Question
Our rosary prayer group is upset with our new pastor. We have been saying the rosary in front of the Blessed Sacrament during [exposition] for years. He says that the Vatican said in some document that this was not allowed. What document?
--Rocked in Richmond
Answer
There are two documents that come from the Congregation for Divine Worship in Rome which speak to your question and practice that your pastor is trying to promote. First, the 1967 instruction, Eucharisticum mysterium, which says:
During exposition, everything should be so arranged that the faithful can devote themselves attentively in prayer to Christ the Lord.
The Congregation received many questions about this line. In its official publication Notitiae 4 (1968): 133-134, 10, the congregation responded to the following query:
May prayers in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the saints be allowed during exposition of the blessed sacrament?
Until now in communities or particular groups there was a custom of having, with the blessed sacrament exposed, prayers in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, e.g., the rosary, or prayers to the saints, e.g., the Litany of Saints, a novena in preparation for a saint's feast, etc. The question now is whether this is in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the instruction on the worship of the eucharistic mystery. On the one hand, notice that there is no explicit prohibition in the text of the instruction. On the other, however, it is preferable to take in a restrictive sense the words, 'During the exposition...,' so that the words amount to Christ the Lord alone. The small word, alone often applied by commentators here, aptly conveys the intent of the law, even though it does not appear in the text of the instruction. The people's adoration together before the blessed sacrament achieves its purpose when it directs their minds and prayers to the eucharistic mystery, through silence, readings -- especially from scripture -- singing, and petitions. Other devotions, though good and commendable, take the attention away to a different object, and should therefore be assigned to another time, whether before or after the exposition and benediction of the blessed sacrament.
Even the rosary must be classified as a Marian prayer, not as an address to Christ. Nor is the prescribed meditation on the mystery of Christ during the saying of the Hail Mary a counter-argument. For the essential part of the rosary consists in the repeated prayer addressed to the Blessed Virgin.
However, just recently the Congregation for Divine worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament in the XXXIV edition of Notitiae (1998) 507-511, listed new notes on the recitation of the rosary during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. In an unofficial translation from the United States' Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy Newsletter, January-February 1999 edition, on page 62 it reports:
One should not expose the Eucharist only to recite the rosary. However, among the prayers that are used during adoration, the recitation of the rosary may certainly be included, emphasizing the Christological aspects with bibilical readings relating to the mysteries, and providing time for silent adoration and mediation on them.
From this most recent clarification, the congregation in Rome is still wishing for biblical readings which focus on Christ with recitation of the rosary focusing the mysteries of Christ are paramount. One can assume by these comments that reciting decade after decade of the rosary is not the normal practice for public communal prayer before the Eucharist.