Divine Heart of Jesus, convert sinners, save the dying, set free the holy souls in purgatory.
Indulgence of 300 days, every time. — Pius X, Nov. 6, 1906.
The Eucharistic Rosary
OR
The Recitation of the Holy Rosary in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament
THE Holy Rosary, on account of the meditations on the mysteries
in the life of Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin, which we make
while reciting it, is one of the most useful devotions while assisting at
Mass, or, keeping the Hour of Adoration.
The Eucharistic Rosary is especially recommended for this purpose, as it unites meditation on the sacred mysteries of the rosary with reflections on the life of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. The rosary is one of the most admirable and beneficial devotions practised in the Catholic Church. Its method and design are stated to have been revealed to St. Dominic by the Blessed Virgin Mary, who admonished him to preach it with all the fervor of his soul as a singularly efficacious remedy for the overthrow of heresy and the extirpation of vice. Our Lady said to him: "Thou shalt inform my people that it is a devotion most acceptable to my Son and to me." It is adapted alike to the learned and ignorant, to the cloister and the world, and to every capacity, the words being so easy that the most illiterate may learn them, and the mysteries so sublime as to afford matter of contemplation and entertainment to the highest intellects. No Christian could slight it without irreverence, or neglect its frequent use without serious detriment to piety. The numerous indulgences attached to the recitation of the rosary make this form of devotion a powerful instrument for the relief of the poor souls in purgatory.
The whole rosary is composed of fifteen decades (the chaplet or ordinary beads containing five decades); each of the fifteen decades is recited in honor of a mystery of Our Lord's life and that of His blessed Mother, beginning with the Annunciation, or Christ's Incarnation, and ending with Mary's Coronation in Heaven.
A decade consists of one Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and a Glory be to the Father. While reciting a decade, let faith place before your mind the mystery honored, and pray that the virtue it particularly teaches may be impressed on your heart. It is a pious custom to recite a chaplet, that is, five decades of the beads, every day. If you persevere in this pious practice, you will increase daily in the love of Jesus and Mary, and consequently in Christian perfection.
