Abstract:
Apparatus, particularly portable for personal use, for guiding a believer in the saying and meditation of the rosary, having a display (7) for presenting the single steps of the prayer of the rosary one at a time and keys (5, 6) controllable by the believer for sequentially advancing the presentation of the single steps themselves.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to an apparatus for guiding the believer to prayer. 
     More specifically, it relates to an apparatus for guiding the saying and meditation of the rosary. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     As is known, the rosary is a prayer in the honour of the Virgin Mary and consists in saying a hundred and fifty Hail Mary, divided in fifteen tens, intercalated with the saying of the Lord&#39;s Prayer and the Gloria. At each ten, one keeps meditating on one of the fifteen Mysteries of Redemption which consist in events of Gospel history and are divided in three series regarding Jesus&#39; and Mary&#39;s Joy (Joyful Mysteries), Sorrow (Sorrowful Mysteries) and Gloria (Glorious Mysteries). 
     The Joyful Mysteries are the Annunciation, the Visitation, Jesus&#39; birth, the Virgin&#39;s Purification, and Jesus&#39;s finding among the Scribes. The Sorrowful Mysteries are the Agony, the Flagellation, the Crowning with thorns, the Trip to the Calvary, the Crucifixion and death. The Glorious Mysteries are Jesus&#39; Resurrection, the Ascension to Heaven, the descent of the Holy Ghost, Mary&#39;s Assumption, and her Crowning. 
     The essence and the merit of this prayer are in joining mental prayer and vocal prayer together. 
     As far back as antiquity and in the most disparate cultures, besides prayer books, means for assisting the believer in the prayer are known. For instance there are plates bearing series of images, each one associated with a different step of a prayer. 
     In the saying of the Rosary, due to its complexity relative to other prayers, a means was created and is still commonly used to the present day--particularly portable for the personal use in any place--for counting the Hail Mary and the Lord&#39;s Prayer, made up of a crown chain wherein groups of ten beads which serve for the Hail Mary, are fixed, each one intercalated with a large bead or major grain, which serves for the Lord&#39;s Prayer. 
     This crown is itself named a rosary for metonymy. It represents, with its grains, the third part of the rosary, the saying of three Hail Mary corresponding with each grain. The rosary in a reduced form can also be said limitedly to such a third part, it also is commonly named a rosary, in which case a single Hail Mary corresponds with each grain. 
     The crown rosary such as known heretofore, however, has the disadvantage of reminding the believer of the various steps of the prayer in an only vague manner. 
     OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The object of the present invention is to provide a means that guides the believer step-by-step in the vocal saying and in the meditation of the Rosary in a substantially more precise and suggestive way. 
     Another object of the present invention is to provide such a means, that is easy and convenient to be borne on oneself and to be utilized as a personal apparatus. 
     Such objects are reached with an apparatus that displays the various steps of the Rosary one at a time, endowed with a mechanism for sequentially advancing the stops themselves upon the believer&#39;s command. 
     For such an apparatus the construction with electronic hardware is particularly provided. 
     This construction has the double advantage of a low cost and of a versatility of the apparatus itself. Based upon the electronic hardware, the displaying of the various steps of the Rosary can be concretely carried out in both an optical manner on a video screen, and an acoustical manner through a voice synthesizer. 
     The visual displaying is in turn susecptible of various embodiments, both alfa-numerical and graphical. 
     For the apparatus the realization in the form of a box in pocket-size or anyhow portable is particularly envisaged, that offers the advantage that a believer is able with it to profitably employ, praying, a few minutes also of his free time in any place he finds itself. 
     The electronic minaturization allows in this connection executions to very reduced sizes. 
     Therefore, the present invention relates to an apparatus for guiding a believer in the saying of the rosary, comprising means for displaying the single steps of the prayer of the rosary one at a time and means controllable by the believer for sequentially advancing the displaying of the single steps themselves. 
     According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, said displaying means are a device controlled by a microprocessor and said means for sequentially advancing are two keys interfaced with the microprocessor itself, and the apparatus includes means for storing the information to be displayed for each step. 
     Advantageously, the apparatus is endowed with means for storing the step displayed last. 
     Particularly, the realization as a video display is envisaged for said displaying device. 
     It is envisaged that such a video screen display is an alphanumerical video screen display. 
     It is, particularly, envisaged that such an alphanumerical display is a liquid crystal display. 
     It is however also envisaged that the video display is a graphical display. 
     It is still further envisaged that said video display is made up of a group of light emitting diodes for the ten Hail Mary and another three light emitting diodes for indicating the group of Mysteries. 
     The realization as a vocal synthesizer is however also envisaged for said displaying device. 
     The present invention also relates to an apparatus for guiding the believer in the saying of the rosary, comprising means for displaying the single steps of the prayer of the rosary step by step and means controllable by the believer for sequentially advancing the displaying of the single steps themselves, further comprising means for emitting musical motives accompanying the various steps of the rosary. 
     According to an embodiment thereof, said means for emitting musical motives are made up of a piezoelectric buzzer. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
     The present invention will be best understood based upon the following detailed disclosure of preferred embodiment thereof, given only as a matter of a example, absolutely not of restriction, with reference to the annexed drawings, wherein: 
     FIG. 1 represents a pictorial view of an embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention; 
     FIG. 2 represents a pictorial view of another embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention, and 
     FIG. 3 represents the hardware architecture to make the apparatus of the present invention to perform its functions. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     As can be seen in FIG. 1, the apparatus of the present invention shows itself as a pocket plastic box 1. 
     Such a plastic box contains the electronic hardware represented in FIG. 3. It comprises a 4-or 8-bit microprocessor 2, which addresses 8 kilobytes of an erasable programmable read only memory or EPROM 3 and some hundreds bytes of a random access memory or RAM 4. 
     Microprocessor 2 manages two keys 5 and 6, diversified with green and red colors, a liquid crystal alphanumerical video display 7 of two (2) rows by sixteen (16) characters and a piezoelectric buzzer 8. 
     The power supply of the apparatus is provided by storage batteries or accumulators 9, for a value of 6 volts with a consumption of about 50 milliamperes. 
     The hardware is endowed with means (not shown) for supplying the RAM 4 with the apparatus turned off too, so allowing the data in the memory to be preserved. 
     Based upon such a hardware, all the various steps of the rosary are shown alphanumerically on the video display 7 (visual displaying means) through the two keys 5 and 6 (means for advancing the displaying); the piezoelectric buzzer 8 omits short religious motives fit for stressing the most important passages among the various prayers to the believer. 
     After turning the apparatus on, one has the following operation sequence: 
     
         __________________________________________________________________________ACTION    DISPLAY         MUSIC__________________________________________________________________________GREEN KEY THE HOLY ROSARY MOTIVE OF     JOYFUL MYSTERIES                     JOYFUL MYSTERIESGREEN KEY MAKE THE SIGN     OF THE CROSSGREEN KEY 1 MARY RECEIVES THE     ANNUNCIATIONGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 1 ANNUNCIATION  MOTIVE OF     HAIL MARY 1     THE HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 1 ANNUNCIATION  A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF     HAIL MARY 10    THE BUZZER FOR                     EACH FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD        GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 2 MARY VISITS     ELIZABETHGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 2 VISITATION    MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 2 VISITATION    A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF                     THE BUZZER FOR                     EACH FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD        GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 3 JESUS IS BORN     IN BETHLEHEMGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 3 THE BIRTH     MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     GLORIA TO THE LORD                     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 3 THE BIRTH     A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO THE                     MOTIVE OF THE     LORD IS SAID    GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY THE SALVE REGINA                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         SALVE REGINAGREEN KEY THE LITANIES     ARE SAIDGREEN KEY THE HOLY ROSARY MOTIVE OF THE     SORROWFUL MYSTERIES                     SORROWFUL MYSTERIESGREEN KEY MAKE THE SIGN     OF THE CROSSGREEN KEY 1 JESUS SWEATS BLOOD     IN THE GARDENGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 1 AGONY         MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 1 AGONY         A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO THE                     MOTIVE OF THE     LORD            GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 2 JESUS IS     FLAGELLATEDGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 2 FLAGELLATION  MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 2 FLAGELLATION  A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD IS SAID                     GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 3 JESUS CROWNED     WITH THORNSGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERH + GREEN KEY     3 THE THORNS    MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 3 THE THORNS    A &#34; CLICK&#34; OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD IS SAID                     GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 4 JESUS CARRIES     THE CROSSGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF     IS SAID         THE LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN     4 THE CROSS     MOTIVE OF     HAIL MARY 1     THE HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 4 THE CROSS     A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORTA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD IS SAID                     GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 5 JESUS DIES     ON THE CROSSGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 5 THE DEATH     MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 5 THE DEATH     A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF     HAIL MARY 10    THE BUZZER FOR                     EACH FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD        GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY THE SALVE REGINA                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         SALVE REGINAGREEN KEY THE LITANIES     ARE SAIDGREEN KEY THE HOLY ROSARY MOTIVE OF THE     GLORIOUS MYSTERIES                     GLORIOUS MYSTERIESGREEN KEY MAKE THE SIGN     OF THE CROSSGREEN KEY 1 JESUS RESURRECTS     FROM DEATHGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 1 RESURRECTION  MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 1 RESURRECTION  A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO THE                     MOTIVE OF THE     LORD IS SAID    GLORIA TO THE LORD         . . .GREEN KEY 2 JESUS ASCENDS MOTIVE OF THE     TO HEAVEN       LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 2 ASCENSION     MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)          . . .GREEN KEY 2 ASCENSION     A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF     HAIL MARY 10    THE BUZZER FOR                     EACH FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD IS SAID                     GLORIA TO THE                     THE LORDGREEN KEY 3 JESUS GIVES     THE HOLY SPIRITGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 3 WHITSUNDAY    MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 3 WHITSUNDAY    A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF     HAIL MARY 1     THE BUZZER FOR                     EACH FURTHER                     HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD IS SAID                     GLORIA TO                     THE LORDGREEN KEY 4 BLESSED MARY     RECEIVED INTO HEAVENGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 4 ASSUMPTION    MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 4 ASSUMPTION    A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THE GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD IS SAID                     GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY 5 MARY     CROWNED THE QUEENGREEN KEY THE LORD&#39;S PRAYER                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         LORD&#39;S PRAYERGREEN KEY 5 CROWNING      MOTIVE OF THE     HAIL MARY 1     HAIL MARY                     (THE FIRST                     TIME ONLY)         . . .GREEN KEY 5 CROWNING      A &#34;CLICK&#34; OF THE     HAIL MARY 10    BUZZER FOR EACH                     FURTHER HAIL MARYGREEN KEY THR GLORIA TO   MOTIVE OF THE     THE LORD IS SAID                     GLORIA TO THE LORDGREEN KEY THE SALVE REGINA                     MOTIVE OF THE     IS SAID         SALVE REGINAGREEN KEY THE LITANIES     ARE SAID__________________________________________________________________________ 
    
     From this point, by keeping on pressing the green key, one can start again from the beginning. 
     On the contrary, by pressing the red key anywhere one finds himself in the rosary, one can select which group of mysteries to recite, in the following order: 
     
         ______________________________________ACTION   DISPLAY         MUSIC______________________________________RED      THE HOLY ROSARY MOTIVE OF THE    JOYFUL MYSTERIES                    JOYFUL MYSTERIESRED      THE HOLY ROSARY MOTIVE OF THE    SORROWFUL       SORROWFUL    MYSTERIES       MYSTERIESRED      THE HOLY ROSARY MOTIVE OF THE    GLORIOUS        GLORIOUS    MYSTERIES       MYSTERIES______________________________________ 
    
     Turning the apparatus off and then having to interrupt the prayer, upon returning the apparatus on, the believer will not have to restart from the beginning or remember where he had arrived, but the display will reposition itself automatically in the interrupt point. 
     The displaying of the messages can be provided in any desired tongue. 
     According to a variant of such an embodiment, graphical messages are substituted for the alphanumerical messages, on a larger displaying array, which can offer a suggestive result advantage. 
     Variants are envisaged having the two display forms in combination. 
     With reference to FIG. 2, another embodiment is disclosed of the apparatus of the present invention. Elements thereof corresponding with those of the embodiment of FIG. 1 are designated with the same numerals increased by ten. It presents itself equal to the apparatus of FIG. 1, with a small, pocket plastic box 11 and with the electronic hardware shown in FIG. 3, except that in the place of the alphanumerical displaying, there is disclosed a group of light emitting diodes or LED&#39;s 17 (visual display means) for the ten Hail Mary and other 3 LED&#39;s 17&#39; (visual display means) for indicating the group of mysteries that one keeps meditating, keeping the musical motives unaltered. 
     In this case a Hail Mary or a Mystery is represented by the turning on of one of the relevant LED&#39;s. 
     The representation is less suggestive, but the execution variant is cheaper. 
     In this embodiment too, the advancement commands are imparted through two keys 15 and 16 (means for advancing the display), with the same execution modality. 
     According to another embodiment (not represented) in the place of the visual displaying, an acoustical presentation is provided, by endowing the hardware disclosed with reference to FIG. 3 with a vocal synthesizer that vocally recites the messages. 
     The eventual combination of the two presentations, the visual and the acoustical ones, with the microprocessor that controls both a video display and a vocal synthesizer, is also envisaged. 
     Summing up, a religious use apparatus has thus been realized, which especially for modern youth turns out to be in synchrony with today&#39;s technological development whereto the new generations are accustomed since child-hood from. 
     The present invention has been disclosed with reference to preferred embodiments thereof, but it is to be expressedly understood that variations, additions and/or omissions can be made thereto, without so departing from its protective scope, as defined by the appended claims. 
     List of the Numerals 
     1: pocket plastic containing box; 
     2: microprocessor; 
     3: EPROM; 
     4: RAM; 
     5, 6: advancing keys; 
     7: display; 
     8: piezoelectric buzzer; 
     9: battery; 9&#39;: turning on switch; 
     11: pocket plastic containing box; 
     15, 16: advancing keys; 
     17: LED&#39;s group for the ten Hail Mary; 
     17&#39;: LED&#39;s group for the three Mysteries; and 
     18: piezoelectric buzzer