“The Turks, swollen by their victories, will wish to take on our fleet, and God—I have the pious presentiment—will give us victory. Charles V gave you life. I will give you honor and greatness. Go and seek them out!”
Pope Saint Pius V to Don Juan of Austria
On October 7, 1571, four hundred and fifty-four years ago, the forces of the Holy League under Don Juan of Austria, illegitimate half brother of Philip II, in an ever-lasting tribute to Italian and Spanish courage and seamanship, smashed the Turkish fleet. This was the turning point in the centuries-long struggle between the Christian West and the forces of the Ottoman Empire over the Mediterranean. The Holy League had been the work of Pope Saint Pius V and he proclaimed the feast day of Our Lady of Victory to whom he attributed the victory.
For a good overview of the battle of Lepanto read this review by Victor Davis Hanson here of The Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto by Niccolò Capponi.
Before the battle Don John of Austria went about the ships of his fleet and said this to his crews: ‘My children, we are here to conquer or die. In death or in victory, you will win immortality.’ The chaplains of the fleet preached sermons on the theme: “No Heaven For Cowards”. Many of the men were clutching rosaries just before the battle. Admiral Andrea Doria went into the fight with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe aboard his ship. Back in Europe countless Catholics were praying rosaries at the request of Saint Pope Pius V for the success of the Christian fleet.
At the hour of the battle, and this fact is very well attested, the Pope was talking to some cardinals in Rome. He abruptly ceased the conversation, opened a window and looked heavenward. He then turned to the cardinals and said: “It is not now a time to talk any more upon business; but to give thanks to God for the victory he has granted to the arms of the Christians.” So that Catholics would never forget Lepanto and the intercession of Mary, he instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory on October 7th of each year, changed by his successor in 1573 to the feast of the Holy Rosary, and in 1960 Pope John XXIII renamed the feast again to Our Lady of the Rosary. To aid in this remembrance of Lepanto G. K. Chesterton in 1911 wrote his epic poem Lepanto:
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 sunset 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 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 in 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. Michael’s 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 swat, 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 forever 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.)
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
There is great and venerable tradition in the Catholic Faith of standing up to seemingly unstoppable forces for the sake of the Truth. It is to those heroes of the Church that the marchers in DC should turn their minds and prayers as they tread the mall in a similar cause, though the whole world heckles them as idiots and fanatics. In 1571, Don John of Austria reminded the faithful that it is the most serious things that make men mad in the eyes of the world; and that there are strange and subtle moments in history when the sanity of heaven and earth rests in the hands of seeming madmen. In 1571, Don John of Austria did what no man in his right mind would wish to do—but he did it because the only thing in his mind was that it was the right thing to do. Don John heeded the Pope’s call for a crusade against the unstoppable wave of Islam that was washing over Christendom. He responded with an act that appeared bereft of right reason, but done for the right reason. Facing the invincible Turkish powers like a David reborn, he sallied forth against an army of giants. And to the amazement of all, he did it laughing and dancing on the deck of his ship like a lunatic, wreathed in the whirling smoke of battle. Our Lady of the Holy Rosary gave Don John victory—victory unimaginable. But it was only because he was mad enough to imagine the impossible possible that he was able to be her instrument at Lepanto. He refused with an idiot’s determination to live in a world where miracles do not happen. And so, too, is the refusal of all those who march, and those who march in spirit, with the army in Washington. As the angel Gabriel said to Mary at the moment of Christ’s own conception, “with God nothing is impossible.”
It is never wrong to play the fool if it be for the greater glory of God and in the defense of His Kingdom. Those who would save the lives of those who should be in the safest place imaginable recognize the heroism involved in running the risk of ridicule to uphold the sacred things forgotten by modern man. Nothing worth doing is free of peril. We pray that those who march in Washington DC for the unborn will not march forever in vain—though their praises are due now, even before the victory is given to us by God.
March on.
From “March On!” by Sean Fitzpatrick – Crisis Magazine – January 22, 2014
Our pastor recommends it. He does minimum 4 each day. I’m on my third one at the moment.
After my 4th one it will be 7 days in a row.
Why do I tell you?
So that you too may give our Lady hundreds and hundreds of roses
Each Hail Mary is a rose for her
Your bouquets consist of one major mystery.
Four bouquets a day and you are opening her treasury in ways that angels are in amazement.
Then watch the evangelizing effects She bestows on you. Sinner’s ask for forgiveness. Souls are brought back to Holy Catholic Church. Sanctifying Grace. God working within you for the salvation of souls. For the Victory promised.
Four a day.
God condescends to use our powers if we don’t spoil His plan with ours.. Blessed Solanus Casey Cap.
Crusader
Sunday, October 8, AD 2023 1:37am
The Catholic Association which sells the Lepanto flag was banned from Twitter, on Oct 7 for letting fellow Catholics know about it.
We will take one for our local chapter of our Holy League here in Cedar Michigan.
Please suggest an amount to be donated to help cover your costs and aid your work.
Thank you.
Oh…..and btw. Keep at it. The forces of darkness hate your efforts.
Peace.
Frank
Sunday, October 8, AD 2023 8:12am
“The Catholic Association which sells the Lepanto flag was banned from Twitter, on Oct 7 for letting fellow Catholics know about it.”
Banned from Twitter for commemoration of history. So much for Elon Musk’s promise of freedom of speech.
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Monday, October 7, AD 2024 6:31am
What did the Protestants – Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinists, etc. – do during the Battle of Lepanto? Did they remain neutral, or side with the Muslims, or provide manpower and resources to the Catholics battling the Muslims?
Lead Kindly Light
Monday, October 7, AD 2024 8:10am
And here we are again…
MarkM
Monday, October 7, AD 2024 3:24pm
This would be unthinkable to the current pontiff. He would think it evil, in fact.
Great article. No coincidence that John of Austria died at the age of 33. God seems to have some people exist solely to fulfill a singular event in history. Something like destiny.
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 5:24am
Battle of Dearborn. ?
Battle of Minneapolis.?
I believe in God, the Father Almighty. The creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit..born of the Virgin Mary….suffered under….
The words above could cost us our life and if they do, so be it, but not without a fight. Never will the Muslim win over us. They might kill us but never will they win. Victory has been won. Dearborn has over 120,000 professed Muslims. Morning call to pray echos down the streets. Streets named after scoundrels.
Deport.
No assimilation…no residency. No false God’s who promote death to non believers …not here
Not now. Never
David WS
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 5:33am
@Philip, please share thoughts on the following:
“You can pray all 20 mysteries of the rosary throughout the day, dividing them into four separate prayer times, or you can choose to pray the same set of mysteries multiple times. The choice depends on your personal preference and schedule.”
I’m thinking 4 x mystery’s of the particular day, For me that’s how my mind works. (But I don’t wish to act solely of “my mind”)
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 6:04am
Two sets for me on good days.
Two at morning offerings.
Two at early evening.
Night prayer is examination of conscience and four from Fr. John Hardon’s Catholic Prayers ( red book )
There are days that I miss one or even two…
The Fridays are my best days. 2am to 3am adoration I do two sets.
God is good. He has allowed me develope a good relationship with my angel. Someone I ignored for over 30 years.
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 6:29am
The fruits from these practices have been efficacious. This year is my third year as sponsor for candidates to become Catholic. Harold and Laurie. I had to farm out sponsorship with Laurie because I’m doing the Baltimore Edition 3, with Harry. He is in a nursing home and wants to become Catholic. Father allows me to do the 95 questions with him in preparing for entry.
Then, after 14 years of asking, my co worker Nichole said yes. She and three in her family will be starting classes at St. Francis in T. C. come July with Fr. Joy teaching the class. They have been coming to Mass to see what we do and writing down questions for us to answer.
Sharing these fruits with TAC as a testimony of what God does with broken instruments.
Pray for conversions….
God hears our prayers.
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 8:08am
***I’m thinking 4 x mystery’s of the particular day, For me that’s how my mind works.***
I do each major mystery. (4)
Twenty fruits.
Each mystery contains a fruit or benefit.
The 5th Sorrowful = perseverance.
1st Joyful = humility
3rd Luminous = repentance and trust in God
4th Glorious = grace of a happy death.
This is based off of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception / Asso. of Marian Helpers.
The blue booklet.
Donald Link
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 9:46am
The event was a victory for Catholic Christians but not complete as the Protestant League and the perfidious Elizabeth of England did not participate. This failure offered Islam the opportunity to attack at other locations in future efforts before the victory at Vienna in 1683.
David WS
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 11:58am
(Thanks Phillip)
9-11
10-7
Seems a pattern.
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 1:46pm
7-18
1830
Mary gives the design of the Medal of the Immaculate Conception to St.Catherine Labore
10-13
Fatima
1917
The miraculous medal is by far an underrated sacramental in our Churches.
We truly are blessed by God to give us His Mother and have so many graces available to us… the Eucharist par excellence.
Her Yes started it all.
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 7:58pm
Divine Intimacy
On the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary (7 October)
Meditation from Divine Intimacy.
Prelude
O most holy Virgin, may the Rosary be my spiritual armour and my school of virtue.
1
The feast of 7 October is a manifestation of gratitude for the great victories won by the Christian people through the power of Mary’s Rosary; it is also the most beautiful and authoritative testimony of the value of this prayer. The liturgy of the day is not only a commentary on the Rosary, but an amplification of it: the three hymns of the Office, as well as the antiphons of Matins and Lauds, review its different mysteries; the lessons chant its glories, and the continual references to the Virgin who “blossomed as it were, among the flowers, surrounded by roses and lilies of the valley” are a clear allusion to the mystical crowns of roses which Mary’s devoted children weave at her feet when they recite the Rosary.
This feast tells us that to honour the Rosary is to honour Mary, for the Rosary is simply a meditation on Our Lady’s life, accompanied by the devout recitation of the Hail Mary. It is for this reason that the Church praises this practice and recommends it so insistently to the faithful. “O God,” she prays in today’s collect, “grant that meditating on the mysteries of the most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.”
The Rosary, if recited well, is both prayer and instruction; its mysteries tell us that, in Mary’s life, everything is judged in relation to God: her joy and consolation found in all that gives pleasure to God; her sorrows are, so to speak, the very sorrows of God, who being made man, willed to suffer for the sins of mankind. Mary’s only joy is Jesus: to be His Mother, to clasp Him in her arms, to offer Him for the adoration of the world, to contemplate Him in the glory of His Resurrection, to be united to Him in Heaven. Mary’s unique sorrow is the Passion of Jesus: to see Him betrayed, scourged, crowned with thorns, and crucified by our sins. This, then, is the first fruit which we must gather from the recitation of the Rosary: to judge all the events of our life according to their relation to God, to rejoice in what gives Him pleasure, in what unites us to Him, to suffer for sin which separates us from Him and is the cause of the Passion and death of Jesus.
2
The second fruit that we should derive from the daily recitation of the Rosary is a penetration into Christ’s mysteries; by Mary and with Mary, who opens the door to them for us, the Rosary helps us to penetrate the ineffable grandeurs of the Incarnation, Passion, and glory of Jesus. Who is there who has understood and lived these mysteries as Our Lady did? And who better than she can make us understand them? If, during the recitation of the Rosary, we really know how to put ourselves in spiritual contact with Mary and to accompany her in the various stages of her life, we shall be able to perceive something of the sentiments of her heart concerning these great mysteries which she witnessed, and in which she played such an important part; this, in turn, will serve wonderfully to nourish our souls.
Thus, our Rosary will be transformed into a quarter of an hour’s meditation — we might almost say contemplation — under Mary’s guidance. This is what Mary desires, rather than many Rosaries recited with the lips, while the mind wanders in a thousand directions! The Hail Mary, continuously repeated, should express the attitude of a soul who is striving to approach the Blessed Virgin, hastening toward her in order to be captivated by her and given insight into the divine mysteries. “Ave Maria!” the lips say, and the heart murmurs, “Teach me, O Mary, to know and love Jesus as you knew and loved Him.”
Saying the Rosary in this way requires recollection. St Teresa of Jesus says that “before beginning to recite the Rosary, let the soul think of whom it is going to address, and who it is that is speaking, that it may speak to Him with due respect” (The way of perfection, 22). The Saint, with her keen wit, laughs at those people “who are so fond of repeating a large number of vocal prayers in a great hurry, as though they were anxious to finish their task of repeating them daily” (ibid. 31). Rosaries recited in this way cannot really nourish our interior life; they will bring little fruit to the soul and little glory to Mary. On the other hand, if recited with a real spirit of devotion, the Rosary becomes an effective means of cultivating devotion to Mary and of bringing us into intimacy with Our Lady and her divine Son.
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, October 7, AD 2025 8:01pm
Colloquy
“O Mary, just as there is no saint who loves God more than you love Him, so we neither have, nor could we have, after God, anyone who loves us more than you, our most loving Mother. If it were possible to bring together the love of all mothers for their children, of all wives for their husbands, of all the saints and angels for those who have devotion to them, it would not equal the love you have for one single soul, and, therefore, for my soul too.
“O Mary, since you love me, make me resemble you. You have all power to change hearts: take my heart, then, and transform it. Make me a saint, make me your worthy child.
“Let others ask for what they will: health, riches, worldly advantages; I come to ask you, O Mary, for those things which you yourself desire for me and which are very dear to your heart. You, who were so humble, obtain for me humility and a love for contempt. You, so patient in the sorrows of this life, obtain for me patience in adversity. You who were filled with love for God, obtain for me the gift of pure, holy love. You were all charity toward your neighbour; obtain for me charity toward all, and especially toward those who are opposed to me. O Mary, you who are the holiest of all creatures, make me holy. You lack neither love nor power; you can and you will obtain everything for me. Only my failure to have recourse to you and my want of confidence in your aid can prevent me from receiving your favours.”
One wonderful thing about the Rosary is that there is always another bead, another Hail Mary.
God created man and keeps man in existence from one instant to the next and for all eternity.
If I am unworthy of the Beatific Vision then I want to say the Rosary for all eternity.
From “March On!” by Sean Fitzpatrick – Crisis Magazine – January 22, 2014
Mary De Voe prays the rosary.
Please consider 4 a day.
Our pastor recommends it. He does minimum 4 each day. I’m on my third one at the moment.
After my 4th one it will be 7 days in a row.
Why do I tell you?
So that you too may give our Lady hundreds and hundreds of roses
Each Hail Mary is a rose for her
Your bouquets consist of one major mystery.
Four bouquets a day and you are opening her treasury in ways that angels are in amazement.
Then watch the evangelizing effects She bestows on you. Sinner’s ask for forgiveness. Souls are brought back to Holy Catholic Church. Sanctifying Grace. God working within you for the salvation of souls. For the Victory promised.
Four a day.
God condescends to use our powers if we don’t spoil His plan with ours.. Blessed Solanus Casey Cap.
The Catholic Association which sells the Lepanto flag was banned from Twitter, on Oct 7 for letting fellow Catholics know about it.
https://www.ordo-militaris.us/flags-for-our-holy-work/
@ Crusader.
We will take one for our local chapter of our Holy League here in Cedar Michigan.
Please suggest an amount to be donated to help cover your costs and aid your work.
Thank you.
Oh…..and btw. Keep at it. The forces of darkness hate your efforts.
Peace.
“The Catholic Association which sells the Lepanto flag was banned from Twitter, on Oct 7 for letting fellow Catholics know about it.”
Banned from Twitter for commemoration of history. So much for Elon Musk’s promise of freedom of speech.
What did the Protestants – Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinists, etc. – do during the Battle of Lepanto? Did they remain neutral, or side with the Muslims, or provide manpower and resources to the Catholics battling the Muslims?
And here we are again…
This would be unthinkable to the current pontiff. He would think it evil, in fact.
Great article. No coincidence that John of Austria died at the age of 33. God seems to have some people exist solely to fulfill a singular event in history. Something like destiny.
Battle of Dearborn. ?
Battle of Minneapolis.?
I believe in God, the Father Almighty. The creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit..born of the Virgin Mary….suffered under….
The words above could cost us our life and if they do, so be it, but not without a fight. Never will the Muslim win over us. They might kill us but never will they win. Victory has been won. Dearborn has over 120,000 professed Muslims. Morning call to pray echos down the streets. Streets named after scoundrels.
Deport.
No assimilation…no residency. No false God’s who promote death to non believers …not here
Not now. Never
@Philip, please share thoughts on the following:
“You can pray all 20 mysteries of the rosary throughout the day, dividing them into four separate prayer times, or you can choose to pray the same set of mysteries multiple times. The choice depends on your personal preference and schedule.”
I’m thinking 4 x mystery’s of the particular day, For me that’s how my mind works. (But I don’t wish to act solely of “my mind”)
Two sets for me on good days.
Two at morning offerings.
Two at early evening.
Night prayer is examination of conscience and four from Fr. John Hardon’s Catholic Prayers ( red book )
There are days that I miss one or even two…
The Fridays are my best days. 2am to 3am adoration I do two sets.
God is good. He has allowed me develope a good relationship with my angel. Someone I ignored for over 30 years.
The fruits from these practices have been efficacious. This year is my third year as sponsor for candidates to become Catholic. Harold and Laurie. I had to farm out sponsorship with Laurie because I’m doing the Baltimore Edition 3, with Harry. He is in a nursing home and wants to become Catholic. Father allows me to do the 95 questions with him in preparing for entry.
Then, after 14 years of asking, my co worker Nichole said yes. She and three in her family will be starting classes at St. Francis in T. C. come July with Fr. Joy teaching the class. They have been coming to Mass to see what we do and writing down questions for us to answer.
Sharing these fruits with TAC as a testimony of what God does with broken instruments.
Pray for conversions….
God hears our prayers.
***I’m thinking 4 x mystery’s of the particular day, For me that’s how my mind works.***
I do each major mystery. (4)
Twenty fruits.
Each mystery contains a fruit or benefit.
The 5th Sorrowful = perseverance.
1st Joyful = humility
3rd Luminous = repentance and trust in God
4th Glorious = grace of a happy death.
This is based off of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception / Asso. of Marian Helpers.
The blue booklet.
The event was a victory for Catholic Christians but not complete as the Protestant League and the perfidious Elizabeth of England did not participate. This failure offered Islam the opportunity to attack at other locations in future efforts before the victory at Vienna in 1683.
(Thanks Phillip)
9-11
10-7
Seems a pattern.
7-18
1830
Mary gives the design of the Medal of the Immaculate Conception to St.Catherine Labore
10-13
Fatima
1917
The miraculous medal is by far an underrated sacramental in our Churches.
We truly are blessed by God to give us His Mother and have so many graces available to us… the Eucharist par excellence.
Her Yes started it all.
Divine Intimacy
On the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary (7 October)
Meditation from Divine Intimacy.
Prelude
O most holy Virgin, may the Rosary be my spiritual armour and my school of virtue.
1
The feast of 7 October is a manifestation of gratitude for the great victories won by the Christian people through the power of Mary’s Rosary; it is also the most beautiful and authoritative testimony of the value of this prayer. The liturgy of the day is not only a commentary on the Rosary, but an amplification of it: the three hymns of the Office, as well as the antiphons of Matins and Lauds, review its different mysteries; the lessons chant its glories, and the continual references to the Virgin who “blossomed as it were, among the flowers, surrounded by roses and lilies of the valley” are a clear allusion to the mystical crowns of roses which Mary’s devoted children weave at her feet when they recite the Rosary.
This feast tells us that to honour the Rosary is to honour Mary, for the Rosary is simply a meditation on Our Lady’s life, accompanied by the devout recitation of the Hail Mary. It is for this reason that the Church praises this practice and recommends it so insistently to the faithful. “O God,” she prays in today’s collect, “grant that meditating on the mysteries of the most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.”
The Rosary, if recited well, is both prayer and instruction; its mysteries tell us that, in Mary’s life, everything is judged in relation to God: her joy and consolation found in all that gives pleasure to God; her sorrows are, so to speak, the very sorrows of God, who being made man, willed to suffer for the sins of mankind. Mary’s only joy is Jesus: to be His Mother, to clasp Him in her arms, to offer Him for the adoration of the world, to contemplate Him in the glory of His Resurrection, to be united to Him in Heaven. Mary’s unique sorrow is the Passion of Jesus: to see Him betrayed, scourged, crowned with thorns, and crucified by our sins. This, then, is the first fruit which we must gather from the recitation of the Rosary: to judge all the events of our life according to their relation to God, to rejoice in what gives Him pleasure, in what unites us to Him, to suffer for sin which separates us from Him and is the cause of the Passion and death of Jesus.
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The second fruit that we should derive from the daily recitation of the Rosary is a penetration into Christ’s mysteries; by Mary and with Mary, who opens the door to them for us, the Rosary helps us to penetrate the ineffable grandeurs of the Incarnation, Passion, and glory of Jesus. Who is there who has understood and lived these mysteries as Our Lady did? And who better than she can make us understand them? If, during the recitation of the Rosary, we really know how to put ourselves in spiritual contact with Mary and to accompany her in the various stages of her life, we shall be able to perceive something of the sentiments of her heart concerning these great mysteries which she witnessed, and in which she played such an important part; this, in turn, will serve wonderfully to nourish our souls.
Thus, our Rosary will be transformed into a quarter of an hour’s meditation — we might almost say contemplation — under Mary’s guidance. This is what Mary desires, rather than many Rosaries recited with the lips, while the mind wanders in a thousand directions! The Hail Mary, continuously repeated, should express the attitude of a soul who is striving to approach the Blessed Virgin, hastening toward her in order to be captivated by her and given insight into the divine mysteries. “Ave Maria!” the lips say, and the heart murmurs, “Teach me, O Mary, to know and love Jesus as you knew and loved Him.”
Saying the Rosary in this way requires recollection. St Teresa of Jesus says that “before beginning to recite the Rosary, let the soul think of whom it is going to address, and who it is that is speaking, that it may speak to Him with due respect” (The way of perfection, 22). The Saint, with her keen wit, laughs at those people “who are so fond of repeating a large number of vocal prayers in a great hurry, as though they were anxious to finish their task of repeating them daily” (ibid. 31). Rosaries recited in this way cannot really nourish our interior life; they will bring little fruit to the soul and little glory to Mary. On the other hand, if recited with a real spirit of devotion, the Rosary becomes an effective means of cultivating devotion to Mary and of bringing us into intimacy with Our Lady and her divine Son.
Colloquy
“O Mary, just as there is no saint who loves God more than you love Him, so we neither have, nor could we have, after God, anyone who loves us more than you, our most loving Mother. If it were possible to bring together the love of all mothers for their children, of all wives for their husbands, of all the saints and angels for those who have devotion to them, it would not equal the love you have for one single soul, and, therefore, for my soul too.
“O Mary, since you love me, make me resemble you. You have all power to change hearts: take my heart, then, and transform it. Make me a saint, make me your worthy child.
“Let others ask for what they will: health, riches, worldly advantages; I come to ask you, O Mary, for those things which you yourself desire for me and which are very dear to your heart. You, who were so humble, obtain for me humility and a love for contempt. You, so patient in the sorrows of this life, obtain for me patience in adversity. You who were filled with love for God, obtain for me the gift of pure, holy love. You were all charity toward your neighbour; obtain for me charity toward all, and especially toward those who are opposed to me. O Mary, you who are the holiest of all creatures, make me holy. You lack neither love nor power; you can and you will obtain everything for me. Only my failure to have recourse to you and my want of confidence in your aid can prevent me from receiving your favours.”
St Alphonsus
The Peace from Christ be yours.
One wonderful thing about the Rosary is that there is always another bead, another Hail Mary.
God created man and keeps man in existence from one instant to the next and for all eternity.
If I am unworthy of the Beatific Vision then I want to say the Rosary for all eternity.