Rosary
Prayers of the rosary
• 6 p.m. Tuesdays (Spanish)
• 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays (English)
Praying the rosary
at St. Bernard’s
Each week, a dedicated group of parishioners
gathers to pray the rosary.
You are always welcome to join us. In addition,
altars to the Virgin Mary and Our Lady of Guadalupe are available
throughout the day in the church for private prayer.
What is the rosary?
The rosary probably began as a practice by the
laity to imitate the monastic Divine Office (Breviary or Liturgy of the
Hours), during the course of which the monks daily prayed the 150
Psalms.
The laity, many of whom could not read,
substituted 50, or even 150, Ave Marias (Hail Marys) for the psalms.
This prayer, at least the first half of it so
directly biblically, seems to date from as early as the second century,
as ancient graffiti at Christian sites has suggested. Sometimes a cord
with knots on it was used to keep an accurate count of the Aves.
The first clear historical reference to the
rosary, however, is from the life of St. Dominic (died in 1221), the
founder of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans. He preached a form of
the rosary in France at the time that the Albigensian heresy was
devastating the faith there.
Tradition has it that the Blessed Mother herself
asked for the practice as an antidote for heresy and sin.
