October: Month of the Holy Rosary
There are 5 Marian Months, which Holy Mother Church, has given the faithful. They are: May – the Month of Mary, August – the Month of the Immaculate Heart, September – the Month of the Sorrowful Mother, October – the Month of the Holy Rosary and December – the Month of the Immaculate Conception. For devotion to Mary leads us to her Son, in our Mother Mary we find the image of the Church, the mercy of motherhood.
On 7 October the Church celebrates the feast day of Mary, Queen of the Holy Rosary. This feast was established by Pope Saint Pius V on the anniversary of the victory at Lepanto on 7 October 1571. The naval victory was attributed to the Virgin Mary whose intercession was entreated through the recitation of the Holy Rosary.
The Church then proceeded to dedicate the entire month of October to the Holy Rosary so that individuals, families and communities would pray the Holy Rosary, on a daily basis for peace in the world.
“Not only do we earnestly exhort all Christians to give themselves to the recital of the pious devotion of the Rosary publicly, or privately in their own house and family and that unceasingly but we also desire that the whole of the month of October … should be consecrated to the Holy Queen of the Rosary” (Excerpt from the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, On Devotion of the Rosary, 1 September 1883).
The Holy Rosary and the Saints:
“The experience of the Saints bears witness to it – this popular Marian prayer, the Holy Rosary, is a precious spiritual means to grow in intimacy with Jesus and to learn at the school of the Blessed Virgin always to fulfil the divine will. To be apostles of the Rosary… it is necessary to experience personally the beauty and depth of this prayer which is simple and accessible to everyone. It is first of all necessary to let the Blessed Virgin take one by the hand to contemplate the Face of Christ, a joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious Face. Those who, like Mary and with her, cherish and ponder the mysteries of Jesus assiduously, increasingly assimilate His sentiments and are conformed to Him.” – Excerpt from the Meditation of Pope Benedict XVI, On the Recitation of the Holy Rosary,19 October 2008.
