Rosary-based prayers

Rosary-based prayers are Christian prayers said on a set of rosary beads, among other cords. These prayers recite specific word sequences on different parts of the rosary beads. They may be directed at Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary or God the Father.

The best known example of a rosary-based prayer is simply called the "Holy Rosary" and involves contemplation on five rosary mysteries, while Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be to the Father prayers are recited.

This rosary prayer goes back several centuries and there are differing views among experts on its exact history. In the sixteenth century, Pope Pius V established the current form of the original 15 mysteries for this rosary and they remained so until the 20th century.Pope John Paul II extended the mysteries in this rosary during his reign, while keeping the original mysteries intact.

In monastic houses, monks were expected to pray the Divine Office daily in Latin, the liturgical language of the Western Christian Church. Christian monastics, in addition to clergymen, "recited or chanted the Psalms as a major source of hourly worship." In some houses, lay brothers who did not understand Latin or who were illiterate were required to say the Lord's Prayer a certain number of times each day while meditating on the Mysteries of the Incarnation of Christ. Since there were 150 psalms, this could number up to 150 times per day. To count these repetitions, they used beads strung upon a cord and this set of prayer beads became commonly known as a pater noster, which is the Latin for "Our Father" (this eventually gave its name to the elevator system known as paternoster). Lay people adopted this practice as a form of popular worship. The Paternoster could be of various lengths, but was often made up of 5 "decades" of 10 beads, which when performed three times made up 150 prayers. Other Paternosters, most notably those used by lay persons, may have had only had 10 beads, and may have also been highly ornamented. Today, some Anglican religious orders, such as the Solitaries of DeKoven, make and promulgate the Pater Noster Cord, in addition to other devotions such as the Anglican Rosary, as a part of Christian spiritual life.

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