Fears and Tears

The month of October is dedicated to the Rosary. This coming Tuesday, October 7th, is the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. The rosary has been a light for me, bringing me closer to our Lord, and His life. However, the history of the feast day is interesting and I share about it below which I sourced from the website Catholic culture.org:

This feast was instituted by Pope St. Pius V in thanksgiving for the great naval victory over the Turks at the battle of Lepanto on this day in the year 1570, a favor due to the recitation of the Rosary. This victory saved Europe from being overrun by the forces of Islam. 

Lepanto, perhaps the most complete victory ever gained over the Ottoman Empire, on October 7, 1571, is commemorated by the invocation “Help of Christians,” inserted in the Litany of Loretto. At Belgrade, the Turks were defeated on the Feast of Our Lady ad Nives in 1716. A second victory gained that year on the Octave of the Assumption determined Pope Clement XI to command the Feast of the Rosary to be celebrated by the universal Church. Leo XIII added the invocation “Queen of the most Holy Rosary, pray for us,” to the Litany of Loretto. The Feast is in reality a great festival of thanksgiving for the signal and countless benefits bestowed on Christendom through the Rosary of our blessed Queen.

In modern times successive popes have urged the faithful to pray the Rosary. It is a form of contemplative prayer, mental and vocal prayer, which brings down God’s blessing on the Church. It is a biblically inspired prayer that is centered on meditation on the salvific mysteries of Christ in union with Mary, who was so closely associated with her Son in his redeeming activity. (Catholicculture.org)

The rosary is very meaningful to me. It is a beautiful prayer devotion that focuses and directs my heart and mind to the life of Jesus. The rosary is a community prayer, even if I pray it alone, I don’t feel alone; there is a connection with it.

It is a good way for me to offer up intercessory prayer to God. Each decade, I pray for a different petition, while meditating on the mystery. It focuses my attention to God while lifting up my prayers through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, and other Saints of the Church to God.

The rosary leaves me with peace. It settles my restlessness, and creates a stillness within me. It gives me courage and strength to face the day and the night.

The rosary is a powerful prayer and it is one of my favorite prayers. The Blessed Mother leads me to her son, Jesus, because she is Our Lady of the Rosary, and she intercedes for her children.

I like the simplicity of the rosary, it echoes the words of Jesus in the Our Father prayer, and the words of the Archangel Gabriel and St. Elizabeth to Mary in the Hail Mary prayer.

Thank you Jesus, for the gift of prayer, especially the rosary. May this beautiful devotion grow and overflow abundant graces on the world. Amen.