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May
11
Mary, mother and model of Carthusians
May 11, 2007 |
Sub tumm praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix,
Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus,
Sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper,
Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.
We fly to your protection, holy Mother of God.
Hear us as we implore your help in our need,
and deliver us always from all danger,
O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Comments
2 Comments so far
I’m sure you know that legend has it that Our Lady appeared to the early monks and instructed them to pray her little office and she would guarantee that the order would never become lax - I think I got that right.
I have not heard of that legend.
But we do know that about the year A.D. 1365, Henry of Kalkar, the Visitator of the Carthusian Order, may have made the original combinatory form of what we now call the rosary. His format consisted of placing an Our Father before ten Hail Mary prayers, which he may have called decades.
Legend has it that sometime between 1410 and 1439 Dominic of Prussia, a Carthusian monk, in an apparition received from Our Blessed Virgin Mother the full Rose Garden (rosarium). It consisted of 15 Pater Nosters, separating 150 Ave’s and 150 meditations about the life of Jesus, of the Holy Family or of Mary into units of 10 each.
We do know that during this time a Carthusian named Dominic the Prussian joined together certain brief Gospel readings with 50 Hail Marys, calling it a rosarium (a rose garden, rosary). The rose was appropriately associated with Mary who is the “cause of our joy” in bringing us our sweetness who is Jesus Christ. Indeed, modern scholars seem to think it was Dominic the Prussian who first combined the Psalter prayers of Our Fathers and Hail Marys with particular mysteries. In his version, what we would call each Hail Mary bead is accompanied by a Gospel reading, whence the expression “read the Rosary.” A number of Rosaries from the Nineteenth Century and indeed today continue this format, although it is less popular as a public recitation, and more popular for private recitation.