The Mystery of the Rosary: Marian Devotion and the Reinvention of Catholicism

by Nathan Mitchell

Ever since its appearance in Europe five centuries ago, the rosary has been a widespread, highly visible devotion among Roman Catholics. Its popularity has persisted despite centuries of often seismic social upheaval, cultural change, and institutional reform. In form, the rosary consists of a ritually repeated sequence of prayers accompanied by meditations on episodes in the lives of Christ and Mary. As a devotional object of round beads strung on cord or wire, the rosary has changed very little since its introduction centuries ago. Today, the rosary can be found on virtually every continent, and in the hands of hard-line traditionalists as well as progressive Catholics. It is beloved by popes, professors, protesters, commuters on their way to work, children learning their “first prayers,” and homeless persons seeking shelter and safety.
Why has this particular devotional object been so ubiquitous and resilient, especially in the face of Catholicism’s reinvention in the Early Modern, or “Counter-Reformation,” Era? Nathan D. Mitchell argues in lyric prose that to understand the rosary’s adaptability, it is essential to consider the changes Catholicism itself began to experience in the aftermath of the Reformation.
Unlike many other scholars of this period, Mitchell argues that after the Reformation Catholicism actually became more innovative and diversified rather than retrenched and monolithic. This innovation was especially evident in the sometimes “subversive”; visual representations of sacred subjects, such as in the paintings of Caravaggio, and in new ways of perceiving the relation between Catholic devotion and the liturgy’s ritual symbols. The rosary was thus involved not only in how Catholics gave flesh to their faith, but in new ways of constructing their personal and collective identity. Ultimately, Mitchell employs the history of the rosary, and the concomitant devotion to the Virgin Mary with which it is associated, as a lens through which to better understand early modern Catholic history.

Genres: Religion

338 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 2009

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is to a certain degree about the Rosary, and what it has meant to various Catholics during different times and places, but more about how the Catholic Church was able to re-form what it was after the Reformation and the Council of Trent (1545–1547, 1547, 1551–1552, and 1559–1563. Ever since its development in the 14th and 15th century, it has survived virtually unchanged throughout the ages (with one recent development), and has proved durable and adaptable to the needs of just about any given Catholic. With some reservations (notably, a total lack of color plates / illustrations), I recommend this book to serious students of Church history and development, and I am glad I read this book (and that I kept track of the notes, as well).

The author basically uses the Carravagio painting Madonna del Rosario (1607) as his jumping-off point for his contention that the Rosary was both traditional and subversive; the painting (the only one reproduced in the book, and in black-and-white) shows a traditional theme (the giving of the Rosary by the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Dominic, but also shows peasants with dirty feet reaching out for the Rosary being given to St. Dominic. The author makes a case for the Rosary developing independently of official Church teachings on liturgy; indeed, in some ages (notably the 16th and 17th centuries in England, when Catholicism was proscribed) being regarded as a substitute for the Holy Eucharist.

One would think that in a work where so many paintings are described in detail that there would be color plates; but the author contents himself with indicating in the Notes where images of the paintings so described can be found on the Internet. (Not everyone has consistent access to the Internet while reading this book.) I felt the book also did not go sufficiently into explaining the changes which have been made in the Rosary in the modern age (the Fatima Prayer was added after each Glory Be prayer after the Marian apparitions at Fátima, Portugal in 1917. And in 2002, Pope John Paul II added the five Luminous Mysteries to the Rosary, which served both to add Mysteries between the Finding of Jesus in the Temple and the Agony in the Garden, but which also severed the Rosary from its roots as Our Lady’s Psalter, with 150 Hail Marys being said in place of the 150 Psalms).

I did enjoy reading this book, but I don’t think it will cause me to say my Rosary any more or any less; however, I may be more conscious of the Mysteries, now, when I do recite it.