October 10 - Manual of the Living Rosary

Pauline composed a manual of the Living Rosary, giving precise instructions:

“The first thing to do is choose good group leaders. We will choose the councillors from among the members that are most fervent. There is no harm in admitting men to the groups of 15 persons. Indeed, this may be the only way to make them practice this beautiful and ancient devotion today almost completely abandoned by them.

1. It is vital to ensure that each group is complete with 15 members or that if it made up of members from the 10s, that each group pray the 15 mysteries daily.
2. Ensure that the Mysteries are exchanged every month. It is sufficient to have three persons present: the group leader and at least two assistants.
3. The group leader must ensure that every member of the group is full informed the way the Rosary is prayed and of the Mystery, that he or she is to mediate while praying the daily decade of the rosary.

A spirit of unity and mutual charity are to mark the regular meetings of the group leader with the 15 members of the group. This is, in fact, hee very soul of the Living Rosary, making it a solid and fruitful initiative. (Pauline Jaricot, The Living Rosary, op. Cit., P.25)

To help ensure the unity of the associates of the Living Rosary, Pauline had the happy idea of “uniting the members praying each decade with a card that visibly indicated the Mystery and was distributed, ensuring the rotation of the common prayer. (Pauline Jaricot, Le Rosaire vivant, op. Cit. ., p.25).  Pauline's first drawing was to be perfected, printed and distributed as a sign of rallying to the four corners of the world. The group leader responsible for the 15, received a card on which Our Lady of the Rosary was represented encircled with a crown, intended to include the names of the leader and the other 14 members of her group. Thus, the fifteen rose petals that surround the image of the Virgin received the signatures of each associate.

The groups of 10 multiplied rapidly in France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and England and in many parts of the Americas. The Rosary also planted its roots in India and especially in Canada. It will also take root in Africa. At the time of Pauline Jaricot's death, the association had two and a half million members throughout the world. Pauline was highly influential. Through the Living Rosary, she acquired a worldwide reputation, no doubt, because her heart burned with love for Christ and for the Church, to which she had given everything since she was seventeen years old. (Pauline Jaricot, The Living Rosary, op. Cit., P.39). Wherever the tens are formed, one notices a constancy in the good and a perfume of virtue that did not exist before (Pauline Jaricot, Le Rosaire vivant, op. Cit., P.29).

Pauline insisted that prayer was the center of concern of the Living Rosary. Prayer is a powerful engine that makes its force felt from one end of the world to the other; it goes to the heart of God himself on the throne of his omnipotence to seek graces of life and salvation for all... Prayer is the kingdom of God within us; it extends to all, in heaven, on earth, in purgatory; it binds the demons; it triumphs with the Justice of God who cannot refuse the wonders of his mercy. (Pauline Jaricot, The Living Rosary, op. Cit., P.35).