Rosary Beads

When reciting the Five Mysteries, Catholic faithful’s use rosary beads, which serve as an important part of keeping count of the number of Hail Mary's that they should recite. While saying their Prayers, their fingers are moved along the beads and this is supposed to free the mind so that they should concentrate and meditate on the mysteries of the rosaries.

So we can deduce that the main purpose of the Catholic rosary is to assist in the memorizing certain key events or mysteries in the history or genealogy of our salvation, and to give praises and thanks to God for them. Originally, there were twenty mysteries of the rosary until the year 2002 when Pope John Paul II added the New Mysteries of Light (Luminous Mysteries) in his Apostolic letter "Rosarium Virginis Mariae” and thus resulting to the increase and became 20 in total, they are; The five JOYFUL MYSTERIES, the five LUMINOUS MYSTERIES, the five SORROWFUL MYSTERIES, the five GLORIOUS MYSTERIES, 

There are many different types of Rosary beads, each used in its unique way when reciting the Mysteries of the Rosary. The most commonly found Rosary beads are the Single Decade Rosaries, whereby The devotee counts the same the same ring of ten beads repeatedly for every decade, The Hail Mary is usually said on the tenth bead within a decade, while the Our Father prayer is then said on the large bead before each decade.

New Mysteries are then meditated upon at each of the large beads. Another types of Rosary Beads, which is typically used by religious orders, have 15 decades which correspond to the traditional 15 Mysteries of the rosary. With the introduction of the Luminous Mysteries, Five decade Rosaries are then used in conjunction with the 15 decade rosaries to total to the 20 Mysteries of the Rosary.