Our Lady of Victory!

Monday, October 7, 2024

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

Gal 1:6-12; Lk 10:25-37

The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary invites us to discover the inseparable union between Our Lady and her son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The historical background of the feast offers a compelling reason that we must always fly to the protection of Our Lady of the Rosary. 

The feast was originally meant to celebrate the 16^th-century naval victory of the Christian Coalition of Europe against the Turkish empire. The decisive victory and the arrest of the spread of the Ottoman empire were made possible through the intercession of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. 

Until then, Our Lady of the Rosary was known by an alternate name – Our Lady of Victory. After the crucial military victory against the Islamic empire, Our Lady was named after the weapon with which she brought victory to the Catholics. 

Though praying the rosary is quite common among Catholics today, there are three insights that we need to pay attention to regarding praying the rosary. 

1.Whenever we pray the rosary, we not only thank Our Lady for her intercession on our behalf as she did at the wedding at Cana but also remember her instruction that we must do ‘whatever he [Jesus] tells us to do’ (Jn 2:5). We stand to benefit more from her intercession if we remain faithful to her instructions. 

2. Praying the rosary offers the opportunity to journey with the Lord, reflecting on his life and sacrifice along with Our Lady’s intercession. Hence, praying the rosary does not mean praying to Our Lady in isolation. Instead, we pray for the intercession of the most faithful and exemplary disciple of the Lord – Mother Mary, because the Catholics believe that we go ‘To Jesus through Mary.’ 

3. Praying the rosary helps us with the perfect model of discipleship that we find in Mary. As the mother of the Lord, Mary stayed with him through his life and death. Thus, praying to Mary is learning from Jesus too. In this way, praying the rosary is to find Mary as a spectacular introduction and Jesus as a beautiful conclusion. 

If praying the Holy Rosary is highly special and significant, we are called to remember two things.

1.Rosary is a Catholic weapon: The Catholics have a more reliable weapon in the rosary. The oldest known Marian prayer, Sub Tuum Praesidium, translates to ‘We fly to Thy protection, O Holy Mother of God. Do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.’ Mary is our refuge, and the rosary is the way. 

Prayer is victory: Because the rosary is the symbol of our victory, we pray the rosary to win our life’s battles. It is for this reason that we invoke the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary during war, pandemic, natural calamities, discord, etc. In Our Lady of the Rosary, we have our peace and protection. 

Let us pray that we may find Our Lady of the Rosary as Our Lady of Victory. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar