October is a sweet month, just as the colors of autumn are sweet and warm, and what makes it even sweeter is that the Church links this month to the Virgin Mary through the prayer of the Rosary: October is traditionally the month dedicated to the holy Rosary.
Pope Francis therefore invites us «to pray the holy Rosary every day, throughout the entire Marian month of October, and thus unite in communion and penance, as the people of God, in asking the Holy Mother of God and Saint Michael the Archangel to protect the Church from the devil, who always seeks to divide us from God and from one another. […] The Holy Father asks the faithful throughout the world to pray that the holy Mother of God may place the Church under her protective mantle: to preserve it from the attacks of the evil one, the great accuser, and at the same time make it increasingly aware of the faults, errors, and abuses committed in the present and in the past, and committed to fighting without any hesitation so that evil may not prevail».
The history
Why was October chosen by the Church as the month of the Rosary? To answer this question, we must go back to October 7, 1571: on that day, in the Gulf of Lepanto (Greece), in what is considered one of the greatest naval battles in history, the Christians managed to defeat the Turks (Muslims), thereby stopping their advance into Europe.
While the soldiers fought, the Rosary confraternities prayed with confidence. The triumph of the Christian fleet over the Turkish fleet was immediately attributed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary invoked through the Rosary, so much so that the Senate of the Most Serene Republic of Venice expressed itself as follows after the victory: «Not valor, not weapons, not commanders, but Our Lady of the Rosary has made us victorious».
In 1572, Pope Saint Pius V dedicated October 7 to Our Lady, establishing the feast of “Saint Mary of Victory”, later transformed by Gregory XIII into “Our Lady of the Rosary”.
The Church therefore invites us, this month, to recite this prayer and rediscover it as an indispensable aid for prevailing in our daily battle against evil.
Let us pray the Rosary with the confidence that we will be heard!
