Our Lady of the Rosary

The liturgical calendar is the Church’s schedule of feasts and seasons that mark the rhythm of our life of faith. The cornerstone of the liturgical year is Sunday, the Lord’s Day, which is always a “little Easter.”  We also have seasons such as Ordinary Time and days such as Ash Wednesday, which begins the penitential season of Lent. We have Advent and the Christmas season, and the feasts of the various saints we venerate. 

The calendar is also punctuated with faith-affirming seasonal devotions. March, for example, is a month devoted to pondering the fidelity of Saint Joseph. May is Mary’s month. June is devoted to honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus. These devotional times are scattered joyfully throughout the year and enable our faith to engrain itself into our very movement, our pilgrimage, through this life.

October is the month in which we revisit the great beauty of the rosary. The rosary as we know it today has ancient roots in Christian prayer habits. The Desert Fathers of the early Church were known to use knotted ropes to pray the psalms daily. In time, hand-held ropes with small beads became an aid in meditating on the great events (mysteries) in the lives of Jesus and Mary. 

The very word “rosary” comes from a Latin term for a “crown of roses.” The beauty of roses and the splendor of the Virgin Mary became inseparable images for Christians beginning in the Middle Ages. The rosary is an invitation by Mary, placed into our hands, to bring our hearts to Jesus Christ. The simplicity of the rosary humbly masks the great spiritual power it contains. Those who pray the rosary faithfully find great strength and peace in meditating on the mysteries of our salvation while devoutly reciting its simple prayers. The world can be a deafening and stressful place; to linger in a quiet garden of prayer is refreshing and soul-healing. 

On Oct. 7, the Church celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The day honors the traditional belief that our Lady entrusted the Dominican Order with the rosary as a spiritual defense against false teachings creeping into the Christian world at that time. Pope Saint Pius V, himself a Dominican, promoted the devotion and established the feast day in 1571. 

A titanic naval battle the year before had inspired the pope to establish the feast. Vast Turkish forces, their ships powered by the labor of Christian slaves, were threatening the vulnerable Christian outpost of Cyprus. Pope Saint Pius V prayed the rosary imploring Mary for a Christian victory. Many of the faithful joined the pope and the sailors in prayer. The two forces clashed at Lepanto, near the Greek port of Corinth. 

Despite all odds, the Christian naval force won a decisive victory and checked the advance of Turkish expansion. Twelve-thousand Christian slaves were freed from their Turkish captors. The pope credited Mary’s intercession with the victory and the power of the rosary and Mary’s maternal protection were recognized by more and more Christians. 

Numerous popes have since urged the faithful to pray the Rosary daily. Pope Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 until 1903, devoted much of his papacy’s energy to promoting the rosary, explaining that it placed the believer onto the one road to God; the believer appeals first to Mary, and then, through Jesus, to the Father.

In our times, Pope Saint John Paul II wrote and preached often on the beauty of the rosary. In 2002, he issued an encyclical “Rosarium Virginis Mariae,” or Rosary of the Virgin Mary, in which he introduced the Luminous Mysteries to the centuries-old devotion. Pope Saint John Paul II’s advocacy did much to revive the devotion of the rosary, and his appeal to young Catholics infused new energy and enthusiasm for the ancient but ever new beauty of filial devotion to Mary and the rosary.  

In 1917, Our Lady appealed to the children of Fatima asking them to pray the rosary for the conversion of sinners and in a special way for Russia. In our time, I encourage all Catholics to rediscover the beauty of the rosary and pray it daily. Now, as much as in 1917, we need to pray for Russia and for peace in Ukraine and throughout our world.