The Crowns of Our Mother Mary, by Dr. Mary Elizabeth Cuff

In 1422, a young Franciscan novice was distraught to realize that as a Franciscan, he could no longer bring a crown of roses to a statue of Our Lady every day, a habit he had cultivated since childhood. As he contemplated leaving the order for the sake of this devotion, the Mother of God appeared to him and gave him a new way to construct her daily crown: seven decades of a rosary, each dedicated to Our Lady’s joys: The Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Finding Jesus in the Temple, the Resurrection, and Our Lady’s Assumption and Crowning as Queen of Heaven and Earth. This alternate form of the Rosary has become known as the Franciscan Crown and was so deeply beloved that it bears the distinction of being the devotion with the most indulgences granted to its use. …