Our Lady of the Rosary
Memorial, October 7
The Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated on October 7th, commemorates both the gift of the Rosary to the Church and the great victory of the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, which was attributed to the intercession of Our Lady under this title. Pope Pius V had called all of Christendom to pray the Rosary for the success of the Christian fleet against the Turkish armada that threatened to overwhelm Europe, and when news of the victory arrived in Rome he attributed it directly to Our Lady's intercession and instituted a feast of Our Lady of Victory, later renamed Our Lady of the Rosary by Gregory XIII.
The Rosary is one of the most beloved prayers in the Catholic tradition, a meditation on the mysteries of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, carried out through the repeated prayer of the Hail Mary, grouped in decades, each preceded by the Our Father and followed by the Glory Be. The mysteries meditated in the Rosary, the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries, trace the entire arc of the Gospel, from the Annunciation to the Coronation of Mary in heaven.
The tradition that the Rosary was given by the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Dominic in a vision is not historically verifiable, but the Rosary as we know it developed through the Dominicans from the thirteenth century onward, and the Order of Preachers has always been its great promoter and defender. The Fifteen Promises associated with faithful recitation of the Rosary have circulated since the sixteenth century and have encouraged millions of Catholics to take up this prayer daily.
Pope Leo XIII wrote more documents on the Rosary than on any other subject, calling it the most excellent form of prayer after the liturgy. Pope John Paul II added the Luminous Mysteries in 2002 and called the Rosary his favourite prayer. The memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary is an invitation to take up this simple and profound form of gospel prayer and to entrust oneself to the maternal guidance of Mary along the way of faith.