How to pray the rosary: the sequence of the beads, with the prayers in full
The prayer
Hold the crucifix and make the sign of the cross.
Still on the crucifix: the Apostles’ Creed.
I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
On the first single bead: one Our Father, in full.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
On the three beads that follow: three Hail Marys, in full (3x).
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
On the next bead: one Glory Be.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Then announce the first mystery of the day. The four sets, and the days on which each is prayed:
The joyful mysteries — Monday and Saturday: 1. The annunciation of the angel to Mary. 2. The visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. 3. The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. 4. The presentation of the child Jesus in the temple. 5. The finding of the child Jesus among the teachers.
The luminous mysteries — Thursday: 1. The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. 2. The first sign of Jesus, at the wedding at Cana. 3. The proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the call to conversion. 4. The transfiguration of Jesus. 5. The institution of the Eucharist.
The sorrowful mysteries — Tuesday and Friday: 1. The agony of Jesus in the garden. 2. The scourging of Jesus at the pillar. 3. The crowning with thorns. 4. Jesus carries the cross to Calvary. 5. The crucifixion and death of Jesus.
The glorious mysteries — Wednesday and Sunday: 1. The resurrection of Jesus. 2. The ascension of Jesus into heaven. 3. The coming of the Holy Spirit upon Mary and the apostles. 4. The assumption of Mary into heaven. 5. The crowning of Mary as Queen of heaven and earth.
On the single bead before each decade: one Our Father, in full.
On the ten beads of the decade: ten Hail Marys, in full, holding in mind the mystery announced.
At the end of the decade: one Glory Be. Where it is the custom, the prayer asked for at Fátima is added here.
Announce the next mystery and repeat the previous three steps, until the five decades are complete.
At the very end: the Hail, Holy Queen.
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 unto 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.
In short
The rosary is not a prayer but a method: five decades of Hail Marys, each opened by an Our Father and closed by a Glory Be, while an episode from the life of Christ is held in mind. This page gives the sequence of the beads, the prayers in full, and the mysteries for each day.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 10 min read
When to pray it
It takes fifteen to twenty minutes and fits a car journey, a walk, or the end of the day. Praying it as a family in the evening is a common custom, and October is the month traditionally given to this devotion.
The distribution of the mysteries across the days of the week, set out in the text above, is not a binding liturgical rule but a widely followed custom, and it exists so that anyone praying daily walks through the whole life of Christ over a week instead of repeating one stretch of it. Anyone praying a single rosary, with no intention of continuing the next day, chooses whichever set they like.
Announcing the mystery means saying its name before the decade begins and pausing there for a moment. The announcement is not a reading and not an explanation: it names the scene to be held in mind through the ten Hail Marys that follow. People praying alone usually still say the name under their breath, because it is the announcement that gives the decade its subject.
The thing that decides whether the rosary works is the meditation, and it is what almost nobody explains. The Hail Marys are not the content of the prayer: they are the sound underneath, over which a scene is held in mind. The repetition exists to occupy the restless part of the attention and leave the contemplative part free — the same logic as thinking better while walking or washing dishes.
If you are starting out, start with one decade rather than five. A whole rosary on day one is the quickest way to give up by the third night. A single decade takes three or four minutes, has a beginning, a middle and an end, and preserves the full structure of the method.
Where this prayer comes from
When it appeared Present form fixed in the fifteenth century
Before the rosary there was the psalter. Monks prayed the 150 psalms across the week, and those who could not read — lay brothers, farm workers, most people — replaced them with 150 Hail Marys counted on knotted cords. The practice became known as “Mary’s psalter”, and the number 150 is not a rounding: it is exactly the number of psalms.
The legend that Mary handed the rosary to Saint Dominic in 1214 has no contemporary support, and historians credit the form we know to the Dominican Alan de la Roche, in the 1470s: he was the one who paired the meditation on mysteries with the counting, and founded confraternities that spread the practice across Europe. The devotion gained official momentum after 1571, when the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was instituted in the wake of the battle of Lepanto.
The structure stayed essentially untouched for five centuries, until 2002. In October of that year, in the letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, John Paul II proposed a fourth set of mysteries, the luminous, given to the public life of Jesus — which the earlier set largely skipped, jumping from infancy straight to the passion. It was offered as a suggestion rather than an obligation, and is now widely adopted.
Little-known details
“Rosary” and “chaplet” are not the same length
The number 150 came from the psalms, not from a devotional preference
The prayer added at the end of each decade is about a century old
The luminous mysteries are from 2002 and corrected an old imbalance
What the passages say
19But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.
The verse the tradition usually cites to describe what the rosary does. The Greek verb is about keeping things and turning them over inside oneself — not praying, but ruminating. It is the most economical definition of what “meditating a mystery” means.
7And when praying, do not choose many words, as the pagans do. For they think that by their excess of words they might be heeded.
8Therefore, do not choose to imitate them. For your Father knows what your needs may be, even before you ask him.
The most serious objection to the rosary is here, and this page does not hide it: Jesus warns against piling up words in the belief that being heard depends on their number. Notice the exact target of the criticism — the belief that quantity persuades God, rather than repetition as such.
1Alleluia. Confess to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy is eternal.
2Confess to the God of gods, for his mercy is eternal.
3Confess to the Lord of lords, for his mercy is eternal.
4He alone performs great miracles, for his mercy is eternal.
The counterweight inside Scripture itself: a whole psalm built on the literal repetition of one clause, verse after verse, twenty-six times. Note the chapter number — the CPDV follows the Vulgate’s numbering, so this is the psalm printed as 136 in the Portuguese and Spanish editions here.
17Pray without ceasing.
Three words that lie behind almost every repeated prayer in Christianity, from the rosary to the Jesus Prayer of the East. An instruction about continuity is only fulfillable through some form of repetition, and that is the opening these devotions grew into.