Why praying the Rosary for eight days?
Why not praying the Rosary for nine days – and “earn” indulgences while praying the Rosary?
This is a Rosary for the deceased and the ones mourning.
We offer our indulgences for the deceased soul and the souls in Purgatory.
It took eight days to create it
and later we learnt that the number eight had significant meanings, unknown to us:
- The traditional baptismal font was eight-sided because on the eighth day by rising.
- It is eight days between Palm Sunday and the Resurrection.
- The eighth day is everlasting and hallowed by the resurrection of Christ. Baptism is the sacrament of faith, and it signifies liberation from sin and from its instigator the devil, exorcisms are pronounced over the person who was born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin. (CCC 1213).
- The traditional “Good Shepherd Sunday is eight days after Christ has risen and it concludes the Octave of Easter. The reading on that day is when St. Peter says that Christ is the Shepherd (Joh 10:11).
- There are eight Beatitudes.
- Many people have remarked that the number 8, laying sideways, looks like a well-known symbol but few remembers that the number eight, in the Periodic Table of Elements; is Oxygen – a source for life.
- More importantly, and an obvious reason why eight days, is the “All Saints Octave” which begins on Nov. 1 (All Saints Day), followed by All Souls Day and the All Saints Octave ends on Nov. 8.
- Each day of the octave one can earn a plenary indulgence for the souls in Purgatory by visiting a cemetery and say any prayer of any length.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.