The Rosary was revealed and spread through the Latin Church. From its origin, the Rosary and its various prayers began being recited in the Church’s universal sacred language. After receiving the instruction from our Lady, St Dominic himself taught heathens and Christians alike, who had no knowledge of this language, to pray the holy Rosary in Latin [1].
The Church further teaches that private devotions are to be connected with and lead to the sacred liturgy, which throughout the centuries has always and everywhere been offered in Latin, the Roman Church’s lingua franca. Vatican II mandated the retention of Latin in the liturgy [2], and the Latin language itself, as a sacred language, remains best suited to elicit a most profound sense of mystery in the Eucharistic sacrifice. It is therefore most fitting when the Rosary, with its liturgically derived prayers, continues to be recited in this same mystical language, as it has throughout history.
The many benefits of praying in Latin have moved holy popes and Saints to urge the faithful to learn and publicly recite the prayers of the Rosary in this angelic tongue. Some of these same holy leaders have testified that prayers offered in Latin help deepen one’s meditation on the mysteries of Christ, which are the heart and focal point of the Rosary orations. This deepening of meditation is facilitated by the Latin language’s inherent sense of the sacred that drives away evil and helps propel the mind and heart to the Good [3].
With the additional effort and inherent connection with the sacred, prayer in Latin is also inherently more meritorious than prayer in one’s own common language [4]. And since the Rosary is one of the most powerful, most promoted, and most indulgenced set of prayers in the Church [5], what can be more fitting than to pray this great devotion in the most venerable and unifying language of the one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Regina Sacratisimi Rosarii, Ora Pro Nobis!
Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Pray for Us!
End Notes
[1] Anne Winston-Allen, Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages, 1942.
[2] Sacrosanctum Concilium, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 36-1.
[3] See Why Pray in Latin.
[4] Ibid.
[5] See Why Pray the Rosary.