"What Percent of the Rosary is Gospel?" and Other Questions

Red Neck Woman. Such a name makes you want to sing. Today, she tackles the Rosary, and explains why, even though we have ten Hail Mary's for each Our Father, it's not Mary-worship.

Super-duper post! Thumbs up! Gold star! Move to the head of the class! Stickers all around!

(See how public school teaching warped my brain?)

Here's a sampling:

... The origins of the practice are traced to the early days of the church when very devout religious (monks, priests, nuns) made it a practice to recite all 150 Psalms daily. Many laypeople wanted to imitate that practice but memorizing all 150 Psalms without being able to afford a copy of them, much less find the time to say them daily was simply beyond reach. What evolved was the practice of saying simple prayers 150 times instead…usually the “Our Father” or a “Hail Mary”. In order to keep track, rocks or stones were placed in one pocket and moved to the other throughout the day as the prayers were said. Eventually, this lead to the knotting of cords, or stringing of beads and of course, some figured out that one needn’t have all 150 on a cord just say 10 (a decade) 15 times etc. Things from other sources also converged to make the Rosary what it is today as well. Many theologians, particularly in the Middle Ages believed that each of the 150 Psalms was reflective of particular events in the life of Jesus and his mother. So underlying the discipline of saying all 150 Psalms daily was the idea that it was a meditation on the life of Jesus and the path to Salvation. Now tie in St. Dominic, who was a primary figure in fighting some of the heresies that were particularly troublesome in the late 12th century and early 13th century. He had a vision that one of the ways to strengthen the church against these heresies was to teach people to meditate on the life of Jesus and his mother so what was once just an underlying idea became the principal idea. ...

Now go read the rest.