rosary confraternity

The Confraternity must not be confounded with the Living Rosary or the Perpetual Rosary, which are totally distinct organizations. When St. Dominic had received from the lips of our Lady the command to preach the devotion of the Rosary, he, as a loyal son of Holy Church, submitted the commission to the Pope of the time for his approval, sanction and blessing, knowing that to his Vicar alone our Lord had said: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build My Church;” “Feed My lambs, feed My sheep;” “Confirm thy brethren.” Under the guidance of the Sovereign Pontiff St. Dominic formed the Rosary Confraternity — that is to say, he induced good and faithful Catholics to show their loyalty to God and their devotion to His holy Mother by forming themselves into a sodality, the members of which undertook (though not under pain of sin) to say the Rosary fervently and devoutly at stated and regular times.

The idea of association rests upon the principle which has its equivalent in every tongue: “Union is strength.” Christian association for the purpose of prayer and good works has the immediate sanction of our Lord Himself: Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in their midst.” Matthew 18:20. Alone we fall, with others we stand; alone we fail, with others we succeed; alone we are discouraged and disheartened, with others we are aroused to enthusiasm and courage. “A brother helped by a brother is a strong city.” Proverbs 18:19. “Woe to the man who is alone;” Ecclesiasticus 4:10, for “it is not good for man to be alone.” Genesis 2:18.

Evil men combine for evil purposes; why should not good men combine in holy work and united prayer? Worldly men form societies, companies, and associations for the furtherance of their worldly aims; why should not the children of God unite and form societies, sodalities, confraternities to further the interests of God and the salvation of souls? Our Holy Father Leo XIII, in his Encyclical on the Rosary Confraternity published in September 1897, speaks of these associations with the greatest praise:

The natural tendency of man to association has never been stronger, or more earnestly and generally followed, than in our own age. This is not at all to be reprehended, unless when so excellent a natural tendency is perverted to evil purposes, and wicked men, binding together in various forms of societies, conspire ‘against the Lord and against His Christ’ (Ps. ii. 2). It is, however, most gratifying to observe that pious associations are becoming more and more popular among Catholics also. They are frequently formed; indeed, all Catholics are so closely drawn together and united by the bonds of charity, as members of one household, that they both may be and are truly styled brethren.”

Amongst these associations or sodalities probably the most venerable and the most richly indulgenced, as well as the most simple and most fruitful, is that of the Holy Rosary, In the Encyclical just alluded to Leo XIII goes on to say, in words which are weighty as coming from the Vicar of Christ himself and as addressed to the Church throughout the world:

“We do not hesitate to assign a preeminent place among these Societies to that known as the Society of the Holy Rosary. If we regard its origin, we find it distinguished by its antiquity, for St. Dominic himself is said to have been its founder. If we estimate its privileges, we see it enriched with a vast number of them granted by the munificence of Our predecessors. The form of the association, its very soul, is the Rosary of Our Lady, of the excellency of which We have elsewhere spoken at length. Still the virtue and efficacy of the Rosary appear all the greater when considered as the special office of the sodality which bears its name.

“Everyone knows how necessary prayer is for all men; not that God’s decrees can be changed, but, as St. Gregory says, ‘that men by asking may merit to receive what Almighty God hath decreed from eternity to grant them’ (Dialog, lib. i. c. 8). And St. Augustine says, ‘He who knoweth how to pray aright, knoweth how to live aright’ (Ps. cxviii ) But prayers acquire their greatest efficacy in obtaining God’s assistance when offered publicly, by large numbers, constantly, and unanimously, so as to form, as it were, a single chorus of supplication ; as those words of the Acts of the Apostles clearly declare, wherein the disciples of Christ, awaiting the coming of the Holy Ghost, are said to have been ‘persevering with one mind in prayer’ (Acts 1:14). Those who practice this manner of prayer will never fail to obtain certain fruit.

“Such is certainly the case with members of the Rosary Sodality. Just as, by the recitation of the Divine Office, priests offer a public, constant and most efficacious supplication, so the supplication offered by the members of this sodality in the recitation of the Rosary, or ‘Psalter of Our Lady’ as it has been styled by some of the Popes, is also in a way public, constant, and universal.”

Taken from: The Rosary Confraternity by The Very Reverend Father John Procter, O.P. Provincial of the English Dominicans, 1898.