Friday 4 September 2015

Origin of the Rosary Necklace

Every person who has faith in the Catholic knows about a rosary bead necklace. In fact, you will find many families having at least one or more rosaries in their homes. There are many legends related with them and numerous fact associated with the origin of the rosary bead necklace.

A rosary is a set of prayer beads that people following the Catholic faith used to count their repeated prayers.  The word "Rosary" comes a Latin word "Rosarium," which means "crown of roses." A rosary necklace is designed by arranging the sets of ten beads, with a larger bead in between every ten beads set. Most of these necklaces have sets of 10 beads, but a few wooden rosary beads  can have even 15. Generally, 15 sets of 10 beads is called as a complete rosary because it consists of a total of 150 beads and Bible has 150 Psalms. In the year 2002, Pope John Paul II inquired about adding an extra decade, but there was no necessary acceptance gained among the Catholic religion.


According to most of the Catholic tradition, St. Dominic established rosary in 1214. It is purported that Virgin Mary gave the most basic rosary to St. Dominic and encouraged him to spread the rosary usage through the Catholic Church lands to combat heresy, which was common during the time. But, the fact is that Catholic necklaces developed over many years and from various competing traditions, for instance, Hinduism that uses prayer beads from so many years.

Christians use knotted prayer necklaces to count all repetitions. People who cannot memorize the Psalms use a rosary necklace to repeat the Lord's Prayer 150 times. The practice of saying the Hail Mary again and again in groups of fifty was established in the twelfth century. In the year 1569, Pope Pius V created the standard prayers to be used with all wooden rosaries.

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