Our Lady of the Rosary

Our Lady of the Rosary is the memorial that honors the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of the Rosary, the beloved prayer in which the faithful, passing the beads through their fingers, contemplate with Mary the joyful, sorrowful, glorious, and luminous mysteries of the life of Christ. Often called a compendium of the whole Gospel, the Rosary unites vocal and meditative prayer and has been commended by the popes as a school of contemplation and a powerful means of grace and peace.

The feast was established by Pope St. Pius V in thanksgiving for the great naval victory of the Christian fleet over the Ottoman armada at Lepanto on 7 October 1571, a deliverance attributed to the intercession of Our Lady, invoked that day by the faithful praying the Rosary throughout Europe. First called the feast of Our Lady of Victory and then of the Holy Rosary, it is kept each year on 7 October as a day of gratitude to the Mother of God and of renewed devotion to her Rosary.