Courtesy of
TFP Student Action:
The Rosary and Saint Dominic Defeat HeresyThe
Rosary—as spiritual weapon against evil—has a very long and precious
history. In twelfth and thirteenth century France, a group of heretics
known as the Albigensians was destroying the minds of the Catholic laity
with its erroneous ideas. The Albigensians’ teachings encouraged
suicide, many times by self-induced starvation, because they believed
that the body was an intrinsic evil and that the soul must be liberated
from matter at all costs. However, as history often shows, Providence
raises up great Saints in times of dire crises. This time it was no
different. Saint Dominic, born of noble lineage, received the Rosary
from Our Lady in the year 1214. Our Lady gave Saint Dominic the Rosary
as a weapon to combat the awful Albigensian heresy.
The Rosary as
we know it today took some time to develop. After Saint Dominic died in
the year 1221, the Rosary was almost immediately forgotten. However, in
1464 Our Lord, Our Lady, and Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan de
la Roche, a Dominican friar, after which he preached the Rosary until
his death in 1475. This tremendous apostolate by Blessed Alan de la
Roche, through the direct intercession of Our Lady, made the Rosary a
widespread devotion. The fifteen mysteries as we know them came about
through the many confraternities founded after Blessed Alan de la
Roche’s preaching, and were formalized with Pope Saint Pius V’s
encyclical, Consueverunt.
The Rosary and the Battle of LepantoThe
Battle of Lepanto was a crucial conflict between the Christians and the
Ottoman Turks, one of the greatest naval battles of all time. The
Christian lands around Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean were
constantly getting sacked by Muslim pirates, and Imperial warships were
ravaging the land. At this point in time, Pope Saint Pius V saw it
appropriate to raise a Crusade against these heathen Muslims. After
raising a Crusade, he asked every non-combatant across the whole
Christian world to pray the Rosary.
Even after this call to arms,
the Christian fleet at Lepanto was greatly outnumbered by the Ottoman
Turks. The Crusaders got on their knees and began to pray the Rosary.
Soon after, the Christians and the Muslims were immersed in a bloody
battle. Thus it was that on October 7, 1571, the Christian fleet was
blessed with a miraculous victory. Pope Saint Pius V immediately
dedicated the victory to Our Lady, establishing October 7 as “The Feast
of the Most Holy Rosary.”
Holy Rosary Crusade of ReparationAfter
World War II, Austria was divided between four countries: America,
France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. At the time, Russia was still
communist. The section of Austria controlled by the communists was the
richest, and included the city of Vienna. The Viennese were subject to
the all the atrocities and tyrannies of communism. However, in 1946, Fr.
Petrus Pavlicek, after making a pilgrimage to Mariazell, the principle
Marian shrine in Austria, was told by an interior voice: “Do as I say
and there will be peace.”
To obey this inspiration of Our Lady,
Fr. Pevlicek founded the Holy Rosary Crusade of Reparation in 1947. This
Crusade consisted of the Viennese faithful coming out of their homes in
order to participate in a public Rosary procession in the streets of
the city. The intentions of the Rosary were for the end of communism in
their country and in the world. At first, the processions were
miniscule, but in time they grew to staggering proportions. In 1955,
after eight years spreading the word about the Crusade throughout
Austria, the Rosary processions would reach sizes of half a million
people, about 1/10 of the Austrian population. Finally, through the help
of Our Lady, the Soviet forces pulled out of Austria in October of
1955, leaving the country for good.
The Rosary and the Fatima MessageBetween
May 13 and October 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared to three shepherd
children, Jacinta, Lucia, and Francisco, at the Cova de Iria, near
Fatima, Portugal. During six visits, Our Lady communicated to them a
secret which had three parts. The first part was a vision of Hell.
During this vision, Sister Lucia said numerous souls fell into Hell like
“snowflakes.”
In the second part, Our Lady states that WWI would
end, but “if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break
out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. To prevent this, I shall come to
ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the
Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are
heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she
will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and
persecutions of the Church.”
As Our Lady predicted, World War II
erupted and the errors of atheist Communism spread. Our Lady added that
many will be martyred and nations will be annihilated, if people do not
convert. Have people converted? The answer is no. Can Divine punishment
be avoided? It depends on the world’s fidelity to Our Lady’s requests.
Lucia
asked Our Lady during the apparitions, “Who are you and what do you
want?” Our Lady responded, “I am the Lady of the Rosary, and I have come
to warn the faithful to amend their lives and ask pardon for their
sins. People must not continue to offend the Lord, Who is already so
deeply offended. They must say the Rosary.”
Therefore, Our Lady
gave us a solution: the recitation of the daily Rosary for the
conversion of sinners. The Fatima message is a remedy for our culture
immersed in sin. If it were not for Our Lady’s promise that “Finally, My
Immaculate Heart will Triumph,” we would be much dismayed and
disheartened. So let us heed her requests. Let us practice the First
Saturday devotions. Let us pray the daily Rosary. By fulfilling these
requests, we will be consoling the sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of
Mary and hasten the triumph of good over evil.
Rosary Saves Man’s Life on September 11A
man from New York who had fallen away from the Catholic Church and not
gone to confession in years was met at a TFP Fatima presentation given
by America Needs Fatima Custodian, Jose Ferraz.
After the visit,
the New Yorker took home a Rosary and Rosary Guide and started praying
it and going to the sacraments again. Months later, on September 11,
2001, he was in the World Trade Center at the very moment when the
terrorist attack took place.
Seeing the fireball and smoke from
the crash, the man fled his office and tried running down the stairs to
safety. However, he met a big obstacle. The fire doors had locked and he
was trapped in the stairwell, listening to the screams of burning
people who were still inside the building, unable to escape death. It
was awful—horrific. Any attempt to pry open the fire doors with bare
hands would be futile.
With Our Lady’s help, instead of
panicking, he felt calm. He grabbed his Rosary and started praying to
the Blessed Mother for help. And within minutes, firemen reached his
floor, broke down the fire doors and set him free. He ran downstairs to
safety, his prayers answered thanks to the power of the Most Holy
Rosary.
