The Feast of the Holy Rosary
Praying the rosary, though Marian in character, is wholly a meditation of the life of Jesus Christ. The repetitive prayers create assimilation of faith. Like the repetition of the Hail Mary’s. Most people who do not understand this sacred ritual would say that praying the rosary is a boring act. To understand this, one should have a deep understanding of the history of the rosary and a great mind-opening to love, charity, hope and other virtues and values important to the Catholic faith.
Although the prayers seem to be directly addressed to the Virgin Mary, it is devoted to Jesus Christ. The love and devotion are directed to God and Jesus Christ through Mary. Through repetition, faith and soul is nourished.
The feast of the Holy Rosary was established by Saint Pius V on the anniversary of the naval victory won by the Christian fleet at Lepanto, October 7, 1571. The victory was attributed to the help of the holy Mother of God whose aid was invoked through praying the Rosary.
The celebration of this day invites all to mediate upon the mysteries of Christ, following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary who was so singularly associated with the incarnation, passion and glorious resurrection of the Son of God.
The feast of the Holy Rosary is celebrated by the Catholic world every seventh day of October. The rosary holds the distinction of aiding the defeat of the Albigensian heretics at the battle of Murret in 1213 through the intercession of St. Dominic. In the Christian world, the rosary is attributed of rewarding faith to those people who were saved during danger. One such event is the naval victory of Lepanto by Don Juan of Austria. It was a battle won over the Turkish fleet on the first Sunday of October 1571 celebrated pompously with processions at Rome.
During that event Pope Pius V ordered a celebration of the day as the feast of the Holy Rosary. After the request of the Dominicans or the Preaching Friars, Pope Gregory XIII made the Feast of the Holy Rosary a celebration of the universal church. Later, the celebration was also observed during the time of Clement X and Clement XI after Turks were lost during a battle led by Prince Eugene of Spain.
Later, in 1800s, Leo XIII (also known as the Rosary Pope) has officially declared the Feast of the Holy Rosary as an official church festival and added the Litany of the Loreto and the invocation to the prayers of the rosary. The Portiuncula, an established plenary indulgence of the church, was also created.
But today’s feast is a reckoning even more solemn, the profits even bigger: the Church opens her balance-sheet with the gain accruing to Our Lady from the mysteries, which compose the entire liturgical cycle. Christmas, the cross, the triumph of Jesus, these produce the holiness of us all; but before and above all, the holiness of Mary.
The crown, which the Church thus offers today to the Queen of heaven and earth, is made up of the triple crown of those sanctifying mysteries; joyful, sorrowful and glorious. These were the cause of her joy, the cause of her sorrow and of her glory.
