Ranking outside of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary holds pride of place as the most ever popular prayer of Roman Catholic devotion.  At times criticized wrongly for its lack of reference and basis in Scripture it was originally developed as a way of marking and reverencing the 150 Psalms.  Having had a long and complicated history to its present form it has been popularized and promoted by a number of saints including one of the most venerated, St. Dominic.  It has also been a feature in accepted popular apparitions of the Blessed Virgin in the Catholic Church as at Lourdes and Fatima.  It has received approbation by a number of the Popes and was recently innovated by Pope St. John Paul II adding the Mysteries of Light to the regular Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries.   These mysteries are points of meditation taken from Scripture of defining moments in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church.

It is the most popular form of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated as model and Mother of the Church.  It consists of a regular series of invocation to the Trinity, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary itself all of which can be founded in Scripture in the most commonly used decades of five.  So widespread was this devotion that before Vatican II the Rosary was a standard piece of the habit of most religious Orders.

Since the five founding Catholic women’s religious Orders are all dedicated to the Blessed Virgin it is natural that is featured a common public and private devotion celebrated and recited regularly before the Mass at the Sarah Community.  The sisters as well as the laity continuing on in this devotion find this a generous way to include all in need of God’s blessings, and  urgent support in their regular ministry of intercession.