“Luminous Mysteries” in the Rosary?

Q What about the “luminous mysteries”?
A The origin of the Rosary comes from the practice to recite 150 Our Fathers which was common in the middle ages for uneducated persons who could not say the 150 psalms. For instance St Francis makes explicit mention of it in the Franciscan Rule. Now no one can increase the number of psalms! Hence it is not fitting to increase the number of mysteries in the Rosary.

Moreover one should notice that in the Creed, the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries are mentioned, but not the luminous ones: one goes directly from “He was born of the Virgin Mary” to “suffered under Pontius Pilate”… Thus meditating on the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries makes us meditate on the ESSENTIAL mysteries of our Faith, while the luminous are somehow a distraction (by way of replacement, diminishing the focus on the Cross, and focussing more on the temporal Kingdom of Christ.)

Moreover, the number 153 Hail Mary’s (150 in 15 decades plus the three at the beginning) is a sacred number: indeed in the second miraculous catch of fishes, St John thought it important to mention the number of “big fishes” that were caught: 153 (see Jn. 21:11). St Augustine explains that it signifies the number of the elect (not that there would be only 153 elects, but that the (huge) number of elects is signified by 153).

Finally and more fundamentally, the modernists tried to CHANGE EVERYTHING. They would not leave anything unchanged: thus they even attempted to change the Rosary by adding these mysteries. Generations of Saints and countless souls had sanctified themselves with the fifteen mysteries, but that did not count for the modernists: they thought they could do better, as if greater quantity meant better quality! We must not enter into this CHANGING mentality at all: it is very dangerous. St Paul tells us, especially on the matter of prayer: “Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). In other words, we should transmit the examples of holiness that we have received; we should not change them, pretending to do better…

That being said, one should know that it is permitted to meditate on “alternate” mysteries, within the “fifteen decades”: for instance, one can meditate on the flight to Egypt as the fourth joyful mystery, or even on the wedding of Cana as the fifth joyful mystery. There was an excellent Traditional priest, Father Thomas Calmel, O.P., who wrote a little book on the Rosary and proposes such contemplations, while respecting the custom of the “fifteen mysteries”.