![]() ![]() Wednesday and Saturday (the Glorious Mysteries) are the days of Mercury and Saturn, where we see both the knowledge of the Holy Ghost and the terminus of all our labors in the Ascension/Assumption/Coronation cycle. Tuesday and Friday (the Sorrowful Mysteries) are associated with Mars and Venus, where we see purgation as purifying fire and purgation as a work of Love. For example, Monday and Thursday (traditionally the Joyful Mysteries) are the days of the Moon and Jupiter, respectively, and we can see the association with initiation and growth therein. If we go beyond this on a more “esoteric” level, we see more things. Likewise, this forces an identical pattern week-in and week-out, because Sundays are now given exclusively to the Glorious Mysteries and not synchronized with the Church Year. The addition of the Luminous Mysteries disrupts this connection as well, because by shoehorning these Mysteries into Thursday, they are only said once a week while the others are still said twice (i.e. This forms a symmetrical and balanced pattern where the pray-er places him/herself in sync with time on a micro (weekly) and macro (yearly) basis. In the Traditional Rosary, each set of Mysteries is said twice during the week from Monday to Saturday, while on Sunday the Mysteries prayed are linked to the Church Year. The next connection that’s upended is the connection to the flow of time. The Days of the Week and Seasons of the Year This is the first balance that’s disrupted. ![]() Since there aren’t 200 Psalms in the Psalter, the connection is upended and the Rosary and Psalter become out of sync. Now with the addition of five more Mysteries, that means 50 more Hail Marys adding up to a total of 200. Louis’ Secret of the Rosary, in his Prayer Before Saying the Rosary). The 10 Haily Marys multiplied by 15 Mysteries results in 150 Psalms, with the three Hail Marys at the beginning symbolizing the Three Persons of the Trinity (this is shown in the St. Owing to the mass illiteracy of the time, this translated into praying 150 Hail Marys a week, with each Hail Mary standing in for a Psalm. The Rosary grew out of the people’s desire to pray the 150 Psalms every week, much like the monks did in the Divine Office. The first imbalance the Luminous Mysteries create is with the Psalter, because this touches on the origins of the Rosary itself. ![]() By shoehorning an extra set of Mysteries into the Rosary in a hamfisted attempt at giving people “MOAR JEE-ZUS,” the Rosary becomes unmoored from every one of these connections and thus loses its efficacy. In its traditional form, the Rosary is finely balanced with the 150 Psalms in the Psalter, with the seven days of the week, with the seasons of the Church Year, and with the three stages of the spiritual life as understood in Catholic Mysticism. The short answer for not using the Luminous Mysteries is that it throws the Rosary out of whack. Not sure I’m a fan of glow-in-the-dark-rosaries, either, but that’s a blog post for another time! ![]()
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