Our Lady of the Rosary and Saint Dominic

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Dominic. During his life, he tried to convert non-believers to Catholicism, founded the Order of Dominicans, and experienced apparitions of Blessed Mother Mary. She revealed to him the structure of the Most Holy Rosary which we pray today.

Dominic was born in Spain and spent his early years there. In neighboring southern France, there was a religious sect called Cathars. This sect had some elements of the Catholic faith, but held a fundamental belief which Catholicism considered heresy. Cathars main heresy was their belief in dualism: that an evil God created the materialistic world and the good God created the spiritual world. The Pope dispatched missionaries to southern France, including Dominic, to convert the Cathars, to accept Catholic teaching and cease belief in separate gods.

Dominic had a special devotion to what was the predecessor of the modern rosary. It was a tallying mechanism to count the number of prayers recited, which in early times was called paternoster, which comes from Latin as father (pater) and ours (noster). Often the person reciting a penance would recite 150 Our Fathers and use the paternoster to keep an accurate count. In the year 1214, he was in anguish because his attempt to convert the Cathars seemed to be a failure because he converted so few. He attributed this to the deepness and gravity of their sinfulness.

He went alone in to the forest and wept and prayed continuously for three days to appease the anger of Almighty God. After three days, he fell into a coma. While in a coma, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him and asked: "Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?" Mary continued: "I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter" which is the Rosary.

Shortly after this apparition, he preached the Holy Rosary to the unconverted Carthars. To modify the paternoster (150 Our Fathers) and in compliance with the instruction in the apparition, the design of the Saint Dominic rosary came in to being. He set apart 15 mysteries of the rosary, grouped them in to 3 sets of 5 decades each. These groupings were designated the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries. This design helped the Cathars better understand and to imitate the virtuous life of Jesus and Mary,

Mother of Grace, Mother of Mercy, help us turn to you and Jesus by praying the Rosary daily. Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us. Saint Dominic, pray for us.