If we try to pray the Holy Rosary with love every day, we will draw, like St. Dominic, many graces on those we wish to bring to the Lord and on our soul. In it, we consider the principal mysteries of our salvation: from the Annunciation of the Virgin to the Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven of the Lord, passing through his Passion and Death.
The first five mysteries, which we call the mysteries of joy, gather together the hidden life of Jesus and Mary and teach us how to sanctify the realities of ordinary life. The next five, the mysteries of sorrow, allow us to contemplate and live the Passion and teach us to sanctify the pain, the sickness, the cross that is present in the life of every man as he passes through this world. In the last five, the glorious ones, we contemplate the triumph of the Lord and his Mother, and they fill us with joy and hope as we meditate on the glory that God has in store for us if we are faithful.
In the consideration of these mysteries we go to Jesus through Mary: we rejoice with Christ, contemplating him made Man like us, we rejoice with the patient Christ, we live in anticipation of his glory. For this contemplation to be possible, we must try to pray in such a way "that it favors in the one who prays the meditation of the mysteries of the Lord's life, through the heart of the One who was close to Him, and that they reveal their unfathomable richness".
To pray the Holy Rosary in this way, "with the consideration of the mysteries, the repetition of the Our Father and the Hail Mary, the praises of the Blessed Trinity and the constant invocation of the Mother of God, is a continuous act of faith, of hope and love, of adoration and reparation".
In St. Dominic's time the Virgin was greeted with the title of rose, symbol of joy. The images were already adorned with a crown of roses, and Mary was sung of as a garden of roses (in medieval Latin Rosarium). And that seems to be the origin of the name that has come down to us. Let us not forget that each Hail Mary is like a rose that we offer to Our Heavenly Mother. Let us not let it wither from our lips for lack of interest or attention. Let us not fail to use this powerful weapon in the face of so many obstacles that we sometimes encounter. Let us also turn to Our Lady, through this devotion, when we feel the weight of our weaknesses the most: "Immaculate Virgin, I know that I am a poor wretch, that I do nothing but increase the number of my sins every day....". You told me that this is how you spoke to Our Mother the other day.
"And I advised you, surely, to pray the Holy Rosary: blessed monotony of Hail Marys that purifies the monotony of your sins!"
Hablar con Dios