church and say: "Holy Mary", holy in body and in soul, holy by a singular and eternal devotion to the service of God, holy in your dignity as Mother of God, for God has endowed you with eminent holiness suited to this infinite dignity. "Mother of God", who are also our Mother, our Advocate and Mediatrix, the Treasurer and Dispenser of the graces of God, obtain promptly for us the forgiveness of our sins and our reconciliation with the divine Majesty. "Pray for us sinners", you who have so much compassion for the wretched, who do not despise or reject sinners, without whom you would not be the Mother of the Savior. "Pray for us now", during the time of this short, fragile, and miserable life, "now", because we have nothing assured but this present moment, now that we are attacked and surrounded night and day by powerful and cruel enemies. "And at the hour of our death", so terrible and so perilous, where our strength is exhausted, where our minds and bodies are cast down by pain and fear; at the hour of our death, when Satan redoubles his efforts to ruin us forever; at that hour which will determine whether our eternity is blessed or miserable. Come to the aid of your poor children, O compassionate Mother, O Advocate and refuge of sinners, drive far from us, at the hour of death, the demons our accusers and your enemies, whose terrifying appearance fills us with fear. Come to enlighten us in the darkness of death. Lead us, accompany us to the judgment seat of our Judge, your Son; intercede for us, so that He may forgive us and receive us among the number of your elect in the abode of eternal glory. "So be it."

59. Who will not admire the excellence of the holy Rosary, composed of these two divine parts: the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation? Is there any prayer more pleasing to God and to the Blessed Virgin, easier, sweeter, and more beneficial to mankind? Let us always have them in our hearts and in our mouths to honor the Most Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ our Savior, and His most Holy Mother. Furthermore, at the end of each decade, it is good to add the Gloria Patri, etc., that is to say: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, as it is now, and shall be forever and ever. So be it.

Third Decade

Excellence of the holy Rosary in the meditation of the life and the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Twenty-first Rose

The Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary

60. A mystery is something sacred and difficult to understand. The works of Jesus Christ are all sacred and divine, because He is God and man at once. Those of the Blessed Virgin are most holy, because she is the most perfect of all pure creatures. The works of Jesus Christ and of His Blessed Mother are rightly called "mysteries," because they are filled with a multitude of wonders, perfections, and profound and sublime instructions, which the Holy Spirit discloses to the humble and to simple souls who honor them. One may further call the works of Jesus and Mary admirable flowers, whose fragrance and beauty are known only to those who approach them, who scent them, and who open them through attentive and serious meditation.

61. Saint Dominic divided the life of Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Virgin into fifteen mysteries, which represent to us their virtues and their principal actions as fifteen paintings whose features should serve us as a rule and an example for the conduct of our lives. They are fifteen torches to guide our steps in this world; fifteen burning mirrors for knowing Jesus and Mary and for knowing ourselves, and to kindle the fire of their love in our hearts; fifteen furnaces to consume us entirely with their heavenly flames. The Blessed Virgin taught Saint Dominic this excellent method of praying and commanded him to preach it, in order to awaken the piety of Christians and to revive the love of Jesus Christ in their hearts. She also taught it to Blessed Alan de la Roche. "It is a very useful prayer," she said to him, "it is a service that is very pleasing to Me, to recite one hundred and fifty Angelic Salutations. It is even more so to Me, and those will do much better who recite the salutations with the meditation on the life, the passion, and the glory of Jesus Christ, for this meditation is the soul of these prayers." Indeed, the Rosary, without the meditation on the sacred mysteries of our salvation, would be almost like a body without a soul, an excellent subject without its form, which is meditation, and which distinguishes it from other devotions.

62. The first part of the Rosary contains five mysteries, the first of which is the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin; the second, the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin to Saint Elizabeth; the third, the Nativity of Jesus Christ; the fourth, the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple and the purification of the Blessed Virgin; the fifth, the Finding of Jesus in the temple among the doctors. These Mysteries are called Joyful because of the joy they brought to the entire universe. The Blessed Virgin and the angels were filled with joy at the happy moment when the Son of God was incarnate. Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist were filled with joy by the visit of Jesus and Mary. Heaven and earth rejoiced at the birth of the Savior. Simeon was consoled and filled with joy when he received Jesus in his arms. The doctors were rapt with admiration upon hearing the answers of Jesus; and who can express the joy of Mary and Joseph upon finding Jesus after three days of absence?...

63. The second part of the Rosary also consists of five mysteries that are called Sorrowful, because they represent to us Jesus Christ overwhelmed with sadness, covered with wounds, burdened with opprobrium, pains, and torments. The first of these mysteries is the prayer of Jesus and His Agony in the garden of the Olives; the second, His Scourging; the third, His Crowning with thorns; the fourth, the Carrying of the Cross; the fifth, His Crucifixion and His death on Calvary.

64. The third part of the Rosary contains five other mysteries that are called Glorious, because in them we contemplate Jesus and Mary in triumph and in glory. The first is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; the second, His Ascension into heaven; the third, the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles; the fourth, the Assumption of the glorious Virgin; the fifth, her Coronation. These are the fifteen fragrant flowers of the mystical Rosebush upon which pious souls pause like wise bees, to gather from them the admirable nectar and to compose the honey of a solid devotion.

Twenty-second Rose

The Meditation of the Mysteries Conforms Us to Jesus

65. The principal care of the Christian soul is to strive toward perfection. Be faithful imitators of God, as His beloved children, tells us the great Apostle. This obligation is contained within the eternal decree of our predestination, as the sole ordained means to attain eternal glory. Saint Gregory of Nyssa graciously says that we are painters. Our soul is the canvas upon which we must apply the brush, the virtues are the colors that must enhance its brilliance, and the original which we must copy is Jesus Christ, the living image who perfectly represents the eternal Father. Just as a painter, in order to draw a portrait from life, places the original before his eyes, and looks at it with every stroke of the brush he makes, so too the Christian must always have before his eyes the life and the virtues of Jesus Christ, so as to say nothing, think nothing, or do nothing that is not conformable to them.

66. It is to assist us in the important work of our predestination that the Blessed Virgin ordered Saint Dominic to set forth to the faithful who recite the Rosary the sacred mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ, not only so that they might adore and glorify Him, but principally so that they might regulate their lives and their actions according to His virtues. Now, just as children imitate their parents by seeing them and conversing with them; just as they learn their language by hearing them speak; just as an apprentice, by seeing his master work, learns his art; so too the faithful confreres of the Rosary, by seriously and devoutly contemplating the virtues of Jesus Christ in the fifteen mysteries of His life, become similar to this Divine Master, with the help of His grace and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.

67. If Moses commanded the Hebrew people, on behalf of God Himself, never to forget the benefits with which they had been overwhelmed, all the more so can the Son of God command us to engrave upon our hearts and to keep ceaselessly before our eyes the mysteries of His life, His passion, and His glory, since these are as many benefits as He has favored us with and by which He has shown us the excess of His love for our salvation. "O you all who pass by," He says, "stop and consider if there were ever sorrows like the sorrows I endure for your love. Remember my poverty and my humiliations; think of the wormwood and the gall that I took for you in my passion." These words and many others that could be alleged convince us sufficiently of the obligation we have not to be content with reciting the Rosary vocally in honor of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin, but to recite it with the meditation of the sacred mysteries.

Twenty-third Rose

The Rosary, a Memorial of the Life and Death of Jesus

68. Jesus Christ, the divine Spouse of our souls, our most sweet Friend, desires that we remember His benefits and esteem them above all things; He experiences an accidental joy, as does the Blessed Virgin with all the saints in paradise, when we meditate devoutly and with affection upon the sacred mysteries of the Rosary, which are the most notable effects of His love for us and the richest gifts He can bestow upon us, since it is through such gifts that even the Blessed Virgin and all the saints enjoy glory. Blessed Angela of Foligno one day prayed to Our Lord to teach her by which exercise she would honor Him most. He appeared to her attached to the Cross and said to her: "My daughter, behold My wounds." She learned from this most amiable Savior that nothing is more pleasing to Him than the meditation of His sufferings. Then He revealed to her the wounds of His head and several circumstances of His torments and said to her: "I have suffered all this for your salvation; what can you do that equals My love for you?"

69. The holy sacrifice of the Mass infinitely honors the Most Holy Trinity, because it represents the Passion of Jesus Christ and because we offer in it the merits of His obedience, His sufferings, and His blood. The entire heavenly court also receives an accidental glory from it, and several Doctors, along with Saint Thomas, tell us for the same reason that it rejoices in the communion of the faithful, because the Blessed Sacrament is a memorial of the Passion and the death of Jesus Christ, and because, by this means, men participate in His fruits and advance the cause of their salvation. Now, the holy Rosary, recited with the meditation of the sacred mysteries, is a sacrifice of praises to God for the benefit of our Redemption and a devout remembrance of the sufferings, the death, and the glory of Jesus Christ. It is therefore true that the Rosary causes an accidental glory and joy to Jesus Christ, to the Blessed Virgin, and to all the blessed, for they desire nothing greater, for our eternal happiness, than to see us occupied in an exercise so glorious to our Savior and so salutary for us.

70. The Gospel assures us that a sinner who converts and does penance causes joy to all the angels. If it is enough to rejoice the angels that a sinner leaves his sins and does penance, what joy, what jubilation will it be for the entire heavenly court, what glory for Jesus Christ Himself, to see us upon earth, meditating devoutly and with love upon His humiliations, upon His torments, upon His cruel and ignominious death? Is there anything more effective to touch us and lead us to sincere penance? The Christian who does not meditate upon the mysteries of the Rosary shows great ingratitude toward Jesus Christ and little esteem for all that the divine Savior suffered for the salvation of the world. His conduct seems to say that he is ignorant of the life of Jesus Christ, that he takes very little pains to learn what He has done, what He has suffered to save us. This Christian must greatly fear that Jesus Christ, whom he has not known or has put out of mind, will reject him on the day of judgment with this reproach: "I tell you in truth, I do not know you." Let us therefore meditate upon the life and the sufferings of the Savior through the holy Rosary; let us learn to know Him well and to recognize His benefits, so that He may recognize us as His children and His friends on the day of judgment.

Twenty-fourth Rose

The Meditation on the Mysteries of the Rosary Is a Great Means of Perfection

71. The saints made the life of Jesus Christ their principal study; they meditated upon His virtues and upon His sufferings, and, by this means, they attained Christian perfection. Saint Bernard began with this exercise, which he always continued. "From the beginning of my conversion," he says, "I made a bouquet of myrrh composed of the sufferings of my Savior; I placed this bouquet upon my heart, thinking of the scourges, the thorns, and the nails of the Passion. I applied all my mind to meditating every day upon these mysteries." This was also the exercise of the holy martyrs: we admire how they triumphed over the most cruel tortures. From where could this admirable constancy of the martyrs have come, says Saint Bernard, if not from the wounds of Jesus Christ, upon which they made their most frequent meditation? Where was the soul of these generous athletes when their blood flowed and their bodies were crushed by the tortures? Their soul was in the wounds of Jesus Christ, and these wounds rendered them invincible.

72. The most Holy Mother of the Savior occupied herself all her life only with meditating upon the virtues and the sufferings of her Son. When she heard the angels singing their canticle of joy at His birth, when she saw the shepherds adore Him in the stable, her spirit was filled with admiration, and she meditated upon all these marvels. She compared the greatness of the incarnate Word to His profound humiliations; the straw and the manger, to His throne and to the bosom of His Father; the power of a God, to the weakness of a child; His wisdom, to His simplicity. The Blessed Virgin said one day to Saint Bridget: "When I contemplated the beauty, the modesty, and the wisdom of my Son, my soul was transported with joy, and when I considered His hands and His feet which would be pierced with nails, I shed a torrent of tears; my heart broke with sadness and pain."

73. After the Ascension of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin spent the remainder of her life visiting the places that this divine Savior had sanctified by His presence and by His tortures. There, she meditated upon the excess of His charity and upon the rigors of His Passion. This was also the continual exercise of Mary Magdalene during the thirty years she lived in Sainte-Baume. Finally, Saint Jerome says that this was the devotion of the first faithful. From all the countries of the world they came to the Holy Land to engrave more deeply in their hearts the love and the memory of the Savior of men, through the sight of the objects and the places which He had consecrated by His birth, by His labors, by His sufferings, and by His death.

74. All Christians have but one faith, adore but one God, and hope for but the same bliss in heaven; they know but one Mediator, who is Jesus Christ; all must imitate this divine model, and for this purpose consider the mysteries of His life, of His virtues, and of His glory. It is an error to imagine that the meditation on the truths of the faith and the mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ concerns only priests, religious, and those who have withdrawn from the cares of the world. If religious and ecclesiastics are obliged to meditate upon the great truths of our holy religion to respond worthily to their vocation, the people of the world are at least as much obliged, because of the dangers of perdition with which they face every day. They must, therefore, arm themselves with the frequent remembrance of the life, the virtues, and the sufferings of the Savior, which are represented to us by the fifteen mysteries of the holy Rosary.

Twenty-fifth Rose

The Riches of Sanctification Enclosed in the Prayers and Meditations of the Rosary

75. Never can anyone understand the admirable riches of sanctification enclosed in the prayers and in the mysteries of the holy Rosary. This meditation on the mysteries of the life and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ is, for all those who make use of it, the source of the most marvelous fruits. Today, people desire things that strike, that move, that produce profound impressions in the soul. What is there in the world more moving than this marvelous history of our Redeemer unfolding before our eyes in fifteen tableaux, reminding us of the great scenes of the life, the death, and the glory of the Savior of the world? What prayers are more excellent and more sublime than the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary of the angel? There are enclosed all our desires, all our needs.

76. Meditation on the mysteries and prayers of the Rosary is the easiest of all forms of prayer, because the variety of Christ's virtues and states of life that we contemplate wonderfully refreshes and strengthens the mind and prevents distractions. The learned find the deepest doctrine in these formulas, while simple people find the most familiar instruction. One must pass through this easy meditation before ascending to the most sublime degree of contemplation. Such is the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the counsel he gives us, when he says that one must first train, as on a field of combat, through the acquisition of all the virtues of which we have the perfect model in the mysteries of the Rosary; for it is there, says the learned Cajetan, that we shall acquire intimate union with God, without which contemplation is but an illusion capable of deceiving souls.

77. If the false illuminists of our day or the Quietists had followed this counsel, they would not have suffered such terrible falls or caused so much scandal in the spiritual life. It is a strange illusion of the demon to believe that one can offer prayers more sublime than the Our Father and the Hail Mary, by abandoning these divine prayers, which are the support, strength, and safeguard of the soul. I admit that it is not always necessary to recite them vocally, and that interior prayer, in a certain sense, is more perfect than vocal prayer; but I assure you that it is very dangerous, if not pernicious, to abandon on one's own initiative the recitation of the chaplet or the Rosary under the pretext of a more perfect union with God. The subtly proud soul, deceived by the demon of midday, does everything it can interiorly to ascend to the sublime states of prayer attained by the saints, and for this reason despises and abandons its former ways of praying as fit only for ordinary souls. It closes its own ears to the prayers and the greeting of an angel, and even to the prayer that God composed, practiced, and commanded: "Sic orabitis: Pater noster" [Thus you shall pray: Our Father], and "You shall pray thus"; and thereby, it falls from illusion to illusion, and from precipice to precipice.

78. Believe me, my dear confrere of the Rosary, if you wish to attain a high degree of prayer without pretending to have attained it and without falling into the illusions of the devil so common among people of prayer, say every day, if you can, your entire Rosary or at least the chaplet. Have you already attained it by the grace of God? If you wish to remain there and grow in humility, preserve the practice of the holy Rosary, for never shall a soul that says its Rosary every day be formally heretical nor deceived by the demon; this is a proposition I would sign with my blood. If, however, God, by His very great mercy, attracts you in the midst of your chaplet as powerfully as some saints, allow yourself to be drawn by His attraction, allow God to work and pray within you, reciting the Rosary in His own way, and let that suffice you for the day. But if you are only in active contemplation or ordinary prayer of quiet, of the presence of God, and of loving affection, you have even less reason to leave the Rosary; and far from declining in prayer and virtue by reciting it, on the contrary, it will be a marvelous aid and the true Jacob's ladder, which had 15 rungs, by which you shall go from virtue to virtue, from light to light, and arrive easily, without deception, at the fullness of the age of Jesus Christ.

Twenty-sixth Rose

79. Take great care not to imitate the obstinacy of that devout woman of Rome of whom the wonders of the Rosary speak so much. She was a person so devout and so fervent that she caused confusion, through her holy life, to even the most austere religious of the Church of God. Wishing to consult Saint Dominic and having confessed to him, he imposed upon her as penance to say a single Rosary, and by counsel to say it every day. She made excuses on this subject, saying that she had her regular exercises, that she gained the station indulgences of Rome every day, that she wore haircloth and cilice, that she took the discipline several times a week, and that she performed so many fasts and other penances. Saint Dominic pressed and urged her to follow his counsel, but she would do nothing of the matter; she left the confessional scandalized by the procedure of this new director for her, who wished to persuade her toward a devotion that she could not taste. Then, while in prayer and rapt in ecstasy, she saw her soul obliged to appear before the Sovereign Judge. Saint Michael placed all her penances and other prayers in one pan of the balance, and all her sins and imperfections in the other. Saint Michael raised the balance; the pan of her good works flew into the air and could not counterbalance the pan of her sins and imperfections. Greatly alarmed, she cried for mercy; she addressed herself to the Blessed Virgin, her advocate, who caused to fall into the pan of her good works the single Rosary that she had said as penance, which was so heavy that it counterbalanced all her sins as well as all her good works. She was simultaneously rebuked by the Blessed Virgin for having refused to follow the advice of her servant Dominic, to say the holy Rosary every day. Having returned to herself, she went to throw herself at the feet of Saint Dominic, told him what had happened to her, asked his forgiveness for her incredulity, promised to say the Rosary every day, and arrived by this means at Christian perfection and at eternal glory. Learn from this, you souls devoted to prayer, the strength, the price, and the importance of this devotion of the holy Rosary with the meditation of the mysteries.

80. What could be higher in prayer than Saint Mary Magdalene, who was carried seven times a day by the angels above the Saint-Pilon, and who had been at the school of Jesus Christ and of His holy Mother; yet, when she one day asked God for a good means to advance in His love and to reach the highest perfection, the Archangel Saint Michael came from God to tell her that he knew of no other than to contemplate, in the midst of a cross which he planted before her cave, the sorrowful mysteries which she had seen operated with her own eyes. May the example of Saint Francis de Sales, that great director of spiritual souls of his century, oblige you to join so holy a confraternity, since, saint though he was, he bound himself by vow to say it in its entirety every day for as long as he lived. Saint Charles Borromeo also recited it every day and strongly recommended this devotion to his priests and ecclesiastics in the seminaries and to all his people. Blessed Pius V, one of the great popes who governed the Church, recited the Rosary every day. Saint Thomas de Villeneuve, Archbishop of Valencia, Saint Ignatius, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis Borgia, Saint Teresa, Saint Philip Neri, and several other great men whom I pass over in silence, have excelled in this devotion. Follow their examples; your directors would be well pleased by it, and if they are informed of the fruits you can derive from it, they will be the first to incite you to it.

Twenty-seventh Rose

81. To further animate you in this devotion of great souls, I add that the Rosary, recited with the meditation of the mysteries: 1. elevates us imperceptibly to the perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ; 2. purifies our souls from sin; 3. makes us victorious over all our enemies; 4. makes the practice of the virtues easy for us; 5. enflames us with the love of Jesus Christ; 6. enriches us with graces and merits; 7. provides us with what is necessary to pay all our debts to God and to men, and finally, makes us obtain all kinds of graces from God.

82. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the science of Christians and the science of salvation; it surpasses, says Saint Paul, all human sciences in value and excellence: 1. for the dignity of its object, which is a God-man, in whose presence the entire universe is but a drop of dew or a grain of sand; 2. for its utility, since human sciences fill us only with the wind and smoke of pride; 3. for its necessity; for one cannot be saved without having the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he who is ignorant of all other sciences will be saved, provided he is enlightened by the science of Jesus Christ. Happy is the Rosary which gives us this science and knowledge of Jesus Christ, by making us meditate upon His life, His death and passion, and His glory. The Queen of Sheba, admiring the wisdom of Solomon, cried out: "Happy are your people and your servants who are always in your presence and hear the oracles of your wisdom"; even happier are the faithful who attentively meditate upon the life, the virtues, the sufferings, and the glory of the Savior, because they acquire by this means His perfect knowledge, in which eternal life consists. Haec est vita aeterna [This is eternal life].

83. The Blessed Virgin revealed to Blessed Alan that as soon as Saint Dominic preached the Rosary, hardened sinners were touched and bitterly wept for their crimes; even young children performed incredible penances, and fervor was so great everywhere he preached the Rosary, that sinners changed their lives and edified the whole world by their penances and the amendment of their lives. If you feel your conscience burdened with some sins, take up your Rosary, reciting a part in honor of some mysteries of the life, the passion, or the glory of Jesus Christ, and be persuaded that, while you meditate upon and honor these mysteries, He will show His sacred wounds to His Father in heaven. He will plead for you and obtain for you the contrition and the forgiveness of your sins. He said one day to Blessed Alan: "If these wretched sinners recited my Rosary often, they would participate in the merits of My passion, and, as their Advocate, I would appease divine Justice."

84. This life is a continuous war and temptation; we do not fight against enemies of flesh and blood, but the very powers of hell. What weapons shall we take up to combat them, if not the prayer that our great Captain has taught us, that the Angelic Salutation, which has chased away demons, destroyed sin, and renewed the world, and the meditation on the life and the passion of Jesus Christ, of which we must arm ourselves, as Saint Peter commands us, to defend ourselves against the very enemies whom he conquered and who attack us every day. "Since the demon," says Cardinal Hugh, "has been defeated by the humility and the passion of Jesus Christ, he can scarcely attack a soul armed with the meditation of His mysteries, or, if he attacks it, he is shamefully defeated." "Induite vos armaturam Dei [Put on the armor of God] (Eph 6:11)."

85. Arm yourselves, therefore, with these weapons of God, with the holy Rosary, and you shall crush the head of the demon and remain stable against all his temptations. It is from this that the very material Rosary is so terrible to the devil, and that the saints have used it to bind him and drive him from the bodies of the possessed, as many stories bear witness.

86. A man, says Blessed Alan, having in vain attempted all kinds of practices of devotion to be delivered from the evil spirit possessing him, thought of placing his Rosary around his neck, which relieved him; and having experienced that when he removed it from his neck, the demon tormented him cruelly, he resolved to wear it around his neck day and night, which drove the devil away forever, as he could not endure such a terrible chain. Blessed Alan testifies that he delivered a great number of the possessed by thus placing the Rosary around their necks.

87. The Reverend Father Jean Amât, of the Order of Saint Dominic, while preaching Lent in a place of this kingdom of Aragon, had a young girl brought to him who was possessed by the demon; after having exorcised her several times, but in vain, he placed his Rosary around her neck, and immediately she began to make dreadful cries and howls, saying: "Take it off me, take it off me, these beads that torment me." Finally, the priest, out of compassion for the poor girl, took his Rosary from her neck. The following night, when the Reverend Father was in his bed resting, the same demons who possessed this girl came to him, all foaming with rage, to seize him; but with his Rosary, which he held firmly in his hand, despite the efforts they made to take it from him, he whipped them most admirably and drove them away, saying: "Holy Mary, Our Lady of the holy Rosary, help me!" When, the next day, he went to church, he encountered this poor girl still possessed; one of the demons who were in her began to say, mocking him: "Ah! brother, if you had not had your Rosary, we would have certainly settled you." Then the Reverend Father cast his Rosary once more around the girl's neck, saying: "By the most sacred names of Jesus and Mary, His holy Mother, and by the virtue of the most holy Rosary, I command you, evil spirits, to depart from this body at once"; immediately they were compelled to obey, and she was delivered. These stories show us what the strength of the holy Rosary is for conquering all kinds of temptations of the demons and all kinds of sins, because the blessed beads of the Rosary put them to flight.

Twenty-eighth Rose

88. Saint Augustine assures that there is no practice so fruitful and so useful to salvation as to think often of the sufferings of Our Lord. The blessed Albert the Great, master of Saint Thomas, knew through revelation that the simple remembrance or the meditation on the passion of Jesus Christ is more meritorious to the Christian than fasting every Friday for one year on bread and water, or taking the discipline unto blood every week, or reciting the Psalter every day. Ah! What, therefore, is the merit of the Rosary, which makes memorial of the entire life and passion of Our Lord? The Blessed Virgin revealed one day to Blessed Alan de la Roche that after the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which is the first and most vivid memorial of the passion of Jesus Christ, there was no devotion more excellent and more meritorious than the Rosary, which is like a second memorial and representation of the life and passion of Jesus Christ.

89. Reverend Father Dorland reports that the Blessed Virgin said one day to the venerable Dominic, a Carthusian and devotee of the holy Rosary, who resided in Trier in the year 1481: "Every time a faithful soul recites the Rosary with the meditations on the mysteries of the life and passion of Jesus Christ, in a state of grace, he obtains full and entire remission of all his sins." She also said to Blessed Alan: "Know that although there are many indulgences granted to my Rosary, I shall add many more to each set of fifty to those who shall recite it without mortal sin, on their knees, devoutly; and whosoever shall persevere in the devotion of the holy Rosary with these articles and meditations, I shall obtain for him, as a reward for this good service, full remission of the punishment and the guilt of all his sins at the end of life. And let this not seem incredible to you; it is easy for me, since I am the Mother of the King of heaven, who calls me full of grace, and, if I am filled with it, I shall make an ample effusion of it to my dear children."

90. Saint Dominic was so well persuaded of the efficacy and merit of the holy Rosary that he gave almost no other penance to those whom he confessed, as we have seen in the history I have reported of a Roman lady to whom he gave for penance only a single Rosary. Confessors should also, to walk surely in the footsteps of this great saint, enjoin upon penitents the Rosary, with reflection upon the sacred mysteries, rather than other penances which are not of so great merit, nor so pleasing to God, nor so salutary to souls for making them advance in virtue, nor so effective for preventing them from falling into sin; and furthermore, by saying the Rosary, one gains many indulgences which are not attached to many other devotions.

91. "Certainly," says Abbot Blosius, "this Rosary, with the meditations on the life and the passion, is very pleasing to Jesus Christ and to the Blessed Virgin and very effective for obtaining all things; we can say this as much for ourselves as for those who are recommended to us and for the whole Church. Let us therefore resort to the devotion of the holy Rosary in all our necessities, and we shall infallibly obtain what we shall ask of God for our salvation."

Twenty-ninth Rose

92. There is nothing more divine, according to the thought of Saint Denis, nothing more noble nor more pleasing to God, than to cooperate in the salvation of souls and to overthrow the machinations of the demon who strives to lose them. This is the motive that caused the Son of God to descend to earth. He had ruined the empire of Satan through the foundation of the Church, but this tyrant had regained his strength and exercised a cruel violence upon souls through the Albigensian heresy, through hatreds, through dissensions, and through the abominable vices that he caused to reign in the world in the eleventh century. What remedy is there for these great disorders, how can the forces of Satan be brought low? The Blessed Virgin, protector of the Church, has given no means more effective for appeasing the anger of her Son, for extirpating heresy and reforming the morals of Christians, than the confraternity of the holy Rosary, as its effect has verified. It has renewed charity and the frequentation of the sacraments of the first golden centuries of the Church, and has reformed the morals of Christians.

93. Pope Leo X says in his bull that this confraternity was founded in honor of God and of the Blessed Virgin as a wall to stop the misfortunes that were about to fall upon the Church. Gregory XIII says that the Rosary was given from heaven as a means to appease the anger of God and to implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. Julius III says that the Rosary was inspired to open heaven to us more easily, through the favors of the Blessed Virgin. Paul III and the Blessed Pius V declare that the Rosary was established and given to the faithful to more effectively obtain spiritual repose and consolation. Who will neglect to enter into a confraternity instituted for such noble ends?

94. Father Dominic, a Carthusian, very devoted to the Rosary, saw one day heaven opened and the entire heavenly court arranged in an admirable order, and heard the Rosary being sung with a ravishing melody, honoring with each decade a mystery of the life, the passion, and the glory of Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Virgin. And he noticed that when they pronounced the sacred name of Mary, they all made an inclination of the head, and at that of Jesus, they all made a genuflection and gave thanks to God for the great goods He has made in heaven and on earth through the holy Rosary. He also saw the Blessed Virgin and the saints presenting to God the Rosaries that the confreres recite on earth, and praying for those who practice this devotion; he saw also innumerable crowns, of very beautiful and fragrant flowers, prepared for those who devoutly recite the holy Rosary, and that as many times as they recite it, they fashion a crown for themselves with which they shall be adorned in heaven. The vision of this devout Carthusian is consistent with the vision had by the beloved disciple, in which he saw an innumerable multitude of angels and saints, who praised and blessed Jesus Christ for all He did and suffered in this world for our salvation; is this not what the devout brothers of the Rosary do?

95. One must not imagine that the Rosary is only for women, and for the small and the ignorant; it is also for men, and for the greatest of men. First, after Saint Dominic had reported to Pope Innocent III the order he had received from heaven to establish this holy confraternity, the Holy Father approved it, exhorted Saint Dominic to preach it, and wished to be associated with it. The cardinals themselves embraced it with great fervor, so much so that Lopez advances these words: "Nullum sexum, nullam aetatem, nullam conditionem ab oratione rosarii subtraxit se" [He has withdrawn no sex, no age, no condition from the prayer of the Rosary]. Thus, all kinds of persons are observed in this confraternity: dukes, princes, and kings, as well as prelates, cardinals, and sovereign pontiffs, the enumeration of whom would be too long for this abridgment; and by placing yourself, dear reader, in this confraternity, you shall share in their devotion and their graces on earth and in their glory in heaven. "Cum quibus consortium vobis erit devotionis, erit et communio dignitatis" [With whom your partnership shall be in devotion, and there shall be a communion of dignity].

Thirtieth Rose

96. If privileges, graces, and indulgences make a confraternity recommendable, it may be said that the confraternity of the Rosary is the most worthy of recommendation in the Church, since it is the most favored and enriched with indulgences; and there has been almost no Pope since its institution who has not opened the treasures of the Church to gratify it; and as example persuades better than words and benefits, the Holy Fathers could not have better marked the esteem they held for this holy confraternity than by associating themselves with it. Here is a small summary of the indulgences that the Sovereign Pontiffs have entirely granted to the confraternity of the Holy Rosary, reconfirmed anew by our Holy Father Pope Innocent XI on July 31, 1679 (the French witness prints Innocent II), received and permitted to be published by the Most Reverend Archbishop of Paris on September 25 of the same year: 1. For the day of entry into the confraternity: plenary indulgence; 2. For the hour of death: plenary indulgence; 3. For each of the three chaplets of the Rosary recited: ten years and ten quadragesimas of indulgences; 4. For each time they shall devoutly pronounce the holy names of Jesus and Mary: seven days of indulgences; 5. For those who shall devoutly attend the procession of the holy Rosary: seven years and seven quadragesimas of indulgences; 6. To those who, truly penitent and confessed, shall visit the chapel of the Rosary in the church where it is established, on the first Sundays of each month and on the feasts of Our Lord and of the Blessed Virgin: plenary indulgence; 7. To those who attend the Salve Regina [Hail, Holy Queen]: one hundred days of indulgence; 8. To those who, devoutly and to set an example, openly wear the holy Rosary: one hundred days of indulgences; 9. To sick members of the confraternity who cannot come to church, after they have gone to confession and received Communion, who shall recite on the appointed day the holy Rosary or at least the chaplet: plenary indulgence on the day marked to gain it; 10. The Holy Fathers, through a great liberality toward the confreres of the holy Rosary, have given them the faculty to gain the indulgences of the stations of Rome, visiting five altars, by reciting before each five times the Our Father and the Hail Mary, for the happy state of the Church. If there are only one or two altars in that church where the Rosary is established, they shall recite 25 times the Our Father and the Hail Mary before that altar.

97. A great favor for the confreres of the holy Rosary, because in the churches of the stations of Rome, there are plenary indulgences, the deliverance of souls from purgatory, and several other great remissions that the confreres can gain without difficulty, without expense, and without leaving their countries; and even, if the confraternity is not established in the place where the confreres reside, they shall gain the said indulgences, visiting five altars of whatever church it may be, by the concession of Leo X. Here are the days on which they can gain them, determined and fixed, for those who are outside the city of Rome, by a decree of the Sacred Congregation established for indulgences, approved by our Holy Father on March 7, 1678, which has ordered that it shall be inviolably observed: All Sundays of Advent; the three days of the Quattuor Tempora; the vigil of Christmas, at the midnight, dawn, and day masses; the feasts of Saint Stephen, Saint John the Evangelist, and the Holy Innocents, of the Circumcision, and of the Magi; the Sundays of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima and, from Ash Wednesday, all days, up to and including the Sunday of Quasimodogeniti; the three days of the Rogations; the day of the Ascension; the vigil of Pentecost, and all the days of the octave and the three days of the Quattuor Tempora of September. Dear confrere of the Rosary, there are a great number of other indulgences. If you wish to see them, read the summary of the indulgences granted to the confreres of the Rosary. There you will see the names of the Popes, the year, and several other particularities that this summary does not permit.

Fourth Decade

The excellence of the holy Rosary in the wonders that God has worked in its favor.

Thirty-first Rose

98. Saint Dominic, having gone to visit Saint Blanche, Queen of France, who had borne no children during the twelve years of her marriage, and was therefore greatly afflicted, advised her to say her Rosary every day in order to obtain this grace from heaven; which she did, and she gave birth, in the year 1213, to her eldest son, who was named Philip. But death having snatched him away in his cradle, the devout Queen had recourse to the Blessed Virgin more than ever, and she had a great quantity of Rosaries distributed throughout the entire court and in several cities of the kingdom, so that God might shower her with an entire blessing. This indeed happened, for in the year 1215, Saint Louis came into the world, the glory of France and the model of Christian kings.

99. Alfonso VIII, King of Aragon and Castile, was, because of his sins, chastised by God in several ways, and he was forced to withdraw to a city of one of his allies. Saint Dominic, finding himself in that same city on Christmas Day, preached there as was his custom the Rosary and the graces that are obtained from God through this devotion, and said, among other things, that those who would recite it devoutly would obtain victory over their enemies and recover all that they had lost. The king noted these words well, sent to fetch Saint Dominic, and asked him if what he had preached regarding the holy Rosary was true. The saint replied that there was no need to doubt it, and promised him that if he wished to practice this devotion and enroll himself in the confraternity, he would see its effects. The king resolved to recite the Rosary every day, and he continued for one year; and on that same Christmas Day, having recited his Rosary, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said to him: "Alfonso, it has been one year since you have served me devoutly by my Rosary, I have come to reward you. Know that I have obtained from my Son the forgiveness of all your sins; here is a Rosary that I give to you; wear it upon you, and never shall any of your enemies be able to harm you." She disappeared and left the king greatly consoled; he returned, holding this Rosary in his hand, and approaching the queen, he joyfully recounted to her the favor he had just received from the Blessed Virgin; he touched her eyes with this Rosary, and she recovered the sight she had lost. Some time later, the king, having gathered some troops, with the help of his allies, boldly attacked his enemies, compelled them to return his lands and to repair his damages, drove them out entirely, and became so prosperous in war that from all sides soldiers came to him to fight under his banners, because victories seemed to follow his battles everywhere. This is not to be wondered at, for he never engaged in combat except after having recited his Rosary on his knees; he had his entire court received into the confraternity of the holy Rosary, and he compelled his officers and servants to be devout to it. The queen also committed herself to it, and both persevered in the service of the Blessed Virgin and lived in great piety.

Thirty-second Rose

100. (Blessed Alan, chapter 53) Saint Dominic had a cousin named Dom Perez or Pedro, who led a most dissolute life. Having heard that the saint preached the marvels of the holy Rosary and that many were converting and changing their lives by this means, he said: "I had lost all hope for my salvation, but I am beginning to take courage; I must hear this man of God." He therefore came one day to the sermon of Saint Dominic. When the saint saw him, he redoubled his fervor in thundering against vices, and he prayed to God in his heart to open the eyes of his cousin so that he might recognize the miserable state of his soul. Dom Perez was at first somewhat frightened; but he did not resolve to convert; he returned another time to the sermon and the saint, seeing that this hardened heart would not convert without some extraordinary blow, cried out aloud: "Lord Jesus, show to this entire audience the state of him who has just entered into Your house." Then all the people saw Dom Perez surrounded by a troop of devils in the form of horrible beasts who held him bound with iron chains. Everyone fled in terror, some this way and some that way, and he was even more terrified to see himself the object of horror for everyone. Saint Dominic stopped them all and said to this gentleman: "Recognize, wretched man, the deplorable state in which you are; throw yourself at the feet of the Blessed Virgin." He sent him a Rosary. "Take this Rosary, recite it with devotion and repentance for your sins, and make a resolution to change your life." He knelt down and recited the Rosary; he felt inspired to go to confession, which he did with great contrition. The saint ordered him to say the holy Rosary every day; he promised to do so; he himself enrolled his name in the confraternity. His face, which previously had frightened everyone, appeared, upon leaving the church, shining like that of an angel. He persevered in the devotion of the Rosary, led a very well-ordered life, and died happily.

Thirty-third Rose

101. While Saint Dominic was preaching the holy Rosary near Carcassonne, an Albigensian heretic possessed by the demon was brought to him. The saint exorcised him in the presence of a great multitude of people; it is held that there were more than twelve thousand men listening to him. The demons, which possessed this poor wretch, being forced to answer despite themselves the questions the saint put to them, said: 1. That there were fifteen thousand of them in the body of this wretch, because he had attacked the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary; 2. That, through the Rosary which he preached, he put terror and dismay throughout all of Hell, and that he was the man of the world whom they hated most because of the souls he snatched from them by the devotion of the Rosary; 3. They revealed several other particulars. Saint Dominic, having cast his rosary around the neck of the possessed man, asked them which of all the saints in heaven they feared most and who ought to be most loved and honored by men. At this question, they let out cries so appalling that most of the listeners, seized with fright, fell to the ground. Then, these evil spirits, in order not to answer, wept and lamented in such a pitiful, touching manner that several of the bystanders wept themselves, out of natural pity. They said through the mouth of the possessed man in a lamentable tone of voice: "Dominic, Dominic, have mercy on us, we promise you that we will never harm you. You who have so much pity for sinners and wretches, have mercy on us, wretches. Alas, we suffer, why do you take pleasure in increasing our pains? Be content with the pains we endure. Mercy! mercy! mercy!"

102. The saint, without being moved by the tender words of these unhappy spirits, replied to them that he would not cease to torment them until they had answered the question. The demons told him that they would answer, but in secret and in an ear, and not before everyone. The saint incites and commands them to speak and answer aloud. The devils would no more say a word, regardless of whatever command he made them. He knelt down and said this prayer to the Blessed Virgin: "O excellentissima Virgo Maria, per virtutem psalterii et rosarii tui, compelle hos humani generis hostes questioni meae satisfacere" [O most excellent Virgin Mary, by the virtue of your psalter and your Rosary, compel these enemies of the human race to answer my question]. — O most holy Virgin Mary, by the virtue of the holy Rosary, command these enemies of the human race to answer my question. This prayer having been made, behold, an ardent flame came out of the ears, the nostrils, and the mouth of the possessed man, which made everyone tremble, but yet did no harm to anyone. Then the devils cried out: "Dominic, we pray you, by the passion of Jesus Christ and by the merits of His holy Mother and of all the saints, that you permit us to depart from this body without saying anything; for the angels, when you wish it, will reveal it to you. Are we not liars? Why do you wish to believe us? Do not torment us further, have mercy on us." "Wretched as you are, unworthy of being heard," said Saint Dominic, who, kneeling again, made his prayer to the Blessed Virgin: "O Mater sapientiae dignissima et de cujus salutatione quomodo illa fieri debeat jam edoctus est populus; pro salute populi circumstantis rogo: Coge hosce tuos adversarios, ut plenam et sinceram veritatem palam hic profiteantur" [O most worthy Mother of Wisdom, the people have already been taught how your salutation should be made; for the salvation of the surrounding people I ask: Compel these adversaries of yours, that they may openly profess the full and sincere truth here]. No sooner had he finished his prayer than he saw the Blessed Virgin near him, surrounded by a great multitude of angels, who, with a golden rod which she held in her hand, was striking the demon, saying to him: "Answer my servant Dominic, according to his request." It must be noted that the people neither heard nor saw the Blessed Virgin; there was only Saint Dominic.

103. Then the demons began to cry out, saying: "O inimica nostra, ô nostra damnatrix, ô nostra inimica, ô nostra domnatrix, ô confusio nostra, quare de coelo descendisti, ut nos hic ita torqueres? Per te quae infernum evacuas et pro peccatoribus tanquam potens advocata exoras; ô Via coeli certissima et securissima, cogimur sine mora et intermissione ulla, nobis quamvis invitis, et contra nitentibus, totam rei proferre veritatem. Nunc declarandum nobis est simulque publicandum ipsum medium et modus quo ipsimet confundamur, unde vae et maledictio in aeternum nostris tenebrarum principibus. Audite igitur vos, christiani. Haec christi Mater potentissima est in preservandis suis servis quominus precipites ruant in baratrum nostrum inferni. Illa est quae dissipat et enervat, ut sol, tenebras omnium machinarum et astutiarum nostrarum, detegit omnes fallacias nostras et ad nihilum redigit omnes nostras tentationes. Coactique fatemur neminem nobiscum damnari qui ejus sancto cultui et pio obsequio devotus perseverat. Unicum ipsius suspirium, ab ipsa et per ipsam sanctissimae Trinitati oblatum, superat et excedit omnium sanctorum preces, atque pium et sanctum eorum votum et desiderium, magisque eum formidamus quam omnes paradisi sanctos; nec contra fideles ejus famulos quidquam praevalere possumus. Notum sit etiam vobis plurimos christianos in hora mortis ipsam invocantes contra nostra jura salvari, et nisi Marietta illa obstitisset nostrosque conatus repressisset, a longo jam tempore totam Ecclesiam exterminassemus, nam saepissime universos Ecclesiae status et ordines a fide deficere fecissemus. Imo planius et plenius vi et necessitate compulsi, adhuc vobis dicimus, nullum in exercitio Rosarii sive psalterii ejus perseverantem aeternos inferni subire cruciatus. Ipsa enim devotis servis suis veram impetrat contritionem qua fit ut peccata sua confiteantur, et eorum indulgentiam a Deo consequantur." [O our enemy, oh our ruin, oh our enemy, oh our mistress, oh our confusion, why have you descended from heaven, so that you may torture us thus here? Through you, who evacuate hell and, as a powerful advocate, intercede for sinners; oh most certain and secure Way of heaven, we are compelled without delay and without any intermission, though we are unwilling and resist, to bring forth the whole truth of the matter. Now it must be declared and published at once, the very means and manner by which we ourselves shall be confounded, whence woe and a curse in eternity upon our princes of darkness. Listen therefore, you Christians. This Mother of Christ is most powerful in preserving her servants lest they fall headlong into our pit of hell. She is the one who, like the sun, dissipating the darkness of all our snares and deceits, detects all our fallacies and reduces all our temptations to nothing. And we are compelled to confess that no one who perseveres in holy devotion and dutiful service to her is damned with us. A single sigh of hers, offered by her and through her to the Most Holy Trinity, surpasses and exceeds the prayers of all the saints, as well as all their holy vows and desires, and we fear her more than all the saints of paradise together; nor can we prevail at all against her faithful servants. Let it also be known to you that many Christians, invoking her at the very hour of death, are saved against our laws, and unless that Marietta had opposed us and repressed our efforts, we would long ago have exterminated the whole Church, for most often we would have caused all the states and orders of the Church to fall away from the faith. Indeed, more plainly and more fully, compelled by force and necessity, we say to you still: no one who perseveres in the exercise of her Rosary or Psalter undergoes the eternal torments of hell. For she obtains for her devoted servants a true contrition, whereby they confess their sins and obtain pardon for them from God.]

104. Montfort's own rendering of this passage runs: "O our enemy, oh our ruin, oh our confusion, why have you come expressly from heaven to torment us so much? Must it be that, despite ourselves, oh advocate of sinners who withdraw them from hell, oh most certain way of paradise, we are obliged to tell the whole truth? Must we confess before everyone that which will be the cause of our confusion and our ruin? Woe to us, woe to our princes of darkness. Listen then, Christians. This Mother of Jesus Christ is all-powerful in preventing her servants from falling into hell; it is she who, like a sun, dissipating the darkness of our snares, breaks our traps and renders all our temptations useless and without effect. We are constrained to confess that none of those who persevere in her service is damned with us. A single sigh of hers, which she offers to the Holy Trinity, surpasses all the prayers, vows, and desires of all the saints. We fear her more than all the blessed together, and we can do nothing against her faithful servants. Many Christians even, who invoke her at death, and who according to our ordinary laws should be damned, are saved by her intercession. Ah! if this Marietta (that is how their rage made them call her) had not opposed our designs and our efforts, we would have long ago overthrown and destroyed the Church and caused all its orders to fall into error and infidelity. We protest furthermore, by the violence that is being done to us, that none of those who persevere in saying the Rosary is damned; for she obtains for her devoted servants a true contrition for their sins, by which they obtain pardon and indulgence for them." Then Saint Dominic had the whole people recite the Rosary, very slowly and devoutly, and, at each Hail Mary that the saint and the people recited (a wonderful thing), a great multitude of demons, in the form of burning coals, came out of the body of this wretch. The demons having all gone out and the heretic being entirely delivered, the Blessed Virgin gave, although invisibly, her blessing to all the people, who felt a very sensible joy from it. This miracle was the cause that a great number of heretics converted and joined the confraternity of the holy Rosary.

Thirty-fourth Rose

105. (Blessed Alan, part 2, chapter 17) Who could recount the victories that Simon, Count of Montfort, achieved over the Albigensians under the protection of Our Lady of the Rosary? They are so famous that the world has never seen their like. Once, he defeated ten thousand heretics with five hundred men; another time, with thirty, he remained victorious over three thousand; then, with eight hundred cavalry and one thousand infantry, he tore to pieces the army of the King of Aragon, composed of one hundred thousand men, without losing but a single cavalryman and eight of his soldiers.

106. From what dangers did the Blessed Virgin deliver Alain de l'Anvallay, a Breton knight, who fought for the faith against the Albigensians! One day, being surrounded by his enemies on all sides, the Blessed Virgin cast one hundred and fifty stones against them and delivered him from their hands. On another day, when his ship was wrecked and about to sink, this good Mother made one hundred and fifty small hills appear to him, upon which he landed in Brittany. And in memory of the miracles that the Blessed Virgin had performed in his favor because of a Rosary which he recited every day, he founded a convent at Dinan to house the religious of the new order of Saint Dominic and, having become a religious, he died a holy death at Orléans.

107. Othère, likewise a Breton soldier from Vaucouleurs, has often put to flight entire companies of heretics and thieves, carrying his Rosary on his arm and on the hilt of his sword. His enemies, after having been defeated, confessed to him that they had seen his sword shining brightly and, on another occasion, a shield on his arm bearing images of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints; these made him invisible and gave him strength to charge home. Once, with ten companies, he defeated twenty thousand heretics without losing a single one of his own, which so touched the general of the heretical army that he came to find Othère, abjured his heresy, and declared that he had seen him clad in fiery armor during the battle.

Thirty-fifth Rose

108. (Blessed Alan, part 4, chapter 40) Blessed Alan reports that a cardinal named Peter, of the title of Santa Maria in Trastevere — Saint Mary beyond the Tiber, instructed by Saint Dominic, his intimate friend, in the devotion to the holy Rosary, became so attached to it that he became its advocate and recommended it to everyone. The cardinal was sent as a legate to the Holy Land to the Christians who were crusading against the Saracens. He convinced the Christian army so thoroughly of the Rosary's efficacy that, all having embraced it to implore the help of heaven in a battle where they numbered only three thousand, they triumphed over one hundred thousand. The demons, as we have seen, infinitely feared the Rosary. Saint Bernard says that the Angelic Salutation drives them away and makes hell tremble. Blessed Alan assures us that he saw several persons who had given themselves to the devil, body and soul, by renouncing baptism and Jesus Christ, and then, after having taken up the devotion of the holy Rosary, were delivered from his tyranny.

Thirty-sixth Rose

109. In the year 1578, a woman from Antwerp had given herself to the devil by a contract signed with her blood. Some time later, she felt a sensible regret and a great desire to repair the evil she had done. She sought out a prudent and charitable confessor, to learn by what means she might be set free from the power of the devil. She found a wise and devout priest, who advised her to go find Father Henri, director of the confraternity of the Holy Rosary, of the convent of Saint Dominic, to enroll herself there and to make her confession. She went to seek him, and instead of the Father, she found the devil, under the guise of a religious, who rebuked her severely and told her that she no longer had any graces to hope for from God, nor any means to revoke what she had signed, which afflicted her greatly. But she did not lose all hope in the mercy of God; she went to seek the Father once more and found the devil again, who rejected her as before. She returned for a third time and, by divine permission, found Father Henri whom she was seeking, who received her charitably, exhorted her to trust in the goodness of God and to make a good confession; he received her into the confraternity and ordered her to recite the Rosary often. One day, during the Mass that the Father was celebrating for her, the Blessed Virgin forced the devil to return to her the contract she had signed; and thus she was delivered by the authority of Mary and the devotion of the Holy Rosary.

Thirty-seventh Rose

110. A lord who had several children placed one of his daughters in an entirely disordered monastery, where the religious women breathed nothing but vanity and pleasures. The confessor, a fervent man and devoted to the holy Rosary, desiring first to lead this young religious woman into the practices of a better life, ordered her to recite every day the Rosary in honor of the Blessed Virgin, meditating upon the life, the passion, and the glory of Jesus Christ. She greatly embraced this devotion; little by little, she grew disgusted with the disorder of her sisters; she began to love silence and prayer, despite the contempt and mockery of the others, who treated her as a bigot. At that time, a holy abbot, having gone to perform a visitation in this monastery, had a strange vision during his prayer; it seemed to him to see a religious woman in her chamber in prayer, before a great lady of admirable beauty, accompanied by a troop of angels, who, with blows from flaming darts, were driving away a multitude of demons that wished to enter. And these evil spirits fled to the chambers of the other religious women, under the figure of filthy animals, to incite them to sin, to which many were giving entrance. Through this vision, the abbot knew the unhappy state of this monastery and thought he would die of sadness; he had the young religious woman brought to him and exhorted her to perseverance. Reflecting upon the excellence of the Rosary, he resolved to reform these religious women through this devotion. He purchased beautiful rosaries which he gave to all the religious women, persuading them to recite them every day, and promised them, if they were willing to do so, that he would never compel them to reform. They received these rosaries with pleasure and promised to recite them under that condition. (An admirable thing!) Little by little they abandoned their vanities, turned toward silence and recollection, and in less than a year, they all requested reform. The Rosary worked more upon their hearts than the abbot could ever have gained through his exhortations and his authority.

Thirty-eighth Rose

111. A Countess of Spain, having been instructed in the devotion of the holy Rosary by Saint Dominic, recited it every day with marvelous progress in virtue. As she breathed nothing but perfection, she one day asked a prelate and famous preacher for some practices of perfection. This prelate told her that it was necessary, beforehand, to declare to him the state of her soul and her exercises of piety; she told him that the principal devotion was the Rosary, which she recited every day, meditating upon the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries with great spiritual profit for her soul. The Bishop, delighted to hear the rare instructions contained within the mysteries explained, said to her: "I have been a Doctor of Theology for twenty years, and I have read many excellent practices of devotion; but I have known none more fruitful nor more conformed to Christianity. I wish to imitate you; I shall preach the Rosary." He did so with such happy success that, in a short time, he saw a very great change in morals in his diocese, many conversions, restitutions, and reconciliations; debauchery, gambling, and luxury ceased; peace in families, devotion, and charity began to flourish. A change all the more admirable because this Bishop had worked much to reform his diocese with very little fruit. To better persuade others of the devotion to the Rosary, he wore a beautiful one at his side and showed it to his listeners. He would say: "Know, my brothers, that the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin is so excellent that I, who am your Bishop, a Doctor of Theology and of both laws, glory in wearing it always as the most illustrious mark of my episcopate and doctorate."

Thirty-ninth Rose

112. A rector of a parish in Denmark often recounted, to the greatest glory of God and with great joy in his soul, that he had seen the same fruits of devotion to the Rosary in his parish that the bishop had seen in his diocese. "I had," he said, "preached on every compelling and fruitful subject, without effect; I saw no amendment in my parish; finally, I made a resolution to preach the holy Rosary, I explained its excellence and its practice, and I protest that after introducing my people to this devotion, I saw an evident change in six months. So much is it true that this divine prayer has an entirely divine unction to touch hearts and to inspire in them the horror of sin and the love of virtue." The Blessed Virgin said one day to Blessed Alan: "Just as God chose Angelic Salutation for the Incarnation of His Word and the Redemption of men, so, those who desire to reform the morals of peoples and to regenerate them in Jesus Christ must honor and greet me with that same salutation. I am," she added, "the way by which God came to men, and it is necessary that, after Jesus Christ, they obtain grace and virtues through my mediation."

113. For myself, who write, I have learned, by my own experience, the strength of this prayer for converting the most hardened hearts. I have found those upon whom all the most terrible truths preached in a mission had made no impression and who, having, by my counsel, taken up the practice of reciting the Rosary every day, converted and gave themselves entirely to God. I have seen an infinite difference between the morals of the peoples of the parishes where I had conducted missions, because some, having abandoned the practice of the chaplet and the Rosary, had fallen back into their sins; and others, having preserved it, had preserved themselves in the grace of God and were increasing every day in virtue.

Fortieth Rose

114. Blessed Alan de la Roche, Father Jean Dumont, Father Thomas, the chronicles of Saint Dominic, and other authors who were often eyewitnesses, report a great number of miraculous conversions of sinners, men and women, who, for 20, 30, and 40 years, had been in the utmost disorder, that nothing could convert them, and who were converted by this marvelous devotion. I shall not report them, for fear of excessive length. I do not even wish to report those that I have seen myself, with my own eyes; I pass them over in silence for several reasons. Dear reader, through your experience, if you practice and preach this devotion, you will learn more than in any book, and you will happily experience the effect of the promises that the Blessed Virgin made to Saint Dominic, to Blessed Alan de la Roche, and to those who promote this devotion which is so pleasing to her, which instructs the peoples in the virtues of her Son and of her own, leads to mental prayer, to the imitation of Jesus Christ, and to frequent reception of the sacraments, to the solid practice of the virtues and of all kinds of good works, and to the gaining of so many great indulgences of which people know nothing because the preachers of this devotion almost never speak of them and content themselves with giving a fashionable sermon on the Rosary, which very often inspires admiration but gives no instruction.

115. Finally, I content myself with telling you, along with Blessed Alan de la Roche, that the Rosary is a source and a storehouse of all kinds of goods: 1. P. Peccatoribus praestat poenitentiam [To sinners it provides repentance]; 2. S. Sitientibus stillat satietatem [To the thirsty it pours forth satisfaction]; 3. A. Alligatis adducit absolutionem [To the bound it brings absolution]; 4. L. Lugentibus largitur laetitiam [To those who mourn it bestows joy]; 5. T. Tentatis tradit tranquillitatem [To the tempted it delivers tranquility]; 6. E. Egenis expellit egestatem [To the needy it drives away poverty]; 7. R. Religiosis reddit reformationem [To the religious it brings reform]; 8. I. Ignorantibus inducit intelligentiam [To the ignorant it brings understanding]; 9. V. Vivis vincit vastitatem [To the living it overcomes desolation]; 10. M. Mortuis mittit misericordiam per modum suffragii [To the dead it sends mercy by way of suffrage]. "Volo," said the Blessed Virgin one day to Blessed Alan, "ut psaltae mei in vita et in morte, et post mortem habeant benedictionem, gratiae plenitudinem ac libertatem, immunesque sint a caecitate, obduratione, inopia ac servitute" [I will that those who say my Psalter, in life and in death and after death, may have blessing, fullness of grace and liberty, and may be free from blindness, hardness of heart, want, and servitude]: I want the devotees of my Rosary to have the grace and the blessing of my Son during their life, at their death, and after their death, and that they be emancipated from all kinds of slavery and that they be kings, that they have the crown upon their heads, the scepter in their hands, and eternal glory. So be it.

Fifth Decade

Forty-first Rose

The holy manner of reciting the Rosary.

116. It is not properly the length, but the fervor of prayer, that pleases God and wins His heart. A single Hail Mary well said is of greater merit than one hundred poorly said. Almost all Catholic Christians recite the Rosary, the chaplet, or at least a few decades of Hail Mary. Why then are there so few who amend themselves from their sins and advance in virtue, if not because they do not perform these prayers as they should?

117. Let us therefore see the manner in which they must be recited to please God and to become more holy. Firstly, it is necessary that the person reciting the holy Rosary be in a state of grace, or at least resolved to turn away from sin, because all theology teaches us that good works and prayers performed in mortal sin are dead works, which can be neither pleasing to God nor merit eternal life; it is in this sense that it is written: "Non est speciosa laus in ore peccatoris" [Praise is not beautiful in the mouth of a sinner] (Sir 15:9). The angel's praise and salutation, and even the prayer of Jesus Christ, is not pleasing to God when it comes from the mouth of an impenitent sinner: "Populus hic labiis me honorat, cor autem eorum longe est a me" [This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me] (Mk 7:6). These persons who enroll themselves in my confraternities, (says Jesus Christ), who recite every day the chaplet or the Rosary, without any contrition for their sins, honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. [2.] I said: "or at least in the resolution to exit from sin," 1. because if it were absolutely necessary to be in God's grace to perform prayers that might be pleasing to Him, it would follow that those who are in mortal sin should not pray at all, even though they have more need of it than the just, which is an error condemned by the Church; and, thus, one should never advise a sinner to say his chaplet or his Rosary because it would be useless to him; 2. because, if with the will to remain in sin, and without any intention of leaving it, one were to enroll in a confraternity of the Blessed Virgin, or were to recite the chaplet, the Rosary, or some other prayer, one would become one of the number of false devotees of the Blessed Virgin, and presumptuous and impenitent devotees, who, under the mantle of the Blessed Virgin, with the scapular on their body or the Rosary in their hand, cry: "Blessed Virgin, Good Virgin, Hail Mary," and yet cruelly crucify and tear apart Jesus Christ by their sins and fall unfortunately, from the midst of the holiest confraternities of the Blessed Virgin, into the midst of the flames of hell.

118. We recommend the holy Rosary to everyone: to the just, to persevere and grow in God's grace, and to sinners, that they may turn away from their sins. But God forbid that we should exhort a sinner to make of the mantle of the protection of the Blessed Virgin a mantle of damnation to veil his crimes, and to change the Rosary, which is a remedy for all evils, into a deadly and fatal poison. Corruptio optimi pessima [The corruption of the best is the worst]. One must be an angel in purity, says the learned Hugh, Cardinal, to approach the Blessed Virgin and recite the Angelic Salutation. One day she showed an unchaste man, who recited the holy Rosary faithfully every day, beautiful fruits in a vessel soiled with filth; he was horrified by it, and she said to him: "This is how you serve me; you present me with beautiful roses in a dirty and corrupt vessel. Judge whether I can find them pleasing."

Forty-second Rose

119. It is not sufficient, to pray well, to express our requests by the most excellent of all forms of prayer, which is the Rosary, but it is also necessary to bring great attention to it; for God listens rather to the voice of the heart than to that of the mouth. To pray to God with voluntary distractions would be a great irreverence, which would render our Rosaries unfruitful and fill us with sins. How dare one ask God to listen to us, if we do not listen to ourselves, and if, while we are praying to this formidable Majesty who makes everything tremble, we voluntarily stop to chase after a butterfly? This is to distance oneself from the blessing of this great Lord and to change it into the curse brought against those who perform the work of God negligently: Maledictus qui facit opus Dei negligenter [Cursed is he who does the work of God negligently] (Jr 48:10).

120. In truth, you cannot recite your Rosary without having some involuntary distractions; it is even very difficult to say an Ave Maria without your ever-restless imagination taking something away from your attention; but you can recite it without voluntary distractions, and you must employ all kinds of means to diminish the involuntary ones and to fix your imagination. To this end, place yourself in the presence of God; believe that God and His holy Mother are watching you, that your good Angel at your right hand takes your Ave Maria as so many roses, if they are well said, to make a crown for Jesus and Mary, and that, on the contrary, the demon is at your left and prowls around you, to devour your Ave Maria and mark them in his book of death, if they are not said with attention, devotion, and modesty; above all, do not fail to make the offerings of the decades in honor of the mysteries, and to represent, in your imagination, Our Lord and His holy Mother in the mystery you are honoring.

121. It is read in the life of the Blessed Herman, of the Order of Premonstratensians, that when he said the Rosary with attention and devotion, meditating upon the mysteries, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him all radiant with light, with a ravishing beauty and majesty. But afterward, his devotion having cooled and reciting his Rosary only in haste and without attention, she appeared to him with her face all wrinkled, sad, and unpleasant. Herman, astonished by such a change, was told by the Blessed Virgin: "I appear before your eyes as I am presently in your soul, because you treat me no longer as anything but a vile and contemptible person. What has become of the time when you greeted me with respect and attention, meditating upon my mysteries and admiring my greatness?"

Forty-third Rose

122. Just as there is no prayer more meritorious to the soul and more glorious to Jesus and Mary than the Rosary well said, there is none also that is more difficult to say well and in which it is more difficult to persevere, particularly because of the distractions that come so naturally in the very frequent repetition of the same prayer. When one says the Office of the Blessed Virgin, or the seven psalms, or some other prayers besides the chaplet or the Rosary, the change or the diversity of the terms with which these prayers are composed holds the imagination and refreshes the spirit, and consequently gives ease to the soul in reciting them well. But in the Rosary, as one always has the same Our Father and Hail Mary to say, and the same form to maintain, it is very difficult that one does not become bored, does not fall asleep, and does not abandon it to take up other prayers that offer more variety and are less tedious. This is what makes it necessary to have infinitely more devotion to persevere in the recitation of the holy Rosary than in any other prayer, even if it were the Psalter of David.

123. That which increases this difficulty is our imagination, which is so flighty that it is scarcely at rest for a single moment, and the malice of the demon, so tireless in distracting us and preventing us from praying. What does this evil spirit not do against us, while we are saying our Rosary against him? He increases our natural languor and negligence. Before we begin our prayer, he increases our weariness, our distractions, and our feelings of oppression; while we pray it, he overwhelms us on every side, and he will hiss after we have said it with much hardship and distraction: "You have said nothing of value; your chaplet, your Rosary, is worth nothing; you would do much better to work and attend to your business; you are wasting your time reciting so many vocal prayers without attention; half an hour of meditation or good reading would be much better. Tomorrow, when you are less sleepy, you shall pray with more attention; leave the rest of your Rosary until tomorrow." Thus, the devil, through his artifices, often causes the Rosary to be abandoned entirely or in part, or causes one to change it or to delay it.

124. Do not believe him, dear confrere of the Rosary, and take courage, although during your entire Rosary your imagination may have been filled only with wandering images and thoughts that you attempted to drive away as best you could, when you became aware of them. Your Rosary is all the better because it is more meritorious; it is all the more meritorious because it is difficult; it is all the more difficult because it is naturally less pleasant to the soul and is more filled with miserable little flies and ants, which, doing nothing but running to and fro in the imagination despite the will, do not give the soul time to taste what it says and to rest in peace.

125. If you must fight throughout your entire Rosary against the distractions that come to you, fight valiantly with weapons in hand, that is to say, by continuing your Rosary, even if without any taste or sensible consolation: it is a terrible combat, but salutary to the faithful soul. If you lay down your weapons, that is to say, if you abandon your Rosary, you are defeated, and then, the devil, as the victor of your firmness, will leave you in peace and will reproach you on the day of judgment for your pusillanimity and infidelity. "Qui fidelis est in minimo et in majori fidelis erit" (Lk 16:10): "He who is faithful in the smallest things will also be faithful in the greatest." He who is faithful in rejecting the smallest distractions at the slightest part of his prayers will also be faithful in the greatest. Nothing is so sure, since the Holy Spirit has said it. Courage, then, good servant and faithful handmaid to Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin, who have taken the resolution to say your Rosary every day. May the multitude of flies (I thus call the distractions that wage war against you while you pray) not be capable of making you cowardly abandon the company of Jesus and Mary, in which you are by saying your Rosary. I shall set forth hereafter means to diminish distractions.

Forty-fourth Rose

126. After having invoked the Holy Spirit, in order to properly recite your Rosary, place yourself for a moment in the presence of God and make the offerings of the decades, as you will see hereafter. Before beginning the decade, pause for a moment, more or less, according to your leisure, to consider the mystery that you are celebrating by the decade, and always ask, through this mystery and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, one of the virtues that shine most brightly in this mystery or of which you will have the greatest need. Take especially care to avoid the two ordinary faults committed by almost all those who say the chaplet or the Rosary: The first is to have no intention when saying their chaplet, so much so that, if you were to ask them why they are saying their chaplet, they would be unable to answer you. Therefore, always have in view, while reciting your Rosary, some grace to ask for, some virtue to imitate, or some sin to destroy. The second fault ordinarily committed when reciting the holy Rosary is to have no other intention upon beginning it than to have it finished quickly. This comes from viewing the Rosary as an onerous thing, which weighs very heavily upon the shoulders when it has not been said; especially when one has made it a principle of conscience, or when one has received it as a penance and almost against one's will.

127. It is a pity to see how most people say their chaplet or their Rosary. They say it with an astonishing haste and even swallow part of the words. One would not wish to pay a compliment in such a ridiculous manner to the last of men, and yet one believes that Jesus and Mary will be honored by it!... After this, is it any wonder if the holiest prayers of the Christian religion remain almost without any fruit, and if, after one thousand and ten thousand Rosaries recited, one is no holier? Stop, dear confrere of the Rosary, your natural haste, while reciting your Rosary, and make some pauses in the middle of the Our Father and the Hail Mary, and a smaller one after the words of the Our Father and the Hail Mary which I have marked with a cross below. Our Father who art in heaven + hallowed be thy name + thy kingdom come + thy will be done + on earth as it is in heaven +. Give us this day + our daily bread + and forgive us our offenses + as we forgive those who have offended us + and lead us not into temptation + but deliver us from evil. Amen +. Hail Mary, full of grace + the Lord is with you + blessed are you among women + and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus +. Holy Mary, Mother of God + pray for us poor sinners, now + and at the hour of our death. Amen +. You will at first find it difficult to make these pauses, due to the bad habit you have of praying in haste; but even a decade said thus deliberately will be more meritorious to you than thousands of Rosaries recited in haste, without reflecting or pausing.

128. Blessed Alan de la Roche and other authors, among others Bellarmine, recount that a good priest advised three penitents whom he had, who were all three sisters, to devoutly recite the Rosary every day for one year, without fail, to form a beautiful garment of glory for the Blessed Virgin, and that this was a secret he had received from heaven. All three did so for one year. On the evening of the Purification, when they were in bed, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by Saint Catherine and Saint Agnes, entered their room, clothed in a garment all shining with light, upon which was written on all sides in golden letters: Ave Maria gratia plena [Hail Mary, full of grace]. The Queen of Heaven approached the bed of the eldest sister and said to her: "I greet you, my daughter, who have so often and so well greeted me. I come to thank you for the beautiful garments you have made for me." The two holy virgins who accompanied her also thanked her, and all three disappeared. An hour later, the Blessed Virgin, with her two companions, came into the room again, dressed in a green garment, but without gold or light; she approached the bed of the second sister and thanked her for that garment she had made her by saying her Rosary. But as this second sister had seen the Blessed Virgin appear to her elder sister with much more brilliance, she asked her the reason. "It is," Mary replied, "that she has made me more beautiful garments, by saying her Rosary better than you." About an hour later, the Blessed Virgin appeared a third time to the youngest of the sisters, dressed in a dirty and torn rag, and said to her: "O daughter, you have clothed me thus; I thank you for it." The young girl, covered in confusion, cried out: "And what! My Mistress, I have clothed you so poorly, I ask your pardon. I ask you for time to make a more beautiful garment, by saying my Rosary better." The vision having disappeared, and the youngest sister, being very distressed, having told their confessor all that had happened, he encouraged them to say their Rosary for one year with more perfection than ever, which they did. At the end of the year, on the very day of the Purification, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied again by Saint Catherine and Saint Agnes, who were wearing crowns, and dressed in a marvelous garment, appeared to them in the evening and said to them: "Be assured, my daughters, of the kingdom of heaven; you shall enter it tomorrow with great joy." To which all three replied: "Our heart is prepared, our dear Mistress, our heart is prepared." The vision disappeared. That same night they fell ill; they sent for their confessor, received the last sacraments, and thanked their confessor for the holy practice he had taught them. After Compline, the Blessed Virgin appeared to them again, accompanied by a great number of virgins, and caused the three sisters to be clothed in white robes; then all three departed while the angels sang: "Come, brides of Jesus Christ, receive the crowns that are prepared for you in eternity." Learn several truths from this story:

1. how important it is to have good directors who inspire holy practices of piety and particularly the holy Rosary;

2. how important it is to recite the Rosary with attention and devotion;

3. how benign and merciful the Blessed Virgin is toward those who repent of the past and propose to do better;

4. how liberal she is in rewarding, during life, at death, and in eternity, the small services rendered to her with fidelity.

Forty-fifth Rose

129. I add that the holy Rosary must be recited with modesty, that is to say, as much as one can, on one's knees, with hands joined, the Rosary in hand. If, however, one is ill, one may say it in bed; if one is traveling, one may say it while walking; if, due to certain infirmities, one cannot be on one's knees, one may say it standing or sitting. One can even recite it while working, when one cannot leave one's work to fulfill the duties of one's profession, for manual labor is not always contrary to vocal prayer. I confess that our soul, being limited in its operation, is less attentive to the operations of the mind, such as prayer, when it is attentive to the work of the hands; nevertheless, in cases of necessity, this prayer has its value before the Blessed Virgin, who rewards good will more than outward action.

130. I advise you to divide your Rosary into three chaplets or three different times of the day; it is better to divide it this way than to say it all at once. If you cannot find enough time to say one third in succession, say one decade here and one decade there; you can ensure, despite all your occupations and affairs, that you have said your entire Rosary before going to bed. In this, imitate the fidelity of Saint Francis de Sales. Being very tired one evening from the visits he had made during the day, and it being near midnight, he remembered that he had a few decades of his Rosary left to say; he knelt down and recited them before retiring to bed, despite whatever his chaplain, seeing him tired, might have said to him to persuade him to postpone the remainder of his prayers until the next day. Imitate also the fidelity, modesty, and devotion of this holy religious man, as spoken of in the chronicles of Saint Francis, who was accustomed, before dinner, to reciting a chaplet with much attention and modesty... I have spoken of this previously.

Forty-sixth Rose

131. Of all the ways of reciting the holy Rosary, the most glorious to God, the most salutary to the soul, and the most terrible to the devil, is to psalmodize it or recite it publicly in two choirs. God loves assemblies. All the angels and the blessed, assembled in heaven, incessantly sing His praises there. The just, assembled in many communities upon the earth, pray in common there day and night. Our Lord expressly advised this practice to His apostles and disciples, and promised that whenever at least two or three were gathered in His name, He would be found in the midst of those assembled to pray in His name and recite His very prayer. What happiness to have Jesus Christ in one's company! To possess Him, one only needs to assemble to say the chaplet. This is the reason why the first Christians assembled so often to pray together, despite the persecutions of the emperors, who forbade them assemblies. They preferred to expose themselves to death rather than fail to assemble to have the company of Jesus Christ.

132. This manner of praying is more salutary to the soul: 1. because the mind is ordinarily more attentive in a public prayer than in a private one; 2. when one prays in common, the prayers of each individual become common to the whole assembly and all together form but a single prayer, so that, if any individual does not pray so well, another in the assembly who prays better supplies for their deficiency. The strong supports the weak, the fervent inflames the lukewarm, the rich enriches the poor, the bad passes among the good. How does one sell a measure of tares? One only needs to mix it with four or five bushels of good wheat; the whole is sold. 3. A person who recites their chaplet all alone has only the merit of one chaplet; but if they say it with thirty persons, they have the merit of thirty chaplets. These are the laws of public prayer. What gain! What advantage! 4. Urban VIII, being very satisfied with the devotion of the holy Rosary which was recited in two choirs in several places in Rome, particularly at the convent of the Minerva, granted one hundred days of indulgences every time it would be recited in two choirs: Toties quoties [as often as]. These are the terms of his brief which begins: Ad perpetuam rei memoriam [For the perpetual memory of the matter], in the year 1626. Thus, every time the chaplet is said in common, one gains one hundred days of indulgences. 5. It is because this public prayer is more powerful for appeasing the anger of God and attracting His mercy than private prayer, and the Church, led by the Holy Spirit, has used it in all times of calamity and public misery. Pope Gregory XIII declares, by his bull, that it must be piously believed that the public prayers and processions of the brethren of the holy Rosary contributed greatly to obtaining from God the great victory which the Christians won at the Gulf of Lepanto over the naval army of the Turks, on the first Sunday of October in 1571.

133. Louis the Just, of happy memory, besieging La Rochelle, where the heretics in revolt held their forts, wrote to the Queen his mother to have public prayers made for the prosperity of his arms. The queen resolved to have the Rosary recited publicly in the church of the Dominican Friars in the suburb of Saint-Honoré in Paris, which was executed through the care of Monseigneur the Archbishop. This devotion began on May 20, 1628. The queen mother and the reigning queen went there, along with Monseigneur the Duke of Orléans, the Cardinals de la Rochefoucault and de Bérulle, several prelates, the entire court, and an innumerable crowd of people. Monseigneur the Archbishop read aloud the meditations on the mysteries of the Rosary; he then began the Our Father and the Hail Mary of each decade, and the religious, along with the assistants, responded; after the chaplet, the image of the Blessed Virgin was carried in procession, singing her litanies. This devotion continued every Saturday with admirable fervor and an evident blessing from heaven, for the king triumphed over the English at the Island of Ré and entered La Rochelle victoriously on All Saints' Day of that same year. We see by this what the strength of public prayer is.

134. Finally, the Rosary recited in common is much more terrible to the demon, since, by this means, an army is formed to attack him. He sometimes triumphs very easily over the prayer of an individual, but if it is united to that of others, he can only overcome it with difficulty. It is easy to break a single switch; but if you unite it with several others and make a bundle, it can no longer be broken. "Vis unita fit fortior" [Strength united becomes stronger]. Soldiers assemble in an army to fight their enemies; the wicked often assemble to engage in their debaucheries and their dances; even demons assemble to destroy us; why then shall Christians not assemble to have the company of Jesus Christ, to appease the anger of God, to attract His grace and His mercy, and to conquer and overthrow the demons more powerfully? Dear confrere of the Rosary, if you reside in the city or in the countryside, near the church of the parish or a chapel, go there at least every evening, with permission from the rector of the said parish, and there, in the company of all those who wish to come and recite the chaplet in two choirs; do the same in your house or that of a private individual in the village, if you do not have the convenience of the church or the chapel.

135. It is a holy practice that God, through His mercy, has established in the places where I have conducted missions, to preserve and increase the fruit, and to prevent sin. In these towns and villages, before the chaplet was established there, one saw only dances, debaucheries, dissolutions, immodesties, oaths, quarrels, and divisions; one heard only indecent songs and words with indecent double meanings. Now, one hears only the singing of hymns and the psalmodizing of the Our Father and the Hail Mary; one sees only holy companies of twenty, thirty, one hundred persons or more, who sing the praises of God like religious persons at a set hour. There are even places where the Rosary is recited in common every day, at three times of the day. What a blessing from heaven! As there are the reprobate everywhere, do not doubt that in the places where you reside, there may be some wicked persons who will neglect to come to the chaplet, who may even mock it and do all they can, through their bad words and their bad examples, to prevent you from continuing this holy exercise; but hold fast. As these unfortunate souls must be forever separated from God and His paradise, in hell, they must, here below, beforehand, separate themselves from the company of Jesus Christ and of His servants and handmaidens.

Forty-seventh Rose

136. Separate yourselves from the wicked, O people of God, O predestined souls. To escape and save yourselves from among those who are damned through impiety, lack of devotion, or idleness, waste no time: recite the holy Rosary often with faith, with humility, with confidence, and with perseverance. [Firstly] whoever seriously contemplates Jesus Christ's command that we pray always, following the example He has given us, and the infinite need we have for prayer because of our darkness, ignorance, and weaknesses, and because of the multitude of our enemies, certainly, that person will not be content with reciting the Rosary once a year, as the confraternity of the perpetual Rosary requires, nor every week, as the ordinary Rosary prescribes, but will recite it every day, without fail, as the daily Rosary requires, although he has no other obligation than that of his salvation. Oportet: it is necessary, it is necessary semper orare, to always pray, and non deficere, not to cease praying.

137. These are the eternal words of Jesus Christ, which must be believed and practiced under pain of damnation. Explain them as you please, provided that you do not explain them "in fashion," so as to practice them only "in fashion." Jesus Christ has given us the true explanation in the examples He has left us: Exemplum dedi vobis, ut quemadmodum ego feci, ita et vos faciatis [An example I have given you, that as I have done, so you also should do] (John 13:5). Erat pernoctans in oratione Dei [He was spending the night in prayer to God] (Luke 6:12). As if the day were not enough for Him, He also employed the night for prayer. He often repeated these two words to His apostles: Vigilate et orate. Watch and pray. The flesh is weak; temptation is near and continual. If you do not always pray, you will fall into it. Apparently believing that what Our Lord was saying to them was merely advice, they interpreted these words "in a fashionable manner"; this is why they fell into temptation and into sin, even while in the company of Jesus Christ.

138. If you wish, dear brother, to live "in fashion," and to be damned "in fashion"—that is, to fall into mortal sin from time to time, and then go to confession, avoiding gross and glaring sins and keeping the honest ones—it is not necessary that you perform so many prayers or say so many Rosaries; a small prayer in the morning and evening, a few chaplets given as penance, a few decades of Hail Mary on a chaplet "in the cavalier style," whenever fancy takes you, is no more than is needed to live as an honest man. If you did even less, you would approach libertinism; if you do more, you would approach eccentricity and bigotry.

139. But if, like a true Christian who wants to be saved in truth and walk in the footsteps of the saints, you want to not fall into mortal sin at all, to break all the snares and extinguish all the flaming arrows of the devil, you must always pray as Jesus Christ has taught and commanded. Thus, you must at the very least say your Rosary every day or some equivalent prayers. I say "at the very least" again, because that will be all you can do with your Rosary, every day, to avoid all mortal sins and to conquer all temptations, in the midst of the torrents of iniquity of the world, which often sweep away even the most assured; in the midst of the thick darkness that often blinds even the most enlightened; in the midst of the evil spirits who, being more experienced than ever and having less time to tempt, tempt with greater finesse and success. Oh! what a marvel of the grace of the holy Rosary, if you escape the world, the devil, and the flesh, and escape sin and are saved in heaven!

140. If you do not want to believe what I am advancing, believe your own experience. I ask you: when you performed only a few prayers like those done in the world, and in the manner in which they are ordinarily done, were you able to prevent yourself from committing heavy faults and grievous sins, which appeared light to you only because of your blindness? Open your eyes, then; and to live and die as a saint without sin, or at least without mortal sin, pray always; recite your Rosary every day, as all the brothers used to do in the establishment of the confraternity (see at the end of this book the proof of what I am advancing). The Blessed Virgin, giving it to Saint Dominic, commanded him to say it and have it said every day; thus, the saint would admit no one into the confraternity who was not in the resolution to say it every day. If, at present, only the recitation of one Rosary per week is required in the ordinary Rosary confraternity, it is because fervor has slowed, and charity has cooled. One gets what one can from a bad payer. (The French witnesses print prieur, prior, evidently for payeur, payer.) Non fuit ab initio sic. Three things must be noted here.

141. The first, that if you wish to enroll yourself in the confraternity of the daily Rosary and participate in the prayers and merits of those who are there, it is not enough to be enrolled in the confraternity of the ordinary Rosary, or to merely take the resolution to recite one's Rosary every day. Furthermore, one must give one's name to those who have the power to enroll. It is good to confess and receive Communion for this intention; the reason for this is that the ordinary Rosary does not contain the daily one, but the daily Rosary contains the ordinary one. The second thing to note is that, strictly speaking, there is absolutely no sin, even a venial one, in failing to recite the Rosary every day, nor every week, nor every year. The third is that when illness, or a legitimate obedience, or necessity, or involuntary forgetfulness is the cause that you cannot recite your Rosary, you do not fail to receive the merit of it, nor do you lose participation in the Rosaries of the other brothers; thus, it is not absolutely necessary that on the following day you recite two Rosaries to make up for one you missed through no fault of your own, as I assume. If, however, illness permits you to recite only a part of your Rosary, you must recite it. Beati qui stant coram te semper. [Blessed are they who always stand before You]. Beati qui habitant in domo tua, Domine, in saecula saeculorum laudabunt te [Blessed are they who dwell in Your house, O Lord, forever]. Blessed, Lord Jesus, are the confreres of the daily Rosary who, every day, are around and within Your little house of Nazareth, around Your cross on Calvary, and around Your throne in the heavens, to meditate upon and contemplate Your joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries. Oh! how happy they are on earth through the special graces You will communicate to them, and how blessed they will be in heaven, where they will praise You in a special way for ever and ever.

142. Secondly, the Rosary must be recited with faith, according to the words of Jesus Christ: Credite quia accipietis et fiet vobis [Believe, for you shall receive and it shall be done to you]. Believe that you will receive from God what you ask of Him, and He will answer you. He will say to you: Sicut credidisti, fiat tibi [As you have believed, may it be done to you]. Si quis indiget sapientiam, postulet a Deo; postulet autem in fide nihil haesitans (James 1:6) [If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God; but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering]: if anyone needs wisdom, let him ask it of God, with faith, without hesitating, by reciting his Rosary, and it shall be given to him.

143. Thirdly, one must pray with humility, like the publican; he was on his knees on the ground, and not with one knee in the air or on a bench like the worldly proud; he was at the bottom of the church and not in the sanctuary like the Pharisee; his eyes were cast down toward the earth, not daring to look at heaven, and not with his head lifted looking here and there like the Pharisee; he struck his breast, confessing himself a sinner and asking for pardon: Propitius esto mihi peccatori (Lk 18:13) [Be merciful to me, a sinner], and not like the Pharisee, who boasted of his good works and despised others in his prayers. Beware of the proud prayer of the Pharisee, which rendered him more hardened and more accursed; but imitate the humility of the publican in his prayer, which obtains for him the remission of his sins. Take great care not to seek after extraordinary things or to ask for or desire extraordinary knowledge, visions, revelations, or other miraculous graces that God sometimes communicated to certain saints during the recitation of their chaplet and Rosary. "Sola fides sufficit" [Faith alone suffices]: at present, faith alone suffices, since the Gospel and all devotions and practices of piety are sufficiently established. Never omit even the slightest part of your Rosary during your periods of dryness, distaste, and interior abandonment; that would be a mark of pride and infidelity; but like a brave champion of Jesus and Mary, without seeing, feeling, or tasting anything, recite your Our Father and Hail Mary in complete dryness, while contemplating the mysteries as best as you can. Do not demand children's sweets and preserves in order to eat your daily bread; but to imitate Jesus Christ more perfectly in His agony, sometimes prolong your Rosary when you feel more difficulty in reciting it: "Factus in agonia prolixius orabat" (Luke 22:43) [He prayed more extensively in His agony], so that it may be said of you what is said of Jesus Christ when He was in the agony of prayer: He prayed even longer.

144. Fourthly, pray with much confidence, which is founded upon the infinite goodness and liberality of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ. God is a fountain of living water that flows incessantly into the hearts of those who pray. Jesus Christ is the breast of the Eternal Father, full of the milk of grace and truth. The greatest desire the Eternal Father has toward us is to communicate to us the salutary waters of His grace and His mercy, and He cries out: "Omnes sitientes venite ad aquas" (Isaiah 55) [All you who thirst, come to the waters]; come drink of My waters through prayer, and when He is not prayed to, He complains that He is abandoned: "Me dereliquerunt fontem aquae vivae" (Jer 2:13; the French witness cites Jeremiah 25) [They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters]. It is to please Jesus Christ to ask Him for His graces, and it is a greater pleasure than one would give to a nursing mother, whose breasts are full, by sucking her milk. Prayer is the channel of God's grace and the teat of the breasts of Jesus Christ. If they are not sucked through prayer, as all the children of God ought to do, He complains lovingly: "Usque modo non petistis quidquam, petite et accipietis, quaerite et invenietis, pulsate et aperietur vobis" (Jn 16:24; Mt 7:7) [Until now you have asked nothing; ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you]. "Until now you have asked me nothing. Ah! Ask of Me and I will give to you, seek in Me and you will find; knock at My door and I will open it to you." Furthermore, to give us even more confidence in praying to Him, He has pledged His word: that the Eternal Father would grant us all that we would ask of Him in His name.

Forty-eighth Rose

145. But let us join to our confidence, in the fifth place, perseverance in prayer. Only he who perseveres in asking, in seeking, and in knocking shall receive, shall find, and shall enter. It is not enough to ask God for some graces for a month, a year, ten years, twenty years; one must not grow weary, and non deficere [not fail]; one must ask for them until death and be resolved either to obtain what is asked for one's salvation or to die; and even one must join death with perseverance in prayer and confidence in God and say: Etiam si occident me, sperabo in eum [Even if He should slay me, I will hope in Him — the French witness prints occident for occiderit]; I would still hope in Him and hope to receive from Him what I ask.

146. The generosity of the great and wealthy seems to anticipate the needs of others with benefits before they are even asked for; but God, on the contrary, shows His magnificence by making one search and ask for a long time for the graces He wishes to grant, and the more precious the grace He wishes to bestow, the longer He delays granting it: 1. So that, by this means, He may increase it even further; 2. So that the person who receives it may hold it in great esteem; 3. So that they may take care not to lose it after having received it; for one does not greatly esteem what one obtains in an instant and at little cost. Persevere, therefore, my dear confrere of the Rosary, in asking God through the holy Rosary for all your spiritual and bodily needs, and particularly for the divine Wisdom which is an infinite treasure: Thesaurus est infinitus [The treasure is infinite] (Wis 7:14), and you shall obtain it without fail, sooner or later, provided that you do not abandon it and do not lose courage in the midst of your course. Grandis enim tibi restat via [For a great way still remains to you] (1 Kings 19:7). For you still have a long journey to make, much bad weather to endure, many difficulties to overcome, many enemies to defeat, before you have stored up enough treasures for eternity—Our Fathers and Hail Marys—to purchase paradise and win the beautiful crown that awaits a faithful confrere of the Rosary. Nemo accipiat coronam tuam [Let no one take your crown]: take care that another, more faithful than you in saying his Rosary every day, does not take it from you: Coronam tuam [Your crown]: it was yours, God had prepared it for you, it was yours, you had already half won it by your well-said Rosaries, and because you stopped on so beautiful a path where you were running so well, currebatis bene [you were running well] (Gal 5:7). Another, who has outpaced you, has arrived there first; another, more diligent and more faithful, has acquired and paid, through his Rosaries and good works, that which was necessary to have this crown. Quid vos impedivit? [What hindered you?] (Gal 5:7): Who is it that has prevented you from having the crown of the holy Rosary? Alas! the enemies of the holy Rosary, who are so great in number.

147. Believe me, only the violent snatch it by force: Violenti rapiunt [The violent take it by force] (Mt 11:12). These crowns are not for those timid souls who fear the mockeries and threats of the world. These crowns are not for those lazy and idle persons, who say their Rosary only with negligence, or in haste, or as a mere formality, or at intervals, according to their whim. These crowns are not for those cowards who lose heart and lay down their arms when they see all of Hell unleashed against their Rosary. If you wish, dear confrere of the Rosary, to undertake to render service to Jesus and Mary by reciting the Rosary every day, prepare your soul for temptation: Accedens ad servitutem Dei, praepara animam tuam ad tentationem [Approaching the service of God, prepare your soul for temptation] (Sir 2:1). The heretics, the libertines, the respectable people of the world, the half-devout and false prophets, in concert with your corrupted nature and all of Hell, will wage fierce battles against you, to make you abandon this practice.

148. To protect you against attacks—not so much from declared heretics and libertines as from respectable people by worldly standards, and even from devout persons who dislike this practice—I will simply set down here a small part of what they think and say every day. Quid vult seminiverbius ille? Venite, opprimamus eum, contrarius est enim, etc. [What would this babbler say? Come, let us overwhelm him, for he is opposed to us, etc.]: "What is this great teller of chaplets and Rosaries saying? What is he always muttering? What idleness! He does nothing but tell his beads; he would do much better to work than waste his time on so much bigotry. Indeed! One need only say the Rosary, and roasted larks will fall from the sky; the Rosary will bring us plenty of food for dinner. The good Lord says: Help yourself, and I will help you. Why go about bothering oneself with so many prayers? Brevis oratio penetrat coelos [A short prayer penetrates the heavens]; one well-said Our Father and one Hail Mary are sufficient. The good Lord has not commanded us the chaplet nor the Rosary; that is good, it is a good thing when one has the time, but one can still be saved without it. How many saints never said it! There are people who judge everyone by their own standard, there are indiscreet people who take everything to the extreme, there are scrupulous people who find sin where there is none; they say that all those who do not say their Rosary will be damned. Saying one's chaplet, that is good for weak, ignorant women who do not know how to read. Saying one's Rosary? Is it not better to say the Office of the Blessed Virgin or to recite the seven psalms? Is there anything so beautiful as those psalms which the Holy Spirit dictated? You undertake to say your Rosary every day; all this is but a flash in the pan, it will not last long; is it not better to undertake less and be more faithful to it? Go, my dear friend, believe me, say your prayers properly morning and evening and work for God during the day; God does not ask you more. If you did not have to earn your living, that would be another matter: you might undertake to say your Rosary. You can say it at leisure on Sundays and feast days, but not on working days; you must work. What! To carry such an enormous old woman's chaplet! I have seen one of a single decade — it is worth as much as one of fifteen decades. What! To carry the chaplet on the belt, what bigotry; I advise you to put it around your neck, as the Spaniards do; they are great tellers of beads, they carry a great chaplet in one hand, while they have a dagger in the other to strike a treacherous blow. Away with these outward devotions, true devotion is in the heart, etc.

149. Many learned people and great doctors, but freethinking and proud spirits, will hardly recommend the holy Rosary to you; they will rather lead you to recite the seven penitential psalms or some other prayers instead of that one. If any good confessor has given you in penance a Rosary to say for fifteen days or a month, you need only go to confession to one of these gentlemen, so that your penance may be changed for some other prayers, fasts, masses, or alms. If you consult even some contemplative persons in the world, since they do not know by their experience the excellence of the Rosary, not only will they not advise it to anyone, but they will turn others away from it to apply themselves to contemplation, as if the Rosary and contemplation were incompatible, as if so many saints who were devoted to the Rosary had not been in the most sublime contemplation. Your enemies within will attack you all the more cruelly because they are so closely united to you. I mean the powers of your soul and the senses of your body, the distractions of the mind, the vexations of the will, the dryness of the heart, the afflictions and illnesses of the body; all this, in concert with the evil spirits that will mingle with it, will cry out to you: Abandon your Rosary, it is what gives you a headache; abandon your Rosary, there is no obligation under pain of sin; say at least only a part of it, your sufferings are a sign that God does not want you to say it, you will say it tomorrow when you are better disposed, etc.

150. Finally, my dear brother, the daily Rosary has so many enemies that I regard as one of the most remarkable favors of God to have the grace to persevere in it until death. Persevere in it and you will have the admirable crown which is prepared in the heavens for your faithfulness: Esto fidelis usque ad mortem et dabo tibi coronam [Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown] (Rev 2:10).

Forty-ninth Rose

151. In order that, in reciting your Rosary, you may gain the indulgences granted to the Confraternities of the Holy Rosary, it is appropriate to make a few remarks on indulgences. An indulgence, in general, is a remission or relaxation of the temporal punishments due for actual sins, through the application of the superabundant satisfactions of Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of all the saints, which are contained in the treasures of the Church. A plenary indulgence is a remission of all punishments due to sin; a non-plenary one, such as of 100 or 1000 [years], more or less, is the remission of as many punishments as one could have expiated during one hundred or one thousand years, if one had received for as long a period satisfactions in proportion to the penances prescribed by the ancient canons of the Church. Now, these canons ordained for a single mortal sin seven, and sometimes ten and fifteen years of penance, so that a person who had committed twenty mortal sins would have to perform at least seven times twenty years of penance [the French witnesses print sept, vingt], and so on.

152. For members of the Rosary confraternity to gain these indulgences, it is necessary: first, that they be truly penitent, have gone to confession, and have received Communion, as the bulls granting the indulgences state; second, that they have no affection for any venial sin, because if the affection for sin remains, the guilt remains, and if the guilt remains, the punishment is not at all remitted; third, it is necessary that they perform the prayers and other good works specified by the bull; and if, according to the intention of the Popes, one can gain a non-plenary indulgence, for example of 100 years, without gaining the plenary, it is not always necessary to have gone to confession and received Communion in order to gain them, as is the case with the indulgences attached to the recitation of the chaplet and Rosary, to processions, to blessed Rosaries, etc. Do not neglect these indulgences.

153. Flammin and a great number of authors report that a young lady of good standing named Alexandra (the French witnesses print Alexandre), having been miraculously converted and enrolled in the Confraternity of the Rosary by Saint Dominic, appeared to him after her death and told him that she was condemned to be seven hundred years in Purgatory for several sins she had committed and caused others to commit through her worldly vanities, asking him to relieve her and to have her aided by the prayers of the members of the Rosary confraternity, which he did. Fifteen days later, she appeared to Saint Dominic, more brilliant than a sun, having been delivered so promptly by the prayers that the members of the Rosary confraternity had offered for her. She also warned the saint that she came on behalf of the souls in Purgatory, to exhort him to continue preaching the Rosary and to ensure that their relatives share their Rosaries with them, for which they would reward them abundantly once they had entered into glory.

154. In order to facilitate your practice of the Holy Rosary, here are several methods for reciting it devoutly, with the meditation on the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries of Jesus and Mary. Choose the one that suits you best: you may even form another particular method for yourself, as many holy people have done.

Fiftieth Rose

Montfort's five methods for praying the holy Rosary.

First Method: With the Offering of Each Decade

A holy method of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort for reciting the Rosary and drawing down upon oneself the grace of the mysteries of the life, the passion, and the glory of Jesus and Mary.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your Love.

V. Send forth Your Holy Spirit, Lord, and all things shall be created.

R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray. O God, who have instructed the hearts of Your faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that we may taste the sweetness of good under the action of that same Spirit, and that we may be filled with His consolations. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ. So be it.

I unite myself to all the saints who are in Heaven, to all the just who are upon the earth; I unite myself to You, my Jesus, to worthily praise Your holy Mother and to praise You in her and through her. I renounce all distractions that may come to me during this chaplet.

We offer to You, Blessed Virgin, this Creed to honor your Faith upon the earth and to ask for a share in this same Faith.

We offer to You this Our Father, Lord, to adore You in Your unity, and to recognize You as the first principle and the end of all things.

We offer to You, Most Holy Trinity, these three Hail Marys to thank You for all the graces You have bestowed upon Mary, and for all the graces You have bestowed upon us through her intercession.

Joyful Mysteries (Monday and Thursday)

First decade. We offer You this first decade, Lord Jesus, in honor of the mystery of Your Incarnation, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, a profound humility of heart. 1 Our Father (large bead), 10 Hail Marys (small beads), Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Incarnation, descend into my soul and make it truly humble.

Second decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this second decade in honor of the Visitation of Your holy Mother to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Mary, a perfect charity toward our neighbor. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Visitation, descend into my soul and make it truly charitable.

Third decade. We offer You this third decade, Infant Jesus, in honor of Your holy Nativity, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, detachment from the goods of the world, and the love of poverty and the poor. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Nativity, descend into my soul and make it poor in spirit.

Fourth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fourth decade in honor of Your Presentation in the temple by the hands of Mary, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, the gift of wisdom and purity of heart and body. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Purification, descend into my soul and make it truly wise and pure.

Fifth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fifth decade in honor of Mary's finding of You among the doctors in the Temple, after she had lost You, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, our conversion and that of sinners, heretics, schismatics, and idolaters. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Finding of Jesus in the Temple, descend into my soul and convert it truly.

Sorrowful Mysteries (Tuesday and Friday)

Sixth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this sixth decade in honor of Your mortal Agony in the Garden of Olives, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, a perfect contrition of our sins and a perfect conformity to Your holy will. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the Agony of Jesus, descend into my soul and make it truly contrite and conformed to the will of God.

Seventh decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this seventh decade in honor of Your bloody Flagellation, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, a perfect mortification of our senses. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the Flagellation of Jesus, descend into my soul and make it truly self-denying.

Eighth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this eighth decade in honor of Your cruel Crowning with Thorns, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, a great contempt for the world. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Crowning with Thorns of Jesus, descend into my soul and make it truly opposed to the spirit of the world.

Ninth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this ninth decade in honor of Your Carrying of the Cross, and we ask You through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, great patience in carrying our cross after You all the days of our lives. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Carrying of the Cross, descend into my soul and make it truly patient.

Tenth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this tenth decade in honor of Your Crucifixion on Calvary, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, a great horror of sin, the love of the Cross, and a good death for ourselves and for those who are now in agony. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Death and Passion of Jesus Christ, descend into my soul and make it truly holy.

Glorious Mysteries (Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday)

Eleventh decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this eleventh decade in honor of Your triumphant Resurrection, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, a lively faith. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the Resurrection, descend into my soul and make it truly faithful.

Twelfth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this twelfth decade in honor of Your glorious Ascension, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Your holy Mother, a firm hope and a great desire for Paradise. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the mystery of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, descend into my soul and make it truly heavenly.

Thirteenth decade. We offer You, Holy Spirit, this thirteenth decade in honor of the mystery of Pentecost, and we ask You, through this mystery and the intercession of Mary, Your faithful Spouse, divine wisdom to know, savor, and practice the truth, and to share it with everyone throughout the world. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of Pentecost, descend into my soul and make it truly wise according to God.

Fourteenth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fourteenth decade in honor of the Immaculate Conception and of the bodily Assumption of Your holy Mother into Heaven, and we ask You, through these two mysteries and her intercession, a true devotion toward her, to live well and to die well. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the Immaculate Conception and of the Assumption of Mary, descend into my soul and make it truly devoted to Mary.

Fifteenth decade. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fifteenth and final decade in honor of the Crowning of glory of Your holy Mother in the heavens, and we ask You, through this mystery and her intercession, perseverance and growth in virtue until death and the eternal crown which is prepared for us. 1 Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory Be.

Grace of the Crowning of Mary, descend into my soul and make it truly persevering until the end.

Final Prayer.

We pray to You, Lord Jesus, by the fifteen mysteries of Your life, death, Passion, and glory, and the merits of Your holy Mother, to convert sinners, to aid the dying, to deliver the souls in purgatory, and to give us all Your grace to live well and die well, and Your glory to see You face to face and to love You throughout eternity. Amen.

Second, Shorter Method for Saying the Rosary

Add to each Hail Mary of each decade a small word to remind us of the mystery celebrated by that decade; and the word must be added after Jesus, in the middle of the Hail Mary:

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among all women and Jesus [word], the fruit of your womb is blessed," ...

To the 1st decade, ... and Jesus incarnate, the fruit of your womb is blessed, ... To the 2nd, Jesus sanctifying... To the 3rd, Jesus, poor Child... To the 4th, Jesus sacrificed... To the 5th, Jesus, Holy of Holies... To the 6th, Jesus agonizing... To the 7th, Jesus scourged... To the 8th, Jesus crowned with thorns... To the 9th, Jesus carrying His cross... To the 10th, Jesus crucified... To the 11th, Jesus risen... To the 12th, Jesus ascending into heaven... To the 13th, Jesus, filling you with the Holy Spirit... To the 14th, Jesus, raising you to life... To the 15th, Jesus, crowning you...

[Note of the French transcriber: the third method is not given here, being proper to the religious congregation of the Daughters of Wisdom. It is supplied in full below, from the Montfortian edition of the Rosary methods.]

Third Method: For the Use of the Daughters of Wisdom

A holy method of Monsieur de Montfort for saying the holy Rosary with fruit, for the use of the Daughters of Wisdom.

Editorial note. The complete French witness followed for the rest of the Fiftieth Rose does not print this method; it records only that Montfort composed it for the Daughters of Wisdom. The method survives in full in the Montfortian edition of the Rosary methods — "Méthodes saintes pour réciter le saint Rosaire", montfort.org, pages 4–8 — which prints it under Montfort's own name, in sequence between the second and the fourth methods, and outside that edition's own appendices. It is translated here from that witness. Montfort wrote these prayers for a community of women: the first person of the prayer for Wisdom is feminine in the French, and the closing blessing is given by the Superior.

I unite myself to all the Saints who are in Heaven, to all the Just who are upon the earth, to all the faithful souls who are in this place: I unite myself to You, my Jesus, to praise Your holy Mother worthily, and to praise You in her and through her. I renounce all the distractions that may come to me during this chaplet, which I wish to say with modesty, attention, and devotion, as if it were the last of my life. So be it. We offer You, Lord Jesus, this Creed to honor all the Mysteries of our Faith; this Our Father and the three Hail Marys, to honor the unity of Your Essence and the Trinity of Your Persons. We ask You for a lively Faith, a firm hope, and an ardent charity.

R. So be it.

I believe in God. Our Father. Hail Mary, three times.

At each Mystery, after these words, Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus, one adds a short word to recall and to honor the Mystery more particularly: for example, Jesus incarnate, Jesus sanctifying, and so on, as it is marked at each decade.

First Chaplet — Joyful Mysteries

The Incarnation.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this first decade in honor of Your Incarnation in the womb of Mary, and we ask You, through this Mystery and through her intercession, a profound humility. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. One adds: Jesus incarnate.

Graces of the Mystery of the Incarnation, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Visitation.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this second decade in honor of the Visitation of Your holy Mother to her Cousin Saint Elizabeth, and of the sanctification of Saint John the Baptist, and we ask You, through this Mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, charity toward our neighbor. R. So be it. Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus sanctifying.

Graces of the mystery of the Visitation, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Birth of Jesus.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this third decade in honor of Your Nativity in the Stable of Bethlehem, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, detachment from the goods of the world, contempt for riches, and the love of poverty. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus newly born.

Graces of the mystery of the Birth of Jesus, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Presentation in the Temple.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fourth decade in honor of Your Presentation in the Temple and of the purification of Mary; and we ask You, through this mystery and through her intercession, a great purity of body and of mind. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus sacrificed.

Graces of the mystery of the Purification, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Finding of Jesus.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fifth decade in honor of Your being found again by Mary; we ask You, through this mystery and through her intercession, true wisdom. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus the Holy of Holies.

Graces of the mystery of the Finding of Jesus, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

At the end of this first Chaplet one says the Magnificat, etc.

Second Chaplet — Sorrowful Mysteries

The Agony.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this sixth decade in honor of Your mortal Agony in the Garden of Olives; we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, contrition for our sins. R. So be it. Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus in agony.

Graces of the mystery of the Agony of Jesus, descend into our souls. So be it.

The Flagellation.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this seventh decade in honor of Your bloody Flagellation, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, the mortification of our senses. R. So be it. Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus scourged.

Graces of the mystery of the Flagellation of Jesus, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Crowning with Thorns.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this eighth decade in honor of Your Crowning with Thorns, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, contempt for the world.

R. So be it. Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus crowned with thorns. Graces of the mystery of the Crowning with Thorns, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Carrying of the Cross.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this ninth decade in honor of Your Carrying of the Cross, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, patience in all our crosses. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus carrying His Cross. Graces of the mystery of the Carrying of the Cross, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Crucifixion.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this tenth decade in honor of Your Crucifixion and of Your ignominious death on Calvary, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, the conversion of sinners, the perseverance of the just, and the relief of the souls in Purgatory. R. So be it. Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus crucified.

At this decade, before each Hail Mary, one asks God, through the intercession of the nine Choirs of Angels, for the graces one needs. Holy Seraphim, ask of God, etc. Hail Mary, etc. Holy Cherubim, ask, etc. Holy Thrones, ask, etc. Holy Dominations, ask, etc. Holy Virtues, ask, etc. Holy Powers, ask, etc. Holy Principalities, ask, etc. Holy Archangels, ask, etc. Holy Angels, ask, etc. All the Saints, men and women, of Paradise, ask, etc. Glory be to the Father, etc.

Graces of the mystery of the Crucifixion of Jesus, descend into our souls. So be it.

At the end of this second Chaplet the following Prayers are said upon one's knees.

Prayer composed by Monsieur de Montfort, to ask of God and to obtain divine Wisdom

O God of my fathers, Lord of mercies, Spirit of truth: I, a little worm of the earth, prostrate before Your divine Majesty, acknowledging the infinite need I have of Your divine Wisdom, which I have lost through my sins, trusting in the infallible promise You have made to all those who shall ask it of You without hesitating —

today I ask it of You with all possible insistence and with the deepest humility. Send us, Lord, that Wisdom which is assistant at Your Throne, to assist our weakness, to enlighten our minds, to set our hearts on fire, to speak and to act, to labor and to suffer in concert with You, to direct our steps, and to fill our souls with the virtues of Jesus Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, since she alone contains all Your goods. O Father of mercies, O God of all consolation, we ask You for the infinite Treasure of Your divine wisdom, through the merciful womb of Mary, through the precious blood of Your most dear Son, and through the extreme desire You have to communicate Your goods to Your poor creatures: hear, O hear my Prayer. So be it.

Prayer to Saint Joseph

Hail Joseph, just man, Wisdom is with you; blessed are you above all men, and blessed is Jesus, the fruit of Mary your faithful spouse. Saint Joseph, worthy foster father of Jesus Christ, pray for us sinners, and obtain for us from God divine Wisdom, now and at the hour of our death. R. So be it.

This Prayer is said three times.

Third Chaplet — Glorious Mysteries

The Resurrection.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this eleventh decade in honor of Your glorious Resurrection, and we ask You, through this Mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, the love of God and fervor in Your service. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus risen. Graces of the Mystery of the Resurrection, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Ascension.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this twelfth decade in honor of Your triumphant Ascension, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, an ardent desire for Heaven, our dear homeland. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus ascending into heaven. Graces of the mystery of the Ascension, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

Pentecost.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this thirteenth decade in honor of the mystery of Pentecost, and we ask You, through this mystery and through the intercession of Your holy Mother, the descent of the Holy Spirit into our souls. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus filling you with the Holy Spirit.

Graces of the mystery of Pentecost, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fourteenth decade in honor of the Resurrection and of the triumphant Assumption of Your holy Mother into Heaven, and we ask You, through this mystery and through her intercession, a tender devotion toward so good a Mother. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus raising you to life. Graces of the mystery of the Assumption, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

The Crowning of Mary.

We offer You, Lord Jesus, this fifteenth and last decade in honor of the Crowning of Your holy Mother, and we ask You, through this mystery and through her intercession, perseverance in grace and the Crown of glory. R. So be it.

Our Father. Hail Mary, ten times. Jesus crowning you.

At this decade, before each Hail Mary, one asks God, through the intercession of all the Saints, for the graces one needs. Saint Michael the Archangel and all the holy Angels, ask of God, etc. Hail Mary, etc. Saint Abraham and all the holy Patriarchs, ask, etc. Saint John the Baptist and all the holy Prophets, ask, etc. Saint Peter and Saint Paul and all the holy Apostles, ask, etc. Saint Stephen, Saint Lawrence, and all the Martyrs, ask, etc. Saint Hilary and all the holy Pontiffs, ask, etc. Saint Joseph and all the holy Confessors, ask, etc. Saint Catherine, Saint Teresa, and all the holy Virgins, ask, etc. Saint Anne and all the holy Women, ask, etc. Glory be to the Father, etc.

Graces of the mystery of the Crowning of Mary in glory, descend into our souls. R. So be it.

At the end of this third Chaplet the following Prayer is said.

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin

Hail Mary, most lovable Daughter of the eternal Father, admirable Mother of the Son, most faithful Spouse of the Holy Spirit, august Temple of the most Holy Trinity. Hail, Sovereign Princess, to whom all things are subject in Heaven and upon earth. Hail, sure Refuge of sinners, Our Lady of mercy, who have never rejected anyone: sinner though I am, I cast myself at your feet, and I beg you to obtain for me from the good Jesus, your dear Son, contrition and the pardon of all my sins, together with divine Wisdom. I consecrate myself wholly to you, with all that I have. I take you today for my Mother and my Mistress; treat me, then, as the least of your children and the most submissive of your servants. Hear, my Princess, hear the sighs of a heart that desires to love you and to serve you faithfully. Let it not be said that, of all those who have had recourse to you, I was the first to be abandoned! O my hope! O my life! O my faithful and Immaculate Virgin Mary! hear me, defend me, nourish me, instruct me, save me.

R. So be it.

V. Praised, adored, and loved be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the Altar. R. For ever.

O Jesus! my lovable Jesus! O Mary, Mother of Jesus and our good Mother! give us, if you please, your holy blessing. R. So be it. Uphold us in our miseries, hear us in our prayers, and keep us from the world and from the devil. R. So be it.

The Superior says: "Nos cum prole pia benedicat Virgo Maria" [May the Virgin Mary with her loving Child bless us]. R. Amen.

Fourth Method: A Summary of the Life, Passion, Death, and Glory of Jesus and Mary

Creed. The faith: 1. in the presence of God; 2. faith in the Gospel; 3. faith and obedience to the Pope as Vicar of Jesus Christ.

1. Our Father: The unity of the one God, living and true.

2. Hail Mary: to honor the eternal Father who produces His Son by contemplating Himself.

3. Hail Mary: The eternal Word, equal to His Father, who with Him, produces the Holy Spirit by loving one another.

4. Hail Mary: The Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son by way of love.

2. Our Father: The immense charity of God.

The Incarnation

1. Hail Mary: to deplore the unhappy state of disobedient Adam; his just condemnation and that of all his children.

2. Hail Mary: to honor the desires of the patriarchs and the prophets who asked for the Messiah.

3. Hail Mary: to honor the vows and the prayers of the Blessed Virgin to hasten the coming of the Messiah, and His marriage to Saint Joseph.

4. Hail Mary: the charity of the eternal Father who gave us His Son.

5. Hail Mary: the love of the Son who gave Himself up for us.

6. Hail Mary: the mission and greeting of the angel Gabriel.

7. Hail Mary: the virginal fear of Mary.

8. Hail Mary: the faith and the consent of the Blessed Virgin.

9. Hail Mary: the creation of the soul and the formation of the body of Jesus Christ in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit.

10. Hail Mary: the adoration which the angels paid to the Word Incarnate in the womb of Mary.

3. Our Father: The adorable majesty of God.

The Visitation

1. Hail Mary: to honor the joy of the heart of Mary in the Incarnation and the nine-month dwelling of the eternal Word in her womb.

2. Hail Mary: the sacrifice which Jesus Christ made of Himself to His Father by entering into the world.

3. Hail Mary: the delight of Jesus Christ in Mary's humble and virginal womb, and Mary's delight in the possession of her God.

4. Hail Mary: the doubt of Saint Joseph regarding the pregnancy of Mary.

5. Hail Mary: the choice of the elect, determined between Jesus and Mary in her womb.

6. Hail Mary: the fervor of Mary in the visit to her cousin.

7. Hail Mary: Mary's greeting and the sanctification of Saint John the Baptist and his mother, Saint Elizabeth.

8. Hail Mary: the Blessed Virgin's gratitude to God in the Magnificat.

9. Hail Mary: her charity and her humility in serving her cousin.

10. Hail Mary: the mutual dependence of Jesus and Mary, and the dependence we must have upon them both.

4. Our Father: The infinite riches of God.

The Nativity of Jesus Christ

1. Hail Mary: to honor the scorn and rejection suffered by Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem.

2. Hail Mary: the poverty of the stable where God came into the world.

3. Hail Mary: the high contemplation and the excessive love of Mary when she was ready to give birth.

4. Hail Mary: the coming forth of the eternal Word from the womb of Mary without any rupture of the seal of her virginity.

5. Hail Mary: the adoration and canticles of the angels at the birth of Jesus Christ.

6. Hail Mary: the ravishing beauty of His divine infancy.

7. Hail Mary: the coming of the shepherds to the stable with their humble offerings.

8. Hail Mary: the circumcision of Jesus Christ and His loving pains.

9. Hail Mary: the giving of the name of Jesus and the greatness of that name.

10. Hail Mary: the adoration of the Magi and their presents.

5. Our Father: The eternal wisdom of God.

The Purification

1. Hail Mary: the obedience of Jesus and of Mary to the Law.

2. Hail Mary: the sacrifice Jesus made there of His humanity.

3. Hail Mary: the sacrifice which the Blessed Virgin made there of her honor.

4. Hail Mary: the joy and the canticles of Simeon and Anne.

5. Hail Mary: the ritual redemption of Jesus Christ by the offering of two turtledoves.

6. Hail Mary: the massacre of the Holy Innocents by the cruelty of Herod.

7. Hail Mary: the flight of Jesus Christ into Egypt by the obedience of Saint Joseph to the voice of the angel.

8. Hail Mary: His mysterious dwelling in Egypt.

9. Hail Mary: His return to Nazareth.

10. Hail Mary: His growth in age and wisdom.

6. Our Father: The incomprehensible holiness of God.

The Finding of Jesus in the Temple

1. Hail Mary: to honor His hidden, laborious, and obedient life in the house of Nazareth.

2. Hail Mary: His teaching and His being found in the Temple among the teachers.

3. Hail Mary: His fasting and His temptation in the desert.

4. Hail Mary: His baptism by Saint John the Baptist.

5. Hail Mary: His admirable preaching.

6. Hail Mary: His astonishing miracles.

7. Hail Mary: the choice of His twelve apostles and the powers He gave them.

8. Hail Mary: His marvelous Transfiguration.

9. Hail Mary: the washing of the feet of His apostles.

10. Hail Mary: the institution of the Holy Eucharist.

7. Our Father: The essential bliss of God.

The Agony of Jesus Christ

1. Hail Mary: to honor the times of divine seclusion that Jesus Christ observed during His life, and principally that of the Garden of Olives.

2. Hail Mary: His humble and fervent prayers during His life and on the eve of His passion.

3. Hail Mary: the patience and gentleness with which He bore with His apostles during His life, and particularly in the Garden of Olives.

4. Hail Mary: the tribulations of His soul during His whole life, and principally in the Garden of Olives.

5. Hail Mary: the streams of blood in which pain drowned Him.

6. Hail Mary: the consolation which He was pleased to receive from an angel in His agony.

7. Hail Mary: His conformity to the will of His Father despite the repugnance of nature.

8. Hail Mary: the courage with which He went forth to meet His executioners, and the strength of the word with which He struck them down and raised them up.

9. Hail Mary: His betrayal by Judas and His capture by the Jews.

10. Hail Mary: the abandonment of His apostles.

8. Our Father: The admirable patience of God.

The Flagellation

1. Hail Mary: to honor the chains and the ropes with which Jesus Christ was bound.

2. Hail Mary: the blow He received at the house of Caiaphas.

3. Hail Mary: the three denials of Saint Peter.

4. Hail Mary: the ignominies He received at the house of Herod when He was clothed in a white robe.

5. Hail Mary: His complete stripping of His garments.

6. Hail Mary: the scorn and insults He received from the executioners because of His nakedness.

7. Hail Mary: the thorny rods and the cruel whips with which He was struck and flayed.

8. Hail Mary: the column to which He was attached.

9. Hail Mary: the blood He shed and the wounds He received.

10. Hail Mary: His collapse from weakness in His own blood.

9. Our Father: The ineffable beauty of God.

The Crowning with Thorns of Jesus Christ

1. Hail Mary: to honor His third stripping.

2. Hail Mary: [No intention is supplied in either French witness.]

3. Hail Mary: the veil used to blindfold His eyes.

4. Hail Mary: the blows and the spittle with which His face was covered.

5. Hail Mary: the old cloak which was placed upon His shoulders.

6. Hail Mary: the reed which was placed in His hand.

7. Hail Mary: the pointed stone upon which He was seated.

8. Hail Mary: the outrages and the insults inflicted upon Him.

9. Hail Mary: the blood and brain matter that flowed from His adorable head.

10. Hail Mary: the hair and the beard which were torn from Him.

10. Our Father: The boundless omnipotence of God.

The Carrying of the Cross

1. Hail Mary: to honor the presentation of Our Lord before the people with the words Ecce Homo.

2. Hail Mary: the choice of Barabbas in place of Him.

3. Hail Mary: the false testimony given against Him.

4. Hail Mary: His sentence of death.

5. Hail Mary: the love with which He embraced and kissed the Cross.

6. Hail Mary: the dreadful pains He endured in carrying it.

7. Hail Mary: His falls of weakness under His burden.

8. Hail Mary: the painful encounter with His Holy Mother.

9. Hail Mary: the Veil of Veronica in which His face was imprinted.

10. Hail Mary: His tears, those of His Holy Mother, and of the pious women who followed Him to Calvary.

11. Our Father: The appalling justice of God.

The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ

1. Hail Mary: to honor the five wounds of Jesus Christ and His blood shed upon the Cross.

2. Hail Mary: His pierced heart and the Cross upon which He was crucified.

3. Hail Mary: the nails and the lance which pierced Him, the sponge, the gall, and the vinegar that He was given to drink.

4. Hail Mary: the shame and the infamy He suffered from being crucified naked between two thieves.

5. Hail Mary: the compassion of His Holy Mother.

6. Hail Mary: His seven last words.

7. Hail Mary: His abandonment and His silence.

8. Hail Mary: the affliction of the whole universe.

9. Hail Mary: His cruel and ignominious death.

10. Hail Mary: His being taken down from the Cross and His burial.

12. Our Father: The eternity of God without beginning.

The Resurrection

1. Hail Mary: to honor the descent of the soul of Our Lord to hell.

2. Hail Mary: the joy and deliverance of the souls of the ancient fathers who were in Limbo.

3. Hail Mary: the reunion of His soul with His body in the tomb.

4. Hail Mary: His miraculous emergence from the tomb.

5. Hail Mary: His victories over death and sin, the world, and the demon.

6. Hail Mary: the four glorious qualities of His body.

7. Hail Mary: the power which He received from His Father in heaven and on earth.

8. Hail Mary: the apparitions with which He honored the Blessed Virgin, His apostles, and His disciples.

9. Hail Mary: His heavenly discourses and the meal He shared with His apostles.

10. Hail Mary: the peace, the authority, and the mission which He gave them to go throughout all the earth.

13. Our Father: The limitless immensity of God.

The Ascension of Jesus Christ

1. Hail Mary: to honor the promise that Jesus Christ made to His apostles to send them the Holy Spirit, and the command He gave them to prepare themselves for its reception.

2. Hail Mary: the gathering of all His disciples on the Mount of Olives.

3. Hail Mary: the blessing He gave them as He ascended from the earth to the heavens.

4. Hail Mary: His glorious and wondrous Ascension by His own virtue unto the Empyrean heaven.

5. Hail Mary: the welcome and the divine triumph which He received from God His Father and from the whole heavenly court.

6. Hail Mary: the triumphant virtues with which He opened the gates of heaven where no mortal had entered.

7. Hail Mary: His sitting at the right hand of His Father as His beloved Son, equal to Himself.

8. Hail Mary: the power which He received to judge the living and the dead.

9. Hail Mary: His last advent upon the earth where His power and majesty shall appear in all their splendor.

10. Hail Mary: the justice which He will exercise there at the Last Judgment, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked for all eternity.

14. Our Father: The universal providence of God.

Pentecost

1. Hail Mary: to honor the truth of the Holy Spirit, God, who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who is the heart of the divinity.

2. Hail Mary: the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son upon the apostles.

3. Hail Mary: the great sound with which He descended, marking His strength and His power.

4. Hail Mary: the tongues of fire which He sent to the apostles to give them the understanding of the Scriptures, the love of God, and of neighbor.

5. Hail Mary: the fullness of graces with which He privileged the heart of Mary, His faithful spouse.

6. Hail Mary: His marvelous guidance of all the Saints and over the very person of Jesus Christ, whom He guided throughout His whole life.

7. Hail Mary: the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit.

8. Hail Mary: the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

9. Hail Mary: to ask in particular for the gift of wisdom and the advent of His reign in hearts.

10. Hail Mary: to obtain victory over the three evil spirits which are opposed to Him, namely the spirit of the flesh, of the world, and of the demon.

15. Our Father: The ineffable Liberality of God.

The Assumption of Mary

1. Hail Mary: to honor the eternal predestination of Mary to be the masterpiece of the hands of God.

2. Hail Mary: her Immaculate Conception and her fullness of grace and of reason from the womb of her mother, Saint Anne.

3. Hail Mary: her nativity which rejoiced the whole universe.

4. Hail Mary: her presentation and her dwelling in the temple.

5. Hail Mary: her admirable life, exempt from all sin.

6. Hail Mary: the fullness of her singular virtues.

7. Hail Mary: her fruitful virginity and her painless childbirth.

8. Hail Mary: her divine maternity and her alliance with the Holy Trinity.

9. Hail Mary: her precious and loving death.

10. Hail Mary: her resurrection and her triumphant Assumption.

16. Our Father: The inaccessible glory of God.

The Coronation of Mary

1. Hail Mary: to honor the triple crown with which the Holy Trinity has crowned Mary.

2. Hail Mary: the new joy and glory which heaven received through her triumph.

3. Hail Mary: to recognize her as the Queen of heaven and earth, of angels and of men.

4. Hail Mary: as the treasurer and the dispenser of the graces of God, of the merits of Jesus Christ, and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

5. Hail Mary: the Mediatrix and the Advocate of men.

6. Hail Mary: the destroyer and ruin of the devil and of heresies.

7. Hail Mary: the assured refuge of sinners.

8. Hail Mary: the mother and nurse of Christians.

9. Hail Mary: the joy and the sweetness of the just.

10. Hail Mary: the universal refuge of the living, the all-powerful help of the afflicted, the dying, and the souls in Purgatory.

Fifth Method: A Rosary of 150 Reasons for Saying the Rosary

according to St. L.M. Grignion de Montfort.

I - Excellence of the holy Rosary in the figures of the Old Testament and the parables of the New.

1. The strength of the holy Rosary against the world in the figure of that small stone which, without the hand of man, struck the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar and shattered it.

2. Its strength against the demon in the figure of the sling of David, with which he conquered Goliath.

3. Its strength against all kinds of enemies of salvation in the figure of the tower of David, where there were a thousand kinds of offensive and defensive weapons.

4. Its miracles figured in the rod of Moses, which brought water from the rocks, made bitter waters sweet, divided the seas, and performed a thousand and a thousand miracles.

5. Its holiness in the figure of the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the Law, the Manna, and the rod, and in the Psalter of David, which prefigures it.

6. Its light in the pillars of fire during the night and the shining cloud during the day which led the Israelites.

7. Its sweetness in the honey found in the mouth of the lion.

8. Its fecundity in the net that Saint Peter, by the order of Our Lord, cast into the sea, and which, although containing 153 fish, was not broken.

9. Its marvelous fruits in the parable of the mustard seed, which, although so small in appearance, becomes a great tree where the birds of the sky make their nests.

10. Its riches in the parables of the treasure hidden in a field, which a wise man must purchase with all his goods.

II - It is a gift come from heaven and a great present that God makes to His greatest servants.

1. God is the author of the prayers of which it is composed and of the mysteries which it contains.

2. The Blessed Virgin established the form of the holy Rosary.

3. Saint Dominic preached, and although he was a saint, he converted almost no sinners.

4. He was accompanied in his missions by several saintly Bishops, and his labors were without fruit.

5. Through unrelenting prayer and mortification, he obtained the Rosary in the forest of Toulouse.

6. He entered Toulouse and there preached the Rosary with great wonders and great blessings.

7. He continued this preaching all his life with extraordinary fruits.

8. The marvelous effects that the holy Rosary produced on all sides while it was being preached.

9. The decline of the holy Rosary.

10. Its restoration by Blessed Alan de la Roche.

III - The Rosary is the triple crown placed upon the head of Jesus Christ and of Mary, and with which those who recite it every day are crowned.

1. There are three kinds of crowns of the Blessed Virgin.

2. The daily Rosary is the great crown.

3. The reprobate crown themselves with roses already faded.

4. The predestined crown Jesus and Mary with eternal roses.

5. The Jews crown Jesus Christ with piercing thorns.

6. The true Christians crown Him with fragrant roses.

7. The first, the bridal crown or crown of excellence, which is placed upon the head of Mary by the 1st chaplet.

8. The second, the crown of conquest or power, by the second chaplet.

9. The third, the sovereign crown or crown of goodness, by the 3rd chaplet.

10. Three crowns for him who recites the Rosary every day: a crown of graces, of peace, and of glory; during life, at death, and in eternity.

IV - The Rosary is the mysterious abridgment of all the most beautiful prayers of the Church.

1. The Creed is the abridgment of the Gospel.

2. The prayer of the faithful.

3. The shield of the soldiers of Jesus Christ.

4. The Our Father, a prayer of which Jesus Christ alone is the author.

5. The prayer with which He prayed to His Father and obtained what He willed.

6. A prayer which contains as many mysteries as words.

7. A prayer which contains all our duties toward God.

8. A prayer which contains in abridgment everything we must ask of God.

9. A prayer unknown and very poorly recited by most Christians.

10. A paraphrase of the Our Father.

V - The Rosary contains the Angelic Salutation, which is the most pleasing prayer one can make to the Blessed Virgin.

1. The Hail Mary is a divine compliment that wins the heart of the Blessed Virgin.

2. It is the new song of the New Testament that the faithful sing upon exiting the captivity of the demon.

3. It is the song of the angels and the saints in Heaven.

4. It is the prayer of the predestined and of the Catholics.

5. It is a mysterious rose that rejoices the Blessed Virgin and the soul.

6. It is a precious stone that embellishes and sanctifies the soul.

7. It is a piece of value to purchase Heaven.

8. It is the prayer that distinguishes the predestined from the reprobate.

9. It is the terror of the demon, the blow that crushes him, the nail of Sisera that pierces his head.

10. A paraphrase of the Hail Mary.

VI - The Rosary is the divine abridgment of the mysteries of Jesus and of Mary, in which mention and memory are made of their life, passion, and glory.

1. The misfortune and loss of men come from the ignorance and forgetfulness of the mysteries of Jesus Christ.

2. The Rosary gives knowledge and brings to memory the mysteries of Jesus and of Mary in order to put them into practice.

3. The greatest desire of Jesus Christ has been and still is that He be remembered; it is for this purpose that He instituted the Holy Mass.

4. After the Holy Mass, the holy Rosary is the holiest action and prayer one can perform because it is a memorial and celebration of what Jesus Christ did and suffered for us.

5. The Rosary is the prayer of the angels and the saints in heaven because they are occupied with celebrating the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ.

6. When one says their Rosary, one celebrates in a day or a week all the mysteries that the Church celebrates in a year for the sanctification of her children.

7. Those who say the holy Rosary every day share in what the saints do in the heavens, as if they were on earth capable of merit, because they do on earth what the saints do in heaven.

8. The mysteries of the holy Rosary are the mirrors of the predestined, in which they see their defects, and the torches which lead them through this land of darkness.

9. They are the fountains of living water of the Savior, where they go with joy to draw the salutary waters of grace.

10. They are the 15 degrees of the temple of Solomon and the 15 steps of the ladder of Jacob, by which the angels descend to them and ascend to heaven, and by which they ascend to heaven.

VII - The Rosary is the tree of life which bears marvelous fruits all year round.

1. The Rosary enlightens blind and hardened sinners.

2. It brings back obstinate heretics.

3. It delivers captives.

4. It heals the incurable.

5. It enriches the poor.

6. It sustains the weak.

7. It consoles the afflicted and the dying.

8. It reforms lax religious communities.

9. It stops the plagues of the wrath of God.

10. It perfects the just.

VIII - The Rosary is a practice that God has authorized, accompanied by an infinity of miracles.

1. Miracles for the conversion of sinners.

2. For the conversion of heretics.

3. For the healing of all kinds of diseases.

4. For confraternity members at the point of death.

5. For the sanctification of devout persons.

6. For the deliverance of souls from purgatory.

7. For reception into the confraternity.

8. For the procession of the holy Rosary and the oil of the lamp of the holy Rosary.

9. For its devout recitation.

10. For wearing it on oneself with devotion.

IX - The holy Rosary is most excellent because it was established for very noble ends, very glorious to God, and very salutary to the soul.

1. To be wonderfully strengthened, by enrolling in this confraternity, through union with millions of brothers and sisters.

2. To incessantly remember the mysteries of Jesus and of Mary.

3. To praise God at all times of the day and of the night and in all places of the universe, which one could not do alone.

4. To thank Our Lord for all the graces He bestows upon us at every moment.

5. To ask Him for pardon at every hour for daily sins.

6. To make one's prayer stronger through the union it has with others.

7. To mutually aid one another at the hour of death, which is so dangerous and so difficult and so important.

8. To be supported at the hour of judgment by as many advocates as there are brothers of the Rosary.

9. After their death, to be relieved and soon delivered from the pains of purgatory by the Masses and the vows that will be offered for them.

10. To form an army arrayed in battle to destroy the empire of the demon and establish that of Jesus Christ.

X - The Rosary is the great storehouse of indulgences granted by popes vying with one another in generosity.

1. Plenary indulgences from the stations of Rome and Jerusalem by receiving Communion on certain days.

2. Plenary indulgence for entry into the confraternity.

3. Plenary indulgence at the point of death.

4. Indulgence for the recitation of the holy Rosary.

5. Indulgence for those who have the Rosary said for them.

6. Plenary indulgence for those who receive Communion in the Church of the Rosary on the first Sundays of the month.

7. Indulgence for the procession.

8. Indulgence for those who have the Rosary Mass said for them.

9. Indulgence for certain works of piety.

10. Indulgence for those who cannot visit the Church of the Rosary, nor receive Communion, nor attend the procession.

XI - The Rosary is authorized by the examples that the saints have given us.

1. Saint Dominic, its author.

2. Blessed Alan de la Roche, its restorer.

3. The saintly Dominican brothers, its propagators.

4. Among the Popes: Pius V, Innocent III, Boniface VIII, who had it embroidered in satin.

5. Among the Cardinals: Saint Charles Borromeo.

6. Among the Bishops: Saint Francis de Sales.

7. Among the religious: Saint Ignatius, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Felix of Cantalice.

8. Among Kings and Queens: Saint Louis, Philip I, King of Spain, Queen Blanche.

9. Among the scholars: Saint Albert the Great, Navarre, etc.

10. Among the most devout: the famous devotee of Rome, Sister Marie of the Incarnation.

XII - The enemies of the holy Rosary, having been overthrown, show us its glory.

1. Those who neglect it.

2. Those who say it with lukewarmness and without attention.

3. Those who say it hastily and merely to discharge an obligation.

4. Those who say it in mortal sin without amendment.

5. Those who say it through hypocrisy without any foundation of devotion.

6. The critics who try subtly to destroy it.

7. The impious who attack it in their speeches.

8. The cowards who, after having embraced it, abandon it.

9. The heretics who attack and slander it.

10. The demons who hate it and undermine it through a thousand devices.

XIII - Answers to the objections that heretics, critics, libertines, the negligent, and the ignorant commonly raise in order to destroy it or avoid saying it.

1. The Rosary is a new practice.

2. It is an invention of members of religious orders to obtain money.

3. It is a devotion for weak women who do not know how to read.

4. It is a superstition because it consists of prayers counted on beads.

5. It is better to say the penitential psalms.

6. It is better to practice mental prayer.

7. It is a prayer that is too long and too tedious.

8. One can be saved without saying the Rosary.

9. One sins if one fails to say it.

10. It is good, but I do not have the time to say it.

XIV - The manner of well reciting the holy Rosary.

1. It must be said purely, without attachment to mortal sin.

2. Saintly, without any bad intention.

3. Attentively, without any voluntary distraction.

4. Slowly and deliberately, making the pauses.

5. Devoutly, by meditating upon the mysteries.

6. Modestly, without immodesty, kneeling or standing.

7. Entirely, without division, and every day.

8. Privately, when one says it alone.

9. Publicly and in two choirs.

10. Constantly, until death.

XV - Different methods of reciting the holy Rosary.

1. One can recite the holy Rosary simply by saying only the Our Father and Hail Mary with one's intention directed toward the mysteries.

2. One can add a small word recalling the mystery of each decade.

3. One can make a small offering at each decade.

4. One can make a greater offering at each decade.

5. At each Hail Mary, one can have a particular intention.

6. One can recite it mentally without speaking.

7. At each Hail Mary, one can add a genuflection.

8. One can add a prostration to it.

9. One can add a stroke of the discipline to it.

10. One can make mention of the saints at each decade and combine any of the aforementioned methods according to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.