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.

Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among 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.

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.

Almost from the earliest days of the Church devotion to and through the Blessed Virgin Mary has been one of the many ways we affrim the mystery of Jesus Christ as True God and True man.  In honoring Mary as mother of God we recognize that Christ's two natures cannot be divided; they compliment each other perfectly.

Among Marian devotions, the rosary has held a place of promenence since the time of
St. Dominic in the early 1200's.  Praying the rosary is a way of experiencing the various significant moments of the life of Jesus Christ.  Mary factors into most of those twenty mysteries.

This repetitive prayer of five decades of beads (like a string of roses) with an Our Father followed by ten Hail Marys, is intended to help a person enter into contemplative communion with the Lord Jesus.  Mary leads us to her Son and she reminds us that we are linked to each other in His Body, a presence she brought into the world.  We call upon her, our Mother too, and she directs us to her Son and the heavenly Father.

It is helpful to think of every Hail Mary as a conversation back and forth beween Mary and the Church, mother and her children.  We greet Mary with the words of Gabriel and the blessing pronounced by Elizabeth; then we ask her guidance and intercession for ourselves and the whole Church.  Whatever we say about Mary is also true of the Church: as Mother of the Lord, she is Mother of the Church and also a member of the Church.  She is Mother of the Redeemer yet also obedient disciple of her Son.

How to Pray the Rosary