Q&A: If the Rosary is so important and so Christ-centered (mysteries of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ and Mary’s role in those mysteries), why doesn’t the Church incorporate the Rosary into its Liturgy, particularly as a preparation for the Eucharistic celebration?
Fr. James McMillan, SMM
Submitted by: T.C., Bangor, ME.
Rosary and . . .
The Church has a feast day dedicated to the Rosary, so it isn’t true to say that the Rosary is totally excluded from the liturgy. But the Church designates certain devotions as part of the liturgy and others as what are known as private or a-liturgical.
The liturgy is the official worship of the Church as Church, that is, as the entire People of God. But it was Christ Himself who told us that we should also pray in private, “and your heavenly Father who sees in private, will reward you.” The Rosary is one of those recommended private prayers.
Pope Paul VI expressed it beautifully when he wrote: “as a result of modern reflection, the relationships between the liturgy and the Rosary have been more clearly understood. On the one hand it has been emphasized that the Rosary is, as it were, a branch sprung from the ancient trunk of the Christian liturgy, the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, whereby the humble were associated in the Church’s hymn of praise and universal intercession.
. . . the Liturgy
On the other hand, it has been noted that this development occurred at a time—the last period of the Middle Ages —when the liturgical spirit was in decline and the faithful were turning from the liturgy towards a devotion to Christ’s humanity and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a devotion favoring a certain external sentiment of piety.
Not many years ago some people began to express the desire to see the Rosary included among the rites of the liturgy, while other people, anxious to avoid repetition of former pastoral mistakes, unjustifiably disregarded the Rosary . . . Liturgical celebrations and the pious practice of the Rosary must be neither set in opposition to one another nor considered as being identical.
Once the pre-eminent value of liturgical rites has been reaffirmed it will not be difficult to appreciate the fact that the Rosary is a practice of piety which easily harmonizes with the liturgy. In fact, like the liturgy, it is of a community nature, draws its inspiration from Sacred Scripture and is oriented towards the mystery of Christ.”
