OCR Text |
Show The Month of the Rosary. October is the month of the Rorasy, which by order of the Holy See Is recited re-cited daily in every church throughout the world from the first day of the month to the second of November during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. The use of beads for a set formula of prayers goes back to remote days, but It is to St. Dominic we owe the present form of the beads, which we call the Rosary, and the spread of this devotion among the people. Like many other Catholic practices, the Rosary was the outcome of the needs of a critical period In the history his-tory of the Church. In the twelfth century the Albigension heresy was laying waste the Church in France. Like the Modernists In our days these heretics persisted in calling themselves Catholics. Their errors were infecting thousands of the faithful. faith-ful. They denied the prerogatives of the Mother of God and tore her statue from its place in the church. When conditions looked darkest God raised up St. Dominic as the champion of His Church. The saint had been accustomed to use beads in his private devotions, and one day the inspiration came to him of their appropriateness ap-propriateness as a means of overcoming overcom-ing the enemies of God. The result was the rosary or chaplet'of roses to Our Lady. Armed with this weapon he and his followers -attacked the . -,. .wJi. , jfA, enemy. He set about instructing the people In the practice of this devotion. The Church began to regain what it has lost and the devotion spread j throughout Europe. , Popes and saints since that time have not ceased to recommend the devotion de-votion of the Rosary. St. Pius V, a Domanican pope, in the year 1571, re- j lied on it for the victory over the Turks, and he was not disappointed. The victory of Lepanto evinced the intervention in-tervention of the Queen of the Rosary. During the reign of Clement XII, Prince Eugene of Savoy with a comparatively com-paratively small army signally defeated de-feated the Turks on the day which the Rosary confraternity had set for , the general recitation of the beads. In view of this victory Fope Clement made the feast oS the Rosary a feast for the entire world. All Catholics know that the Rosary implies both mental and vocal prayer the contemplation of some mystery of the life of Jesus Christ and the recitation reci-tation of the Lord's Prayer and the salutation of the Angel to Mary. In many Catholic families the Rosary is recited daily throughout the year, and no better practical devotion could bo adopted in every Catholic household. The time was when in every Catholic home the parents every evening gathered gath-ered round them their children and together to-gether they said the beads. Unfortunately Unfor-tunately attractions of all kinds that often are the cause of no end of evil, keep the father and children out evenings, even-ings, and the good practice of ages of greater faith has been dropped. What better result could be desired from the impetus to devotion to the Rosary during the month of October than the renewal of this custom in every Catholic home? Let every father fa-ther and mother do his or her part. Its blessing will redound on a generation genera-tion that is too easily and too surely forgetting the faith that brought forth the Rosary. |