Mysteries of the Rosary
Every decade of the Rosary has a mystery.
A mystery is a moment from the life of Jesus and Mary.
You hold that moment in your mind while your fingers move through the ten Hail Marys.
Twenty mysteries.
Four sets of five.
You are not just counting prayers. You are looking at Jesus.
New to the Rosary? Start with How to Pray the Rosary for the step-by-step.
Which Mysteries Today?
Monday: Joyful
Tuesday: Sorrowful
Wednesday: Glorious
Thursday: Luminous
Friday: Sorrowful
Saturday: Joyful
Sunday: Glorious
This schedule is a custom, not a rule.
Pope St. John Paul II proposed it in 2002.
He also said it "is not intended to limit a rightful freedom in personal and community prayer."
So if another set fits your day better, pray that one.
A Note on the "Fruits"
Each mystery below lists a "fruit."
That's a grace to ask for while you pray it.
Pope St. John Paul II even suggested ending each decade with a prayer for the fruits of that mystery.
The fruits are a devotional custom, not Church teaching, and the lists vary from book to book.
Use them as a starting point, not a test.
The sets below follow the order of Christ's life.
Joyful.
Luminous.
Sorrowful.
Glorious.
The Joyful Mysteries (Monday and Saturday)
God becomes a baby.
The Joyful Mysteries show how quietly God chose to come close.
1. The Annunciation
Luke 1:26–38
The angel Gabriel asks a young woman in Nazareth to become the mother of God's Son.
She doesn't fully understand.
She says yes anyway.
And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.
— Luke 1:38
Fruit: Humility
2. The Visitation
Luke 1:39–56
Mary is newly pregnant.
She doesn't stay home. She hurries into the hill country to help her older cousin Elizabeth.
Fruit: Love of neighbor
3. The Nativity
Luke 2:1–20
No room in the inn.
The Son of God is laid in a manger, and the first visitors are shepherds.
Fruit: Poverty of spirit
4. The Presentation in the Temple
Luke 2:22–38
Mary and Joseph keep the law of Moses and bring Jesus to the Temple.
Simeon and the old prophetess Anna recognize Him at once.
Fruit: Obedience
5. The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
Luke 2:41–52
Three days of searching.
They find Him in the Temple, listening and asking questions, at home in His Father's house.
Fruit: Joy in finding Jesus
Pray the Joyful Mysteries with us. All five decades, with every prayer on screen.
The Luminous Mysteries (Thursday)
Wait a second.
The old Rosary went from Jesus at twelve straight to the night before He died.
What about the three years in between?
The Luminous Mysteries fill in Christ's public life, from His Baptism to the Last Supper.
Pope St. John Paul II added them in 2002 and left them free for each person to use.
1. The Baptism in the Jordan
Matthew 3:13–17
The sinless One steps into the water with sinners.
The Father's voice: "This is my beloved Son."
Fruit: Openness to the Holy Spirit
2. The Wedding at Cana
John 2:1–11
The wine runs out.
Mary notices first, tells Jesus, and gives the servants the best advice anyone ever gave:
Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye.
— John 2:5
Fruit: To Jesus through Mary
3. The Proclamation of the Kingdom
Mark 1:14–15
Jesus begins to preach.
The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe.
Fruit: Repentance and trust in God
4. The Transfiguration
Matthew 17:1–8
On a high mountain, His face shines like the sun.
Peter, James and John see who He really is.
Fruit: Desire for holiness
5. The Institution of the Eucharist
Matthew 26:26–28; Luke 22:19–20
The night before He dies, Jesus takes bread and says, "This is my body."
He doesn't leave a symbol. He leaves Himself.
Fruit: Adoration
Pray the Luminous Mysteries with us. All five decades, with every prayer on screen.
The Sorrowful Mysteries (Tuesday and Friday)
The Sorrowful Mysteries show how far love was willing to go.
1. The Agony in the Garden
Matthew 26:36–46; Luke 22:39–46
Jesus prays in Gethsemani while His friends fall asleep.
His sweat falls like drops of blood.
"Not my will, but thine be done."
Fruit: Sorrow for sin
2. The Scourging at the Pillar
John 19:1; Mark 15:15
Pilate has Him whipped.
The Gospel gives it one line.
Don't rush past it.
Fruit: Purity
3. The Crowning with Thorns
Matthew 27:27–31
The soldiers dress Him in a scarlet cloak, press thorns into His head, and kneel in mockery.
The real King, treated like a joke.
Fruit: Moral courage
4. The Carrying of the Cross
John 19:16–17; Luke 23:26
He carries His own cross toward Calvary.
Simon of Cyrene is forced to help.
Fruit: Patience
5. The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
Luke 23:33–46; John 19:25–30
He forgives the men nailing Him to the cross.
He promises paradise to a thief.
He gives His mother to the beloved disciple.
Then He hands His life back to the Father:
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
— Luke 23:46
Fruit: Perseverance
Pray the Sorrowful Mysteries with us. All five decades, with every prayer on screen.
The Glorious Mysteries (Wednesday and Sunday)
The Glorious Mysteries show where the whole story is going.
1. The Resurrection
Matthew 28:1–10; Luke 24:1–12
The women come early with spices for a dead body.
The tomb is empty.
He is risen, just as He said.
Fruit: Faith
2. The Ascension
Acts 1:6–11
Forty days later, Jesus is taken up to heaven before the apostles' eyes.
He doesn't abandon them. He sends them out.
Fruit: Hope
3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit
Acts 2:1–4
The apostles had been praying together, with Mary among them (Acts 1:14).
Then wind and tongues of fire.
Frightened men become fearless preachers.
Fruit: Love of God
4. The Assumption of Mary
No Gospel account. See Revelation 12:1.
No Gospel tells this story, and the Rosary doesn't pretend one does.
The Church teaches it as dogma: at the end of her earthly life, Mary was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory.
Pope Pius XII defined it on November 1, 1950, in Munificentissimus Deus.
The Church has long read the "woman clothed with the sun" in Revelation 12:1 in light of it.
Where Mary is now, body and soul, is where Jesus wants to bring us.
Fruit: Grace of a happy death
5. The Coronation of Mary
No Gospel account. See Revelation 12:1.
This one has no Gospel scene either.
The Church teaches that Mary was "exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things" (CCC 966).
Christians have long seen her in the woman of Revelation 12:1, with "a crown of twelve stars" on her head.
A queen who points to her Son, the King.
Fruit: Trust in Mary's intercession
Pray the Glorious Mysteries with us. All five decades, with every prayer on screen.
Where Did the Mysteries Come From?
At first, the Rosary had no mysteries at all.
Monks prayed the 150 Psalms.
People who couldn't read prayed 150 Our Fathers instead.
Later, 150 Hail Marys.
They kept count on knotted cords and strings of beads.
Then, in the early 1400s, a Carthusian monk near Trier tried something new.
His name was Dominic of Prussia.
He added a short line about the life of Jesus to each of fifty Hail Marys.
His birth.
His miracles.
His death.
Now the beads told a story.
The mysteries turned counting into contemplating.
Other versions spread fast.
Even in the late 1400s, there was still no single list.
You may have heard that Our Lady gave the Rosary to St. Dominic in the 1200s.
That's a beloved tradition.
But it doesn't show up in writing until a Dominican preacher, Alan de la Roche, began spreading it about 250 years later.
What is certain: the Dominicans did more than anyone to spread the Rosary.
In 1569, Pope St. Pius V gave it the Church's official approval.
150 Hail Marys.
An Our Father with each decade.
And meditations on the whole life of Christ.
Fifteen mysteries became the standard.
Joyful.
Sorrowful.
Glorious.
For more than four hundred years, that was the Rosary.
But it skipped Christ's public life.
His baptism.
His miracles.
His preaching.
In 2002, Pope St. John Paul II added five Mysteries of Light from Christ's public life.
He wanted the Rosary to be, in his words, "a compendium of the Gospel."
Twenty mysteries.
The whole Gospel.
On a string of beads.
