October 7 - Homily for Today

Today we are celebrating the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, a feast which dates back to the sixteenth century. The victory of the Christian forces over the Turks in the naval battle of Lepanto, in the Gulf of Corinth, on October 7, 1571, which happened on the first Saturday of the month that year, was attributed to Our Lady of the Rosary. The rosary itself was a devotional prayer originating in the 12 twelfth or thirteenth centuries. It began as a prayer made up of 150 Our Father’s, to match the 150 Psalms; then it was changed to 150 Hail Mary’s. In time, and under the direction of St Dominic It was organized into a structure of Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be prayers, introduced with the Sign of the Cross and the Apostle's Creed. The meditative reflections or "mysteries" contained in it, [20 of them now], are regarding the lives of Jesus and Mary.

There was an upswing in devotion to the Rosary in the nineteenth century, especially because of the Marian apparitions to Bernadette Soubrious at Lourdes. The rosary remained a highly popular devotion through most of the twentieth century. But the Second Vatican Council took great care in reorienting Catholic devotional life that had quite frankly lost its primary Eucharistic focus. There is nothing more important than Jesus in the Eucharist, so long as we are on pilgrimage back to him. Any and every other kind of prayer format is secondary. But in a prized place in those secondary forms of prayer comes the holy rosary – if it is prayed with its “Christo-centric” focus – if it places Mary as she is, not in the center, but as the Preeminent Christian and loving intercessor of us who are her children in the Church.

Perhaps a rosary said today for a very special intention will bring unexpected and joyful results!

Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; you are blessed among all women!