This Page is under construction.  The local fraternity’s intention is to have a customized experience using radio buttons and checkboxes to add additional prayers from the 1855 Franciscan Manual with its additions and other prayers that the Catholic faithful might include when praying the rosary such as the Fatima prayer, prayer to St Michael, to St Joseph, and other Marian prayers.  We are researching on adapting the Franciscan Crown to the Byzantine Rite.  It is our hope to find cantors both Byzantine and Gregorian that can provide audio content for your listening.  We are in dialogue with a schola in hopes we can provide Latin, English, and Spanish options for the Latin Rite version of the Franciscan Crown.  We will likely create an Apple IOS and Android application when this is complete.  We also have 8 Byzantine icons being currently written for this project and will be included.

History

ABOUT the year 1422, a young man, very devout to our Blessed Lady, who had been in the habit of crowning her statue with flowers every day, took the habit of the Friars Minor. After some time spent in the noviciate, he so much missed the opportunity of paying this tribute of affection to his beloved Mother as to feel a disgust for his Order, and determine to quit it. At this moment, however, he went in tears to kneel before her image, and to implore her assistance, when lo! the good Mother appeared to him in glory, saying: “My son, be not sad because you are no longer able to offer me flowers every day. I will teach you a better method of honouring me. Entwine for me henceforth every day a garland of flowers which will never perish, by saluting me with one Our Father and ten Hail Marys seven times repeated, in honour of my seven joys. The first was that which I felt at the moment of conceiving the Eternal Word in my little house at Nazareth. The next was the joy which I experienced in visiting my cousin, S. Elizabeth. The third was my supreme joy in the stable at Bethlehem, when at last I beheld the Incarnate Son of God. The fourth was caused by the visit of the good Magi, which was to me a pledge of the future conversion of the Gentiles. The fifth I experienced in finding my Beloved Son in the Temple at Jerusalem. The sixth, in His glorious Resurrection; and the seventh, in my own Assumption into Heaven.”
    The novice, encouraged by these gentle words, persevered in his vocation, and never failed to-perform the pious practice which Mary had deigned to teach him. One day, being thus occupied, the master of novices approached his cell and peeped in. To his great astonishment he saw an angel making a garland of roses, inserting after every tenth rose a lily of gold. When completed, he placed it on the head of the kneeling novice, and disappeared. The master of novices retired in amazement, but afterwards summoned the novice, and obliged him, under obedience, to declare what he had been doing. The latter, in all simplicity, narrated to him the vision of Our Lady, and explained the devotion in which he had been engaged.

But the Blessed Virgin desired that the devotion should be more strikingly recommended. Accordingly, one day that the novice, now professed, was on a journey with a companion, he entered into a thick forest whilst engaged in reciting his Crown. On a sudden a band of robbers, emerging from their ambush, demanded to know what had become of the beautiful young lady who had accompanied them to the entrance of the wood. The friars persisted in denying the existence of any such person, and the robbers in malice tied them to trees and were preparing to beat them. The two religious, raising their eyes to Heaven, besought the assistance of Mary, and immediately she appeared to the brigands under the same form which they had previously observed, reproaching them for their cruelty to her servants, and explaining that it was herself who had been beside them, attaching roses to their beads, in reward for the Crown they were reciting in her honour. Upon this the brigands, recognising the Mother of God, cast themselves at her feet and implored her pardon, which was granted to them. And soon, abandoning their life of brigandage, they entered into the Order of the Friars Minor, and related everywhere the miracle of which they had been witnesses.
    This miraculous conversion being published, the practice of the Crown spread rapidly in the Order and elsewhere. Common custom soon added to the seven decades two additional Hail Marys to make up the number of the seventy-two years which the Blessed Mother is believed to have spent upon earth. Numerous miracles attested how agreeable this devotion was to her. And the young man, dying not many years after his admission to the Order, was seen to be carried up to Heaven in. her arms, crowned with flowers, and surrounded by lilies and roses.
   Such is the history given to us by Wadding, the great historian of the Franciscan Order, and a native of these isles, though many other and imperfect versions are frequently met with. S. Dominic is supposed to have derived from this source the idea of the Rosary, which he developed into fifteen decades, including, however, the seven above mentioned. There is no need to discuss the respective merits of the two devotions ; but the Franciscan Crown will always be a favourite with Franciscans on account of the Plenary Indulgence which they may gain by reciting it devoutly. Others of the faithful may gain sixty days’ indulgence for every Hail Mary.