How To Pray The Rosary

The Basics:

The Rosary is prayed using a string of beads called Rosary Beads. Starting at the crucifix, each bead is held in your fingers and a standard prayer is said, such as Apostles Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be to the Father and the Hail Holy Queen.
To pray, you follow the beads counter-clockwise around the string, praying on each bead, to eventually return to the crucifix. (try our Interactive Rosary to see this in action)
The beads are divided into five decades (or sections); each decade represents an event from the life of Christ. These five events are grouped into a “mystery”, that is a “truth” from the life of Christ.
There are four of these “mysteries” of five events each…each focused on important part of the life of Christ. When praying the Rosary, each day of the week is assigned a mystery to pray for that day.