Thursday, October 7, 2010

Praying the Rosary ~ Joyful Mysteries


This is the first post of a series of four, starting on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (7th Oct) in the month of the Holy Rosary.

Our family recites the daily rosary in the morning, along with our morning prayers and daily Mass readings. Years ago, I had made up flip books for the children that contained a beautiful old masters painting of each mystery of the rosary. I had printed these images from the internet.

Recently we've gone a bit more high tech. I collected 20 images for each mystery (20 mysteries) doing a google image search. Mainly old masters images but some are sculptors, stained glass windows or mosaic. Any image that was beautiful and uplifted the soul. I really wanted my children to be immersed in the mystery through these images.

Once I had collected 20 images for each mystery, I created folders: ~ rosary 1 ~ rosary 2 ~ rosary 3 ~ rosary 4. In each folder there were sub folders: Joyful Mysteries ~ Luminous Mysteries ~ Sorrowful Mysteries ~ Glorious Mysteries. In each sub folder were the mysteries for that particular decade. In each individual mystery there were 5 images. I chose images that were at least more than 400 pixels on each side, the bigger the size, the better.

Once we had collected and sorted all of this, I put each mystery with it's 5 images into 'Irfanview' to create slideshows for each mystery...I set the 20 seconds between the changing of each image..it takes about 20 seconds to say two Hail Mary's. Once completed we were ready to go! The idea of having four sets of five images for each mysteries is that you are having a good rotation, so that the children are not seeing the same images continuously, they will revisit those images every two weeks or so.

Our family altar is situated in the main family lounge and it sits on top of our big TV cabinet where we watch EWTN. There is a side compartment where dh has a computer, the computer is connected to our big TV screen and so the slideshows are viewed with big, beautiful images directly underneath our statues.

I will share photos of our altar and our slideshow in action in the next posting, featuring the Luminous Mysteries.

I've shared below just a few of the images collected for each mystery from the JOYFUL MYSTERIES, you can click on each image to see it to full size.

~ THE ANNUNCIATION ~

I was able to collect so many beautiful images for the Annunciation, more than any other mystery, so I had a very hard time choosing, in fact, I created 6 sets of 5 just for this mystery, I just couldn't short list down to 20 pictures!











~ THE VISITATION ~






I particularly love the work of Carl Bloch, I tried to find his artwork with as many mysteries as I could.





~ THE NATIVITY ~

I had trouble finding many images search under the words, "the Nativity" but once I changed to "Adoration of the Shepherds" I then found many beautiful images!











~ THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD ~


I love this image because with the map of the world across Simeon
it makes me think of the passage,
"Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted"







~ THE FINDING OF THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE ~


This is my dh's favourite from this mystery..




Carl Bloch's work again.






7 comments:

Vallimasoos said...

So beautiful! what a great idea!

Lena said...

I love using visual aids for the Rosary. The pictures you shared are absolutely gorgeous. I can’t want to see your altar arrangement.
Pax Christi - Lena

Carole in Wales said...

Beautiful art, Anne. I love this idea and I may borrow a few of your images.

fadfd said...

These are so beautiful. What a gift for your family!

Janet said...

Wonderful idea, and beautiful images - thank you for sharing this. I'm quite inspired!

Sweetness and Light said...

Annie, this is SO beautiful, what a gift you are to your sweet family! Many blessings to you all, thank you for sharing this :)

Neli said...

God bless you and your family; it is a great idea to have the rosary done this way, it keeps the family together and the blessings of God pours in the house where prayer is said daily. ♥