Musings From a Catholic Bookstore » rosary

Lepanto Haiku – Get a Signed Book!

Ian — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:32:53 +0000

In honor of the victory of Lepanto and the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, we are running a rather unusual contest until October 17th.

For those who aren’t familiar with the battle, I quote from Dale Ahlquist’s introduction to the book Lepanto:

The Battle of Lepanto was fought on Sunday, October 7, 1571, just south of the town of Lepanto, Greece, in the Gulf of Lepanto, which ajoins the Gulf of Patras on the west and the Gulf of Corinth on the east. The battle was key turning point in history. The Islamic forces under Selim II controlled the Mediterranean and were threatening to attack both Venice and Rome, which could have led to the collapse of Christian Europe. The poem brings out the fact that the odds are against Christendom in this monumental standoff. The Holy League will get no help from Germany, divided and weakened by the Protestant Reformation; or from England, under the self-absorbed “cold queen”, Elizabeth I; or from Francec, under the worthless “shadow of the Valois”, King Charles IX. But a surprise hero rises to the occasion: the “last knight of Europe”, twenty-four-year-old Don John of Austria, illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V, who miraculously leads the Christian forces to victory.

The contest consists of the following:

Write a haiku about either the Battle of Lepanto or the Rosary.
Post the haiku on your blog or Facebook account and link back to this post.
Leave a comment on this post pointing to your poem just so we make sure that we don’t miss one when we do the judging.
Only poems written in proper haiku format will qualify. Bonus points will be awarded if you mention a season in the poem.

After the contest ends on October 17th, the Aquinas and More staff will pick the three best poems (in our opinion) and send the winners a copy of the book Lepanto signed by Dale Ahlquist, the foremost Chesterton expert in the country and president of the American Chesterton Society.

We’re all grown ups here so no whining if you don’t win. We aren’t poetry experts but we can count to seven so we will be able to identify poorly formatted Haiku.

Free Rosary Drawing at RosaryCatalog.com

Ian — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:40:24 +0000

To celebrate the month of the Rosary RosaryCatalog.com will be giving away one rosary each week to a lucky shopper. These rosaries aren’t your standard rosary. Each one retails for at least $75!

For purchases made on the RosaryCatalog.com site between October 1st and October 10th we will be giving away this gorgeous White Cloisonne Sterling Rosary:

This exquisite rosary retails for $120 and has 8mm white with green and pink cloisonne beads. The “Our Father” beads are daisy-capped. The Miraculous Medal center and the finely detailed crucifix are sterling silver. The rosary is 24in. long and the ornate crucifix is 1 3/4in. The rosary comes in a deluxe gift box.

This item carries a lifetime warranty. If at any time it breaks just send it back for repair or replacement. This guarantee takes precedence over our standard return policy.

Stay tuned for the next giveaway!

Rules:

Purchase must be made on the rosarycatalog.com website between Oct 1, 2009 and Oct 10, 2009.
Purchase must be for at least $25, including shipping.
If you win the rosary the items from your winning purchase are not returnable.
If you win you agree that we may use your first name to announce that you have won.
Orders that are pending payment do not qualify if payment is received after Oct 10,2009.
Drawing will be done on Oct 12, 2009 and the rosary will be sent on Oct 13, 2009.

New Rosary Articles

Ian — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:05:51 +0000

With the launch of the Rosary Catalog, we have beefed up our related Rosary and Marian articles. There are now over 30 articles and prayers on the site to help you deepen your appreciation for Mary and the Rosary.

Rosary Bead Sizing Chart

Ian — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:37:29 +0000

Frequently you see Rosary bead sizes listed in millimeters. To us Americans, who still haven’t switched to metric, these measurements may not make sense.

We’ve created a guide with a printable Rosary bead size chart so you can see the actual size of beads.

Announcing RosaryCatalog.com!

Ian — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:42:27 +0000

While we were updating our Aquinas and More home page look we decided to dust off a domain name we purchased a couple of years ago and launch a new site dedicated just to the Rosary. RosaryCatalog.com features all of our rosaries (nearly 1000 varieties), Marian books, chaplets, Rosary audio and video products and our growing rosary part selection.

Even though this is a store, we always have believed that providing information about what we sell is a critical part of our mission. We don’t just want you to buy something, we also want you to learn about what you are buying. We have nearly 300 articles on our site, many about the Rosary, including the history of the Rosary, how to pray the Rosary and many more.

You can also see what the Pope’s prayer intentions are for the month, get a daily Rosary quote from an encyclical or saint and see what the Rosary Mysteries are for today at the top of the page.

We hope that you enjoy the new Rosary site not just for buying new Rosary beads but four the learning opportunities it offers!

Oh, you also get a free how-to guide for praying the Rosary with every order!

May Is the Month of Mary. We Celebrate and Honor the Mother of Our Saviour.

aquinasandmore — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:30:37 +0000

In May we celebrate the Month of Mary, Mother of God. “Blessed art thou amongst all women!”

The Panagia Icon of the Mother of God

“When we call Mary “our mother,” we grasp instinctively the essential meaning of the title, since it evokes memories of a human experience that is universal and runs deep. But when it comes to explaining clearly and precisely the content of the title, the matter is not so simple. Primarily, this is due to the wealth of content, including as it does practically all aspects of Mary’s activity toward us. Furthermore, Mary is our “Mother” in a way that is necessarily analogical. Theologians are well aware of what this imports, namely certain limitations that have to be remembered, and a transcendence that also must be kept in mind. The limitations come from the obvious fact that as far as we are concerned, we cannot apply to Mary all the realities of natural motherhood, since we are children of Mary not by the flesh, but “in the order of grace.”

Nevertheless, if in certain ways Mary’s motherhood toward us says less than natural motherhood, in other ways it says much more. For example, the quality of our life as children of God, a life Mary helps to obtain for us, ennobles and enriches incomparably our purely human life. And the perfection with which Mary dedicates herself to her maternal mission surpasses the best mothers on earth, plus the fact that Mary’s maternal vocation is universal and calls for her forming a personal bond with each one of us. . . . Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation . . The purpose of Mary’s maternal activity is to unite us with Christ so completely that each might say: “The life I live is not my own; Christ is living in me” (St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians 2:20).”

- from the Dictionary of Mary

Christ is Risen!

Are you looking for spiritual reading ideas for the Easter Season? To browse our selection of books on the

Life of Our Lord, please click here.

Resources to help you grow in your love and understanding of Mary . . .

Mary and the Christian Life

Scriptural Reflections on the First Disciple

Only $11.95

Author: Amy Welborn

The Greatest Marian Titles

Their History, Meaning and Usage

Only $16.95

Author: Anthony Buono

Maiden and Mother

Prayers and Hymns

Only $14.95

The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary – From the Visions of Blessed A. C. Emmerich

Only $18.00

The Reed of God

Reflections on Mary – a classic!

Only $11.95

Images of Mary – DVD

A 6-hour EWTN documentary!

Only $39.95

If you are looking for more books about Mary, please click here.

Pope Benedict XVI’s “Apostolic Journey to the United States” begins in April! The theme of his visit is “Christ Our Hope.”

In honor of the visit, we have created a Pope Benedict XVI specialty store. To browse the items in our Pope Benedict XVI specialty store, please click here.

Christ Our Hope Apostolic Journey Car Decal

“Since the Virgin Mary’s role in the mystery of Christ and the Spirit has been treated, it is fitting now to consider her place in the mystery of the Church. “The Virgin Mary . . . is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the Redeemer. . . . She is ‘clearly the mother of the members of Christ’ . . . since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head.” “Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church.”Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. “This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death”; it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:

Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: “Woman, behold your son.”

After her Son’s Ascension, Mary “aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers.” In her association with the apostles and several women, “we also see Mary by her prayers imploring the gift of the Spirit, who had already overshadowed her in the Annunciation.”

- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 963 – 965

Selected Devotional Items . . .

Immaculate Conception Music Keepsake Box Chestnut finish with gold inlay Only $36.00	Rose Quartz Sterling Rosary Miraculous Medal centerpiece Only $60.00
Gold Rosary Box with Crystal From the Vatican Collection Only $60.00	Coronation of the Virgin Fine Art Reproduction on Canvas Only $239.95

To browse our complete selection of beautiful rosaries, please click here

To browse our complete selection of beautiful Catholic art, please click here

A Brief History Of The Holy Rosary -

Although for many years the origin of the rosary was linked to St. Dominic, who lived in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, later research showed that strings of beads or knots for counting prayers had been used as prayer aids for centuries before and had become common with European Christians by the middle ages. Around this time, the strings of beads were known by many as Paternosters, indicating that they were used largely to count recitations of the Our Father- Pater Noster in Latin. The Hail Mary wasn’t commonly used as a devotional prayer until the mid-twelfth century. Makers of paternosters belonged to a prominent craft guild of the day. In fact, a street in London, called Paternoster Row, traces its name to the street where these guild members gathered.

By the time of the birth of St. Dominic in 1170, it had already become a widespread custom to use the strings of beads for reciting the Hail Mary, and texts written prior to the preaching of Dominic instructed one how to pray the Hail Mary in sets of ten. For the next few centuries there were many versions of the rosary – some reflecting on as few as five mysteries, and others on as many as two hundred mysteries. It wasn’t until 1569 that the rosary we know today, utilizing fifteen mysteries – joyful, sorrowful, and glorious – become the standard with the publication of an encyclical by Pope Pius V declaring that henceforth this would be the official, Church-authorized rosary. During the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the holy father himself added a new series of mysteries – the luminous mysteries – to the holy rosary prayer.

The name “Rosary” itself comes from the Latin rosarius, meaning a bouquet or garland of roses. A widely popular medieval legend told the story of the Blessed Virgin taking rosebuds from the lips of a young monk as he recited Hail Marys, and weaving them into a garland for her head. The Hail Mary is recited more times than any other prayer in the rosary, and therefore is the prayer we most commonly associate with the rosary.

- adapted from Mitch Finley’s The Rosary Handbook

First Holy Communion season is here!

To browse our complete selection of First Holy Communion resources and gift ideas, visit the Aquinas and More First Holy Communion Specialty Store

First Holy Communion Brass Plaque and Photo Frame

To read our recently posted article about First Holy Communion traditions and practices, please click here

Salve Regina!

Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God.

That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Amen.

We hope your Easter season, the season our Our Salvation, is an especially blessed and faith-filled one.

- the staff at Aquinas and More Catholic Goods

Shop online at www.catholicchurchsupply.com for all your parish’s church supply needs – including clergy shirts, vestments, altar linens, censers and boats, incense, candles, chalices, sanctuary lamps, altar breads, official liturgical books, lavabo sets, altar bells, and so much more!

We have one of the largest selections of Clergy Shirts available anywhere. To view our complete selection, please click here.

If your parish is looking for official Catholic Liturgical Books, from Books of Rites and Blessings, to Sacramentaries and Lectionaries, we carry them all. To browse our complete selection of Liturgical Books, please click here.

New Catholic Articles Update

Ian — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:05:51 +0000

This week we added several new articles to our Catholic Article Section of the site:

A detailed description of Magnificat.
A glossary of jewelry metals.
A glossary of rosary bead types.
What’s in a First Communion Gift Set?
St. Josephine Bakhita
Tradition and the Meaning of First Communion

And if you haven’t read our Saint making guide, now is the time.

Rosary Sale!

Ian — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:26:09 +0000

Yep, 15% off everything in our Rosary category until November 1st in honor of the Month of the Rosary.

Not familiar with the Rosary?You can learn more about what the Rosary is and how to pray the Rosary at our store.

How to Pray the Rosary

Ian — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:32:44 +0000

We posted a how to pray the rosary article from EWTN here for instruction.

What Is The Rosary?

Ian — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:57:40 +0000

Since October is the Month of the Rosary I thought it would be appropriate to do a series of posts on what the rosary is, how to pray it and also answer some questions people have about the rosary.

If you want to read some lengthier historical pieces, there are some here, here and here. I will distill these articles into a shorter summary.

History of the Rosary

The rosary as it is known today is the product of hundreds of years of tradition and variation.

The Rosary in the East

The use of beads to keep track of prayers has been a common practice throughout Church history. Monks in the Eastern Churches used bead ropes of varying length to keep track of prayers. The length and prayers vary considerably in the Eastern Churches and don’t actually incorporate the Hail Mary.

Precursor to the Rosary

In the Western Church a string of beads was used to keep track of praying the 150 Psalms during the Divine Office. Adaptations were made since most couldn’t read to recite shorter prayers, especially the Our Father and the beads became known as “Pater Noster” beads. Over time, the first half of the Hail Mary, minus the words “Jesus Christ”, came to be included in the prayers and eventually to become the more popular method of recitation by the twelfth century.

The Albigensian Heresy

The Albigensian heresy that plagued southern France in St. Dominic’s time was based on a dual view of the world similar to that of the Manicheans of the 3rd century, namely, that there are two supreme beings, a good God who created the spirit world, and an evil god who created the material world. The spiritual world is essentially good, and the material world (including the human body) is essentially evil. The evil god (Satan) imprisoned spirits in material bodies, so whatever one can do to be released from that prison (including suicide) is good. Since matter is evil, marriage and the procreation of mankind is evil. The proponents of this heresy rejected Catholic belief regarding the Trinity, the Incarnation, the sacraments, hell and purgatory, but believed in the transmigration of souls. Christ was not truly a man, nor therefore, was Mary truly the Mother of God. The crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ were only illusions, and the whole concept of the cross in the Christian life was rejected. (source)

This is where the history gets muddy. Tradition has it that St. Dominic called for praying the Rosary as a weapon to assist in the fight against the Albigensians but nowhere in his writings can this be found. It appears that the tradition linking St. Dominic to the Rosary was created by Alan de Rupe, O.P. who lived in the 1400’s.

Even though the Rosary as we know it today can’t be traced back to St. Dominic, the spirit of the Rosary can be found in his methods of preaching which included reflections on the life of Christ interspersed with Hail Mary’s. There was also an organization founded by St. Dominic called the Militia of Jesus Christ that prayed the Marian Psalter daily and another group founded by a Dominican bishop during the 1200’s that also prayed 150 Hail Mary’s every day.

Current Use of the Rosary

The Rosary as we know it today consists of 200 Hail Mary’s divided into groups of ten by single Our Father’s and Glory Be’s. Each decade is introduced by a part of Christ’s life to meditate upon. The length of the rosary was extended from 150 to 200 beads in 2002 by Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae to include five more mysteries from the latter part of Christ’s life. These additions are typically called the “Luminous Mysteries” or the “Mysteries of Light”. It has also become common practice to say the “Fatima Prayer” in between each decade. This prayer:

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy.

was part of the apparitions at Fatima back in the early 1900’s.

If you would like to buy a rosary, we have hundreds of styles to choose from.

: : : : : : : : : :