The Joyful Mysteries

94 pages, color on uncoated 70# paper

softcover

8.5 x 11

The Luminous Mysteries

94 pages, color on uncoated 70# paper

softcover

8.5 x 11

The Sorrowful Mysteries

94 pages, color on uncoated 70# paper

softcover

8.5 x 11

The Glorious Mysteries

94 pages, color on uncoated 70# paper

softcover

8.5 x 11

The Complete Illuminated Rosary

370 pages, color on uncoated 70# paper

softcover and hardcover

8.5 x 11

Ovenbird Hand-Bound Edition of The Complete Illuminated Rosary

370 pages, super-saturated color on 80# Mohawk Superfine paper

cloth hardbound cover, hand-stitched

8.5 x 11

Welcome to The Illuminated Rosary, a way of praying the rosary more meditatively with the help of sacred art. The Illuminated Rosary was first developed for families with young children, but has proven popular with young and old alike. Using The Illuminated Rosary is simple:

• The full text of every prayer is printed in order, so that young readers might learn to pray the rosary without distraction.
• Each mystery is introduced with a brief, child-friendly reading loosely based on the Scriptures. In the rosary, a mystery is an episode in the life of Christ or Mary that unfolds God’s plan of salvation. After reading about each mystery, you will be prompted to state the intentions for which you are praying.
• The sacred art on every spread is meant to aid prayerful meditation. As you pray each decade, remember the words of Pope Paul VI: “By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life…” (Pope Paul VI, Marialis Cultus #47).
• The roses around the text of each Hail Mary serve as rosary beads, helping kids keep track of where they are in the decade.

Here are some practical suggestions for praying The Illuminated Rosary with children:

• Keep it short at first, saying one decade of the rosary in a single sitting. Try praying antiphonally: one group or person says the first half of each prayer, and the other group or person says the second half.
• Optionally, ask your family for intentions for each decade. For whom or for what do you wish to offer the prayers of the decade?
• After you are finished praying, ask your children what thoughts or feelings they had as they meditated on each mystery. Which artwork “spoke” to them most? How might the Holy Spirit have been speaking to them through their meditation?
• You may find some of the artwork in these pages not to your personal taste. That is natural; but to get the most out of your meditation, try viewing these images sympathetically. Let the vision of the artist challenge you: Why would the artist paint the mystery as he or she did? What does it reveal to the artist and others who have appreciated it?

However you use The Illuminated Rosary, may praying with it lead you closer to the heart of Jesus through the heart of his mother; and may your own heart be filled with awe, reverence, and wonder.

“Why did you do a second edition of The Illuminated Rosary? The first edition was great as it was!”

That’s one of the most common questions we’ve fielded about the second edition of The Illuminated Rosary. And given the amount of work and expense involved in producing this second edition—hundreds of hours of art selection and production work, and thousands of dollars in licensing fees—we’ve asked that question a time or two ourselves!

The spark for this second edition was embarrassingly mundane: Shortly after releasing the first edition, our primary print vendor raised its charge for color printing, and because our books were priced so close to the cost of printing, we suddenly found ourselves unable to sell the books to wholesalers. While we continued to sell the books from our Gracewatch store, the reality was that the books were not priced sustainably. Re-pricing the books in their 130-page format would have made them cost-prohibitive to buyers.

The solution was to re-do the books from the ground up, with one prayer on each page (rather than one prayer per spread). This reduced the size of the books to a more affordable 94 pages.

The new format also allowed us to use more art…and create some “breathing room” in the layout, especially around the chapter introductions and the longer prayers.

Along the way, we made other improvements. The new edition now includes the text of the Fatima Prayer between the mysteries. We commissioned new art from Jessica Connolly, four sets of rose wreaths that provided the “beads” for the bottom of the Hail Mary pages as well as a solid visual marker for the end of each mystery.

We also had much more art to choose from, both in the public domain and from contemporary Christian artists.

Finally, we upgraded to a larger format and had the books professionally designed and laid out.

We think the results are stunning, and we can’t wait to use these beautiful new books in our own families for years to come. We hope you enjoy them just as much!