What is the Rosary?
What is the Rosary? The Rosary is technically not the necklace. The Rosary is a prayer. The necklace is just supposed to aid you in your prayer, since the prayer is so long. Because the Rosary is so long, you risk focusing on where in the prayer you are at, instead of focusing on the Mysteries. So you finger the beads as you pray. Once your fingers come to the end of the necklace or to certain points, you know to change or stop. The basic structure is this: You start off at the bottom with the crucifix, do the sign of the cross and you recite the apostles creed. Then you have a few hail marys. Then there are a few sets of ten beads, for ten hail marys, also known as a decade. There are four decades for the four types of mysteries. During the hail marys, you ponder the mysteries of christ as Mary pondered them as described in Luke 2:19.