Sunday, October 7, 2007

Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary.

We know that today’s feast was instituted by Pope St Pius V after the stunning victory of the enormously outnumbered Catholic naval fleet over the Moslems at Lepanto on 7th October 1571. But what we can we take from it? The Pope attributed the Catholic victory to Our Lady and to the praying of the rosary. If we take a look at the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, we can see that there is a central point which just keeps coming back again and again: "Pray the Rosary every day". So the Holy Mother of God instructs us to pray the rosary every day, but what kind of an answer can we expect to get from the praying of the rosary? Sr. Lucy answered this question for us herself:

"The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which
we live has given new efficacy in the recitation of the Holy Rosary. There
is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot solve
by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves.
We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of
many souls."

Our Lady also gives us a proof of this in the apparitions. She told the three children, that they should pray the rosary everyday to obtain peace in the world and the end of the war (World War I). These are two great graces. Peace for the entire world, every country, every place! And the end of the war! In another place, Lucy presented some petitions from other people to Our Lady. Lucy said afterwards that she couldn't remember exactly what these were, or the individual replies, but that Our Lady told her that these people would have to pray the rosary to obtain their requests. So the rosary, according to the Mother of God, will obtain both great graces and small ones. Did Our Lady give any other examples of Graces that could be obtained through the rosary? She told Lucy that she and Jacinta would go to heaven, and that Francisco would also go to heaven, but that he would have to pray "many rosaries". It is unlikely that Francisco at his young age, would have had such a great stock of sins to expiate in order to save his soul, so perhaps there is another explanation of Our Lady’s remark. It seems that Our Lady gave the rosary to Francisco to be for him a shield against the corruption of the world. If he were to escape sin, save his soul and get to heaven, he would have to pray "many rosaries". So there are two more graces that can be expected from the recitation of the rosary: protection from temptations and the allurements of a sinful world, and the salvation of souls.
We conclude then, that if Our Lady, the most perfect being after God, who in the Kingdom of heaven, stands above all other creatures, comes down from her heavenly throne, and in every one of her apparitions at Fatima stresses that we should pray the rosary Every Day, we should probably take her advice.


Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us!

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