Pope adds to rosary

last updated 8 January 2015

Rome

Pope John Paul II has added new meditations to the rosary—the first change to the devotional practice in 800 years. Introduced in about the year 1200 and standardized in 1569, the rosary is a series of prayers counted off on a string of beads. Depending on the day of the week, Catholics saying the rosary meditate on either the joyful, sorrowful, or glorious “mysteries,” which correspond to events of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. The pope has now added a new category—“mysteries of light”—that celebrates five more events in Christ’s life, including his baptism in the Jordan River and his first miracle, changing water into wine. The rosary on the mysteries of light is to be prayed on Sundays. Fortunately for the world’s 1 billion Catholics, the number of beads stays the same, so there’s no need for hundreds of millions of new rosaries.