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October: Month of the Holy Rosary
Catholic Web ^ | October 1, 2005 | Father Matthew Mauriello

Posted on 10/06/2005 9:53:28 AM PDT by NYer

The month of October each year is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary. This is primarily due to the fact that the liturgical feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is celebrated annually on October 7th. It was instituted to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary in gratitude for the protection that she gives the Church in answer to the praying of the Rosary by the faithful.

The feast was introduced by Pope St. Pius V (1504-1572) in the year 1571 to commemorate the miraculous victory of the Christian forces in the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The pope attributed more to the "arms" of the Rosary than the power of cannons and the valor of the soldiers who fought there.

Legend tells us that the Rosary as a form of prayer was given to St. Dominic (1170- 1221) by Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, who entrusted it to him as an aid in the conflicts with the Albigensians. The Dominican pope, St. Pius V, did much to further the spread of the Rosary and it thereafter became one of the most popular devotions in Christendom. It was the same Pope St. Pius V, who in 1569 officially approved the Rosary in its present form with the Papal Bull, CONSUEVERUNT ROMANI PONTIFECES. It had been completed by the addition of the second half of the "Hail Mary" and the "Glory be to the Father" at the conclusion of each mystery.

Current scholarship traces the development of the Rosary to the High Middle Ages where it came into being in various medieval monasteries as a substitute for the Divine Office for the lay monks and devout lay persons who did not know how to read. Instead of the 150 psalms, they would pray 150 "Our Fathers" counting them on a ring of beads known as the crown or "corona". With the growth of popularity of Marian devotion in the twelfth century, the "Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary" developed now substituting 150 "Hail Marys" in place of the "Our Fathers."

The 150 "Hail Marys" were subsequently subdivided into 15 decades by the young Dominican friar, Henry Kalkar (1328-1408), with each decade referring to an event in the life of Jesus and Mary. The Dominican, Ananus de Rupe (1428-1478) further divided the episodes in the history of salvation into the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries. He also attributed the origin of the Rosary , then known as the "Psalter of the Blessed Virgin" to St. Dominic and thus spurred the Dominican Order to make the Apostolate of the Rosary their special concern. The Dominicans have, since then, promulgated the Rosary with notable results.

The practice of dedicating the entire month of October to the Holy Rosary developed toward the end of the last century. Pope Leo XIII ( papacy: 1878-1903 ) strongly promoted the increase of devotion to the Blessed Mother by encouraging the constant use of the Rosary. Beginning on September 1, 1883, with SUPREMO APOSTOLATUS OFFICIO, he wrote a total of eleven encyclicals on the Rosary , ending with DIUTURNI TEMPORIS in 1898. We are currently celebrating the centennial of these papal encyclicals.

Many other popes have contributed to help increase devotion to the Rosary by their writings. In the recent past, Pope Paul VI ( papacy: 1963-1978) devoted the last section of his Apostolic Exhortation MARIALIS CULTUS to the Angelus and the Rosary (MC 40-55). In this document, he wrote that "the Rosary retains an unaltered value and intact freshness." (MC, 41)

The Rosary is primarily a scriptural prayer. This can be summarized by the traditional phrase used by Pope Pius XII (papacy: 1939-1958) that the Rosary is " a compendium of the entire Gospel" (AAS 38 [1946] p.419) . The Rosary draws its mysteries from the New Testament and is centered on the great events of the Incarnation and Redemption.

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II has called the Rosary his favorite prayer, in which we meditate with Mary upon the mysteries which she as a mother meditated on in her heart. (Lk. 2:19) (Osservatore Romano, 44; 30 Oct. 1979)

In this month of October, let us consider this beautiful prayer of the Rosary as a means that we too can use in order to draw closer to Jesus and Mary by meditating on the great mysteries of our salvation.


TOPICS: Activism; Apologetics; Catholic; Current Events; General Discusssion; Prayer; Theology; Worship
KEYWORDS: rosary

1 posted on 10/06/2005 9:53:29 AM PDT by NYer
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To: american colleen; Lady In Blue; Salvation; narses; SMEDLEYBUTLER; redhead; Notwithstanding; ...

Madonna of the Rosary (with Mysteries of the Rosary)
by Lorenzo Lotto (1539) Oil on canvasChurch of San Nicolo, Cingoli

HOW TO PRAY THE ROSARY


2 posted on 10/06/2005 9:55:45 AM PDT by NYer (“Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion")
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To: NYer

Oh my, that is nice.


3 posted on 10/06/2005 10:15:29 AM PDT by kassie
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To: NYer
Thanks for posting this, I love the story of the decisive naval battle between Christians and Moslems at Lepanto. GK Chesterton wrote a wonderful poem about this all-important Catholic victory over Islam in 1874.

White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain--hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.

We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still--hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,--
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed--
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.

Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.

And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

GK Chesterton

4 posted on 10/06/2005 10:19:12 AM PDT by TheCrusader ("The frenzy of the Mohammedans has devastated the churches of God" -Pope Urban II, 1097AD)
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To: NYer

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.


5 posted on 10/06/2005 11:53:08 AM PDT by Maeve (Praying........)
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To: TheCrusader; NYer

6 posted on 10/06/2005 11:59:59 AM PDT by Maeve (Praying........)
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To: NYer

It is indeed the "sweet chain' which connects us to God!
Great post keep'em coming


7 posted on 10/06/2005 4:44:06 PM PDT by Rosary (Pray the rosary daily,wear the Brown scapular)
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To: NYer

The Rosary has twenty mysteries divided into four groups. The
groups and mysteries follow.
Joyful Mysteries
The Annunciation to Mary
The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
The Nativity
The presentation in the Temple
The finding in the Temple
Luminous Mysteries
Jesus' baptism in the Jordan
The manifestation of Jesus at the wedding of Cana
Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God, with his call to conversion
The Transfiguration
The institution of the Eucharist
Sorrowful Mysteries
The Agony in the Garden
Scourging at the Pillar
Crowning with Thorns
Carrying of the Cross to Calvary
The Crucifixion of Jesus
The Glorious Mysteries
Resurrection of Jesus
The Ascension of Jesus
Decent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost
The Assumption of Mary
The Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth


8 posted on 10/06/2005 9:59:29 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: All

OCTOBER FEAST DAYS OF OUR LADY

October 1.    Foundations of Crown Abbey in Mary's honor (Angouleme, 1122)

October 2.    Our Lady of the Assumption, Naples, Italy (11th C.)

October 3.    Our Lady of the Place, Rome (1250)

October 4.    Our Lady of Vausivieres, Auvergne, France (1374)

October 5.    Our Lady of Buch in Pine Mts., Guienne, France

October 6.    Our Lady of La Plebe, Venice, Italy (1480)

October 7.    Feast of the Most Holy Rosary (Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary) by Pope Gregory XIII (1573)

October 8.    Church of "Our Lady of Gifts", Avignon, France (1st C.)

October 9.    Our Lady of Ephesus, Moscow, Russia

October 9.    Miraculous cure of St. John Damascene by Our Lady (723) – his severed hand was restored.

October 10.  Our Lady of the Cloister, Citeaux, France (1624)

October 11.  Feast of the Divine Maternity of Our Lady

October 11.  Our Lady, Mother of the Savior (celebrated by the Salvatorians)

October 11.  Our Lady, the White (Ouville, district of Caux, France)

October 12.  Our Lady of Jerusalem, Moscow, Russia

October 12.  Our Lady of the Pillar, Saragossa, Spain (36)

October 13.  Our Lady OF Clairveaux, France (12th  C.)

October 14.  Our Lady of Larochelle, France – near Geneva, Switzerland (7th C.)

October 15.  Dedication of the Church "Our Lady of Terouenne," France (1133)

October 16.  "Our Lady of Purity," dedication of the Church of Our Lady of Milan by Pope Martin V (Italy, 1417)

October 17.  Our Lady of Chartres, France – grotto dedicated by St. Pontianus (40)

October 18.  "Our Lady of Rheims," dedication of the church by St. Nicasius (405)

October 19.  "Our Lady of Royaumont," dedication of Holy Cross and Our Lady Abbey, by St. Louis, France (1235)

October 20.  Immaculate Heart of Mary (Marianist Missal)

October 21.  Our Lady of Talan, near Dijon, France

October 22.  Our Lady of the Underground (or Vault), Grand Cairo, Egypt (12th C.)

October 23.  Our Lady of Consolation (or Comfort), near Honfleur, France

October 24.  Our Lady of Hermits, Switzerland (1418)

October 25.  "Our Lady of Toledo," cathedral dedication, Spain (1075)

October 26.  Our Lady of Victory, near Senlis, France (1225)

October 27.  "Our Lady, Help of Christians," dedication of the basilica built by St. John Bosco, Turin, Italy (1868)

October 28.  Our Lady of Vivonne, Savoy, France

October 29.  Our Lady of Oropa, Vercelli, Italy (380) or near Bielle: Savoy, France

October 30.  Our Lady of Mondevi, Piedmont, France (1540)

October 31.  Miracle in the Church of "Our Lady of Chartres," St. Fort, France, 1116

                  (Our Lady saved a choir boy who fell into the well.)
 


The Bible does not ask us to pay Mary the adoration due to God alone; that would be idolatry.  But the Bible does teach us:  Honor thy mother, Mary, as Jesus did!  We can also be assured that our Blessed Mother hears our prayers for she, as well as the other saints in heaven, is one of the "cloud of witnesses," who observe us (Heb. 12:1), and witnesses are those who can testify under oath in court as to what they have seen and heard.  Therefore, we should frequently request our Blessed Mother to pray to God, to obtain his graces for us.

Hail Mary, full of Grace.  The Lord is with thee.  Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.


9 posted on 10/07/2005 8:59:00 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: NYer
The Rosary and Orthodoxy

Father Benedict Groeschel on the Rosary

THE HOLY ROSARY

Catholic Caucus: The Holy Rosary

The Power of the Rosary - A Weapon Against Terrorism

Rosary May Contribute to Unity Says Protestant Theologian

Papal Address on the Rosary as a Weapon of Peace

Very simple guide to praying/learning the Rosary

October: Month of the Holy Rosary

10 posted on 10/22/2005 8:42:12 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Salvation

thanks for the links.


11 posted on 02/21/2006 9:26:15 PM PST by Coleus (What were Ted Kennedy & his nephew doing on Good Friday, 1991? Getting drunk and raping women)
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To: NYer

BTTT on the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, 10-07-06!


12 posted on 10/07/2006 12:31:15 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: NYer

BTTT in October of 2007!


13 posted on 10/13/2007 10:05:52 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Salvation
 
Pray the Rosary. 
Pray without ceasing.

14 posted on 10/13/2007 10:06:26 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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