Jesu —

The Rosary has 150 Hail Mary's because it evolved as a New Testament psalter; a way for those who were illiterate to pray: once for each of the 150 psalms, as monks did.

If you divide them up into the three types of mysteries (until recently, there were only three),
you get fifty beads per each set of mysteries: joyful, sorrowful and  glorious.

There are five mysteries for each set of mysteries. When meditating on each mystery

For example: (For the Joyous mysteries)

1. the Annunciation
2. the Visitation
3. the Birth of Jesus, also known as the Incarnation
4. His Presentation in the Temple and
5. the finding of the Christ child in the temple by Joseph and Mary

we pray on a set of ten beads for each of the individual mysteries.

Mary Ann

Hi, Jesu —

Just to add to what Mary Ann has said, you may want to check out my PDF and MS Word 2003 documents:

• [PDF] What is the Rosary? In My Own Words
• [MS Word 2003] What is the Rosary? In My Own Words

Both documents contain all twenty mysteries of the Rosary; five more were added by Pope St. John Paul II in 2002.

Hope this helps,

Mike