4 Saints Who Loved the Rosary

Many saints came to know Mary as a spiritual mother came to do so through prayer of the Rosary. In this blog, discover four saints in particular who loved the Rosary: St Dominic, who is traditionally said to have been given the rosary by Our Lady herself; St Louis de Montfort, who did much to spread devotion to the Rosary; St Bernadette who only got her own Rosary after Our Lady appeared to her in Lourdes; and St Therese of Lisieux, whose childlike devotion amused her sisters.

Prayer and Devotion, Saints, On by Peter Kahn

The Rosary provides a wonderful example of praise of Our Lady that leads straight to meditation. The Rosary entails a series of prayers that are said one after the other, including the Hail Mary, the Our Father and the Glory Be. In praying the Hail Mary many times over, Mary’s praises sound out again and again.

Here are four saints who loved praying the Rosary:

1. St Dominic

While the Rosary has been known in various forms since the ninth century, the form which it currently takes is the one that, according to tradition, was established by St Dominic in the thirteenth century, after Our Lady appeared to him. It became common to meditate on different incidents in the life of Christ (and his mother) as part of the prayer from the fifteenth century onwards.

2. St Louis de Montfort

Many saints grew attached to praying the Rosary as young children, taking Mary into the heart of their lives. St Louis-Marie de Montfort was born in France during the seventeenth century. Not content, as a young boy, with praying the Rosary, he taught his younger brothers and sisters, and his classmates at school, to do the same. After his ordination as a priest, he became a wandering missionary, spreading devotion to Our Lady as part of parish missions.

3. St Bernadette Soubirous

St Bernadette Soubirous learnt to pray the Rosary as a young girl, just like others around her in nineteenth-century France. It took her some time to master the prayer, and it seems that she only acquired a set of rosary beads of her own after Our Lady appeared to her at Massabielle, near to the village of Lourdes. Once she did acquire the beads, though, they never left her person.

4. St Thérèse of Lisieux

St Thérèse also became attached to the Rosary as a young girl. She recounted in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, that after making her first confession she asked the priest to bless her Rosary:

It was evening, and as soon as I got to a street-lamp I stopped and took the newly blessed Rosary out of my pocket, turning it over and over. “What are you looking at, Thérèse, dear?” asked Pauline. “I am seeing what a blessed Rosary looks like.” This childish answer amused my sisters very much.

Continue Reading About Saints Who Loved Mary With Behold Your Mother

Behold Your Mother tells stories about ways the saints encountered Our Lady, not necessarily through the miraculous, but rather as their spiritual mother in everyday life, showing that any growth in our awareness of Mary’s presence and care for us deepens our relationship to Christ.

Learn to love Mary with the Saints by ordering your copy of Behold Your Mother today.