What Is The Rosary?

The Rosary is a set of meditations and prayers on 20 of the special events in the lives of Jesus and his mother Mary.
Note that I said "meditations and prayers", and I put meditations first. There is a very good reason for that.

Many people who are not very familiar with the Rosary think it is only a series of almost endlessly repeated prayers, but the meditations are an integral part of the Rosary, and help us to bring us closer to Jesus. The meditations are probably the more important of the two elements.

Again, many people think the Rosary is a prayer to and about Our Lady. Wrong again.

The prayers are directed to Jesus, through Mary, since the Rosary is a Christ centred prayer. Everything Our Lady does is directed to Jesus, and when she asks us to pray The Rosary, as she does so often in her apparitions on earth, it is not for any pleasure she gets from hearing herself addressed lovingly so many times - it is purely because praying the Rosary IS GOOD FOR US

I pondered that question seriously quite a few years back - "Why does she want us to pray the Rosary? Is it because she likes hearing her own name? Does she get some benefit when we pray the Rosary? Or why?

The answer which came was simply that praying the Rosary benefits US, and as our mother she gives us directions which are meant to benefit us, just as our earthly mothers do.