You may not have noticed that the word Rosary contains the word rosa (Latin for rose); the Rosary means rose garland or rose garden.

How did all of this happen?

The Rosary was long in the making. It began in the 9th century with the people's desire to pray the Psalms as the monks did in monasteries, but this was impractical because many could not read and books had to be copied by hand. At first some Christians prayed 150 Our Father's. Some theologians began to interpret the psalms as veiled prophecies of the life of Christ and formulated 150 praises in honor of Mary, but they were not easy to memorize. By the 12th Century the use of 150 Aves came into use but the complete Hail Mary that we use today was not finalized till the 16th Century. St. Dominic (1170-1221) version of the Rosary did not include the fifteen mysteries which came into full use about 100 years after his death. On Oct. 16, 2002, in the encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariae, did Pope John Paul II propose the addition of five new mysteries (Mysteries of Light) to the Rosary noting that events from the public life of Christ were not present in this prayer form.

But our immediate concern is to see the connection between Mary and the rose garden. We encounter this idea first in the Old Testament Songs or Songs were we read,

"I am a flower [rose] of Sharon, a lily of the valley.

As a lily among thorns,
so is my beloved among women." (Sg 2:1-2)

"You are an enclosed garden, my sister, my bride,
an enclosed garden, a fountain sealed." (Sg 4:12)

The Middle ages contrasted the Garden of Eden lost by the Sin of Adam and Eve with Mary, the New Eve, a garden pure and unspotted by sin. By the 12th Century the bride in the Song of Songs had become identified with the Virgin Mary, who is a type of the Church and further strengthened by institution of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1476 by Pope Sixtus IV. Christ was thought of as the rose planted in the garden of Mary's womb.

But, what is the connection between roses and the Rosary?

There is a legend which seeks to explain how the association of Mary with roses and the Rosary began. There was a man in the Middle Ages who developed the habit of placing a chaplet of roses or whatever flowers were available in front of Mary as an act of piety. In time he became a brother in a monastery but now he had no time to pick flowers for his devotion. Discouraged he was about to leave the Order when a priest noticed his dissatisfaction a suggested that he say 150 Ave Marias in place of the chaplet.

One day he was sent on an errand that required him to ride through a forest where there were thieves. On the way he stopped, tied his horse to a tree and knelt down to recite his fifty Ave Marias. Some thieves saw him and decided to rob him but while they were approaching they saw a beautiful maiden standing by him who once in a while took a beautiful rose from his mouth to add to the chaplet she was making. When the robbers told him what they had seen he and the robbers realized that this most have been the Mother of God accepting the Ave Marias he was sending to her daily. From that day he made a spiritual rose chaplet of fifty Ave Marias daily and instructed other people in the practice. And this is why it is called a Rosary. (Anne Winston-Allen, Stories of the Rose, Pennsylvania State University Press, PA 1997, pp. 100-101.

St. Dominic and the Rosary