Rosario – Pray the Rosary

Rosario is a rosary app with a twist: you don't pray it alone. You form a group of five, and each person takes one decade a day. Together the group prays a full rosary every day.

The idea comes from the Living Rosary, started by Pauline Jaricot in France back in 1826. The app does the organizing for you. You invite four family members or friends, it assigns each of you a decade with its mystery, and you can submit prayer intentions for the group to carry. Each mystery comes with a short meditation, so you're not just rattling off Hail Marys.

What struck me is how manageable it makes the rosary. A full five decades every day is a real commitment, and plenty of us have started and quit. One decade is ten minutes at most. Knowing four other people are counting on you to do your part changes things. That's the old wisdom of the Living Rosary, and it works just as well on a phone as it did on paper.

This is a good fit for families spread across different cities, parish small groups, or a circle of friends who want to pray together without finding a common hour. It's also a gentle way to bring someone back to the rosary who finds the full thing daunting.

The catch is built into the design: you need four other people. If you can't round up a group, the app loses its point — there are better solo rosary apps. It comes from Hozana, a French Catholic prayer association, and while the English translation is fine, some of the community content leans French. The user base is still small.

Rosario is free, made by Association Hozana. You can get it on the App Store: Rosario - Pray the Rosary. If you have four people in your life who would say yes, this is worth starting today.