The Most Holy Rosary

The Rosary is a prayer made up of a triple rosary, alternating the Paters, the Aves and the Glorias, evoking the main events in the life of Jesus or Mary. "Decorated with the name of the Rosary," says Pope Leo XIII, "this prayer has something of the sweet perfume of roses and the grace of flowery garlands; it is well suited to honouring the Virgin, hailed as the 'Mystical Rose' of Paradise, where she reigns as sovereign, her brow girded with a starry diadem". The interminable repetition of the same formulas is eminently suited to prayer, "the language of love that has only one word, and, always repeating it, never repeats it" (1). "Let us savour to the best of our ability the beautiful formulas of the Creed, the Our Father, the Ave, the Gloria Patri, and let us recall without restraint of spirit the mystery or the fact whose edifying memory is proposed to us: formulas and mysteries, gently directing us towards God and the hereafter, will put us "in a state of prayer"; our soul, lulled and carried by them, will have detached itself for a moment from the things of earth or will have thought of them only to learn how to purify and sanctify them". (2) The rosary is a very pleasing and particularly effective prayer to Mary. This is why popes such as Leo XIII and Pius X have so urgently recommended this devotion to the Christian world. - The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was instituted to commemorate the famous victory of Lepanto, achieved on Sunday 7 October 1571 thanks to the recitation of the rosary, a victory that crushed Islamism, which was threatening to invade Europe. Originally celebrated only in certain places, it was extended to the whole Church in recognition of a new victory in Hungary in 1716 over the same adversaries.