Dear Advent and the joyful rosary

Popular prints and selected rosaries from the collection of Auxiliary Bishop Heinrich Janssen

Today, Advent is a time of numerous pleasures - mulled wine, cookies and stollen are available in lavish quantities. In the past, however, Advent was a time of fasting - interrupted only by important feasts of the saints - and of intense prayer. This was how people prepared for the arrival of Christ. In Catholic regions, the joyful rosary was often prayed during the weeks leading up to Christmas, its mysteries referring, for example, to Jesus' conception, his birth in Bethlehem and his offering in the temple.

The change of Advent, which used to begin on November 11, was taken up by the exhibition, which at the same time looked at the history of the rosary. In addition to prints on the themes of Advent, saints in Advent and the praying of the rosary, selected rosaries from four centuries were also presented, which the Lower Rhine Museum for Folklore and Cultural History in Kevelaer made available from the collection of Auxiliary Bishop Heinrich Janssen.