Choosing an Intention When Praying of the Rosary

A prayer intention is a specific request, a particular element that we wish to entrust to God. Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort recalled the importance of praying the Rosary by entrusting a prayer intention to God : The first mistake to avoid is to recite the Rosary without having any intention, so that if you ask them why they say their Rosary, they would not be able to answer you. Therefore, always have in mind, while reciting your Rosary, a grace to ask for, a virtue to imitate, or a sin to destroy. So how do you choose your intention, and how do you introduce it into your prayer?

Why choose an intention for the recitation of the rosary?

Jesus tells us: let us dare to ask in faith. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

The prayer of the Rosary invites us to meditate on the mysteries of the life and death of Christ. United with him, we can ask God what we need.

During the rosary, we pray with the Virgin Mary, to whom her Son can refuse nothing. This is what Sister Lucy of Fatima reminds us: “The Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the rosary. There is no problem, however difficult it may be, whether temporal or especially spiritual, relating to the personal life of each of us, our families, the families of the world or religious communities, or the life of peoples and nations, there is no problem, I say, however difficult it may be, that we cannot resolve through the prayer of the holy rosary.”

 The entire rosary can be recited for a particular intention; this is the case, for example, with the rosaries for the souls in purgatory. But we can also have intentions with every decade of the rosary.

How to entrust a prayer intention during your rosary?

Choose an intention

It can be a request for grace for oneself - help, protection, healing, patience in trials, … - or for a particular person (child, parent, friend, colleague, …). We can also offer our rosary for the Church (for the unity of Christians, for persecuted Christians, for the Pope, for priests, …) If we have no personal intentions, we can pray for the intentions of the Pope (every month, the Pope suggests praying for a specific intention) or for the intentions that Mary carries in her heart (messages from Medjugorje). The rosary also invites us particularly to pray for the souls in purgatory or for peace in the world.“I want you to continue to pray the rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to obtain world peace and the end of war,” said the Virgin during her apparitions at Fatima.

The rosary is also a prayer that can be offered for specific intentions, particularly at certain times of the year: for the sick, the terminally ill during the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes for example, for families, on the occasion of the feast of the Holy Family, for those unemployed or suffering at work for the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker...

Offer your intention to God at the beginning of the recitation

At the beginning of the rosary—after making the sign of the cross and before the Creed prayer or before each decade (that is to say before reciting the Our Father)—we entrust our intention to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. 

This can be by saying:
-“Lord, with the Virgin Mary, I offer you this rosary for….”
 - “Lord, I offer you this decade to ask for the grace of... through the intercession of the Virgin Mary.”
 - “Lord, I entrust... to you in my prayers and those of the blessed Virgin Mary”
 - …

Pray the rosary and entrust your intentions to the Lord with Hozana

Hozana helps you and accompanies you in the prayer of the rosary and carries your intentions in the communities of prayer.

You can pray, each month, with the other praying communities, for the intentions of the Pope.

Hozana also allows you to entrust your prayer intentions to the entire community of praying people, who can then pray with you. The free Rosario application, developed by Hozana, also allows you to invite people to join you around a rosary for a particular intention.