OUR LADY OF VICTORIES

      Saturday begins the month of October; the month of the Holy Rosary; in which we contemplate how God has brought us life in Christ through Mary. The connection between the Rosary and the month of October goes back to the year 1571 when Pope St. Pius V appealed to all Christians to pray the Rosary to bring peace to the world from the threat of Turkish invasion and persecution. This appeal was heard and through the Rosary a great victory was won over the Turkish fleet at Lepanto on October 7th, which saved Christendom for another hundred years. This date is now the feast of the Holy Rosary.

     Many centuries later at Fatima in Portugal, Our Lady appeared to three young shepherd children and impressed upon them the im-portance and power of the Rosary: "Say the Rosary every day...Pray, pray a lot and offer sacrifices for sinners... I am Our Lady of the Rosary. Only I will be able to help you. In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph."        Of course, the Rosary isn’t easy to pray! But that shouldn’t put us off.

     Here is a helpful thought: Saturday is also the feast of St. Theresa of Lisieux, the Little Flower. It may surprise you to learn that she found prayer, and particularly the Rosary, very difficult. But she kept on trying. She once said: “The first thing I have to admit when asked how I pray, is that I am not good at it.” That should give us a bit of courage! If even a great saint who is a Doctor of the Church, should have found prayer difficult, then we need not be ashamed to admit that we do, too. Of the Rosary she even said, “It’s a terrible thing to admit, but saying the Rosary takes it out of me more than any hair shirt would; I say it so badly! Try as I will to force myself, I can’t meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary, I just can’t fix my mind on them. For a long time, I was in despair about it. Now I don’t distress myself so much; it seems to me that the Queen of Heaven, being my Mother, must be aware of my good intentions, and that’s enough for her.”

     Note that, despite the fact that she found it difficult, she did not give up. So please keep on praying despite any difficulties you may find. The Holy Rosary is considered a perfect prayer because within it lies the awesome story of our salvation. With the Rosary in fact we meditate the mysteries of joy, of light, of sorrow and of the glory of Jesus and Mary. It's a simple prayer, humble like Our Lady. It's a prayer we can all say together with Her, the Mother of God. With the Hail Mary we invite Her to pray for us. Our Lady always grants our request. She joins Her prayer to ours. Therefore it becomes ever more useful, because what Mary asks She always receives, our Lord can never say no to whatever His Mother asks for.

     In every apparition, our heavenly Mother has invited us to say the Rosary as a powerful weapon against evil, to bring us to true peace. With our prayer made together with our heavenly Mother, we can obtain the great gift of bringing about a change of hearts and conversion. Pray at least a decade of the Rosary each October day, and please teach your children to do so with you.       ~ Fr. Paul Dobson