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Hi, Judy —
The term chaplet, in
your sense, is suggested by the Catholic
Encyclopedia, but more often
I associate it (by extension, perhaps)
with certain prayers that aren't the
Rosary, as traditionally prayed,
but prayed on a Rosary nonetheless;
such as the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
As for, what is a complete
Rosary? — It depends on what
you mean. According to the (Old)
Roman Breviary, as cited by the Catholic
Encyclopedia, above:
| "The Rosary is a certain
form of prayer wherein we say
fifteen decades or tens of Hail
Mary's with an Our Father between
each ten, while at each of these
fifteen decades we recall successively
in pious meditation one of the
mysteries of our Redemption." |
We can now extend this to the twenty mysteries, owing to Pope St. John Paul II's
introduction of the Luminous Mysteries,
but usually when people say it, a Rosary is
five mysteries prayed together, which
is what you see counted out on most
Rosaries. So normally, when someone
says,
I prayed a Rosary.
they mean they prayed the five joyful
mysteries, or the five luminous mysteries,
or the five sorrowful mysteries,
or the five glorious mysteries.
The Rosary is an object and a
prayer which is usually said in sets
of five decades.
It gets more complicated because,
while what I've described as a typical, Rosary,
as a term,
is not limited to these prayers.
There can be more decades or fewer;
here Rosary just means
a set of prayer beads.
Eric
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