The Most Holy Rosary

The Holy Rosary is a lovely instrument of prayer. By it we direct our minds and our hearts to God as we move our mouths and our fingers while we pray. The rosary was given personally to Saint Dominic by Our Blessed Lady in the year 1214, in Toulouse in France. Saint Dominic was the first great apostle of the Holy Rosary. Saint Dominic died in 1221, at the age of fifty-one. The last great apostle of the Holy Rosary was Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, who died in 1716 at the age of forty-three. The great Pope who promoted the cult of the Holy Rosary was Saint Pius V, who died in 1572. In the year 1571 he set up the feast of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7. The Catholics won a great naval victory that day over the Turks at Lepanto, who were trying to crush them and blot out their Faith. Their protection was the Holy Rosary. Another great victory of the Catholics over the Turks because of the Holy Rosary was in 1716, in Hungary, the year Saint Louis Marie died. Pope Gregory XIII, in 1573, Pope Clement Xl, in 1716, and Pope Leo XIII, in 1888, all did much to make the feast of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7 more and more observed and reverenced in the liturgy of the Church. The rosary is not only a prayer, it is a weapon. The little beads of love that are strung on the rosary are bullets of destruction against the enemies of the Catholic Faith and the enemies of one’s salvation. In a simple chaplet, five decades of the rosary, the Holy Name of Jesus is invoked fifty-four times, and the Holy Name of Mary, one hundred and seven times. No Catholic should ever be without the rosary in his possession, night or day. The devil is afraid of these beads as they lie in our pockets or are held in our hands.

See also: The History of the Rosary, and The Rosary and the Republic.

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Saint Dominic receives the Rosary from the Blessed Virgin

Saint Dominic receives the Rosary from the Blessed Virgin