[malakhi]

Historically speaking, how big of a change is the proposal of adding the "luminous mysteries" to the rosary prayer? Has a change like this ever been proposed before, or has the basic prayer been the same since it began?

[SoothingDave]

Historically speaking, how big of a change is the proposal of adding the "luminous mysteries" to the rosary prayer? Has a change like this ever been proposed before, or has the basic prayer been the same since it began?

Historically speaking, I think it's pretty momentous. To think that for years and years (OK, decades and decades) people will be changed by this.

I am not a big Rosary buff and am not sure. But I imagine that it would be pretty surprising if the devotion in the present form spontaneously appeared. Let me see what I can find.

(I don't need to tell you that this is not a matter of dogma, not even of public liturgy, just a private devotion. I don't think it possible to pray, the Rosary or anything, "wrong.")

[eastsider]

Personally, I think the real significance of John Paul's proposed addition is not in his changing the form of the rosary -- as you can see from the entry for "Rosary" in the Encyclopaedia of the Catholic Church, the Rosary is a living devotion that is more or less in a state of continual development -- as it is his reintroducing the rosary to a generation of post-conciliar Catholics that is otherwise in danger of seeing this living devotion die of neglect.