“Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.” St. Padre Pio

Are you still among those who still question why we need to pray to Jesus through his mother? The intercessory role of Mary cannot be overemphasized; it is a truth that is established by the scriptures. The role she played at the wedding feast at Cana in the gospel according to John Chapter 2 saved the couples from embarrassment and shame and so with just that simple statement of “Son, they have no wine”, Jesus performed His first ever miracle. This intercessory role of Mary is what is most emphatically promoted through the prayer of the Holy Rosary. In fact, the story behind the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary focuses greatly on the intercessory power of Mary.

The rosary has come to be considered as a perfect prayer because within it lies the awesome story of our salvation. It is a powerful weapon that is underutilized by Catholics, quite unfortunate. “Say the Rosary every day…pray, pray a lot and offer sacrifices for sinners…I’m Our Lady of the Rosary. Only I will be able to help you…in the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph.” It has thus become very necessary for us Catholics to become aware of the power therein this prayer of the Blessed Mother, our ever loving intercessor. The efficacy and power of this prayer is often stemmed on the fact that it was born out of the strife, sacrifice, and persecutin of the early Church martyrs. The term Rosary can therefore be traced to the Latin Rosarium, which means “crown of roses” or “garland of roses”. Therefore, as young virgins prepared to walk into the arena of the Coliseum to face the beasts that would tear them asunder, they made ready to meet Jesus Christ, King of Kings, for whom they were offering their lives. They fittingly adorned themselves in festive garments, with crowns of roses for their heads. Thus bedecked, they joined their Saviour in His passion. At, night, the faithful would gather up the martyrs’ crowns and say their prayers on them, one prayer for each rose. Their prayer was a journey, perhaps, into the mystery of what they had witnessed.

The use of a device to count prayers was not alien to the Church. In the fourth century, the Desert Fathers kept track of their devotions on prayer cords. In the fifth century, St. Brigid of Ireland strung pieces of stone and wood together to form a little wreath, and upon these pieces, she would pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Creed. During this same time, the custom of dividing the psalter into three groups of fifty psalms each developed among Christians in both East and West. They prayed and chanted these in public. The custom was adapted for those who were uneducated or poor, or who toiled in the fields far away from the churches. These substituted fifty repetitions of the Angelic salutation (Ave Maria) for the fifty psalms. These Ave were recited along with verses from the Gospel relating to the joys of Mary, such as Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, Ascension, and Assumption. This style of prayer became known as a Rosarium. According to writings by the Venerable Bede, Churches in England and France were making prayer beads available to the faithful by the eighth century.

However, the first clear historical reference that we have to the Rosary as we know it today dates back to the thirteenth century, from the life of St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans. According to tradition, Dominic devised the Rosary after Our Lady appeared to him and told him to pray in this manner as an antidote from heresy and sin. He obeyed, and he preached the Rosary with great success in France during the time of the Albigensian heresy. One of the most famous miracles of the Rosary was performed at the hands of St. Dominic. He expelled thousands of demons from a possessed man in front of a crowd of twelve thousand, after putting a Rosary around the man’s neck.  In spite of this and many other spectacular miracles, the Rosary fell into disuse until two centuries later, when a Dominican theologian named Blessed Alain de la Roche (d. 1475) made it his life’s mission to restore the devotion. He is credited with establishing Rosary confraternities to promote the Rosary and developing what is known as the ‘Dominican Rosary’. This Rosary included three groups of mysteries related to the Incarnation, the Passion and the Resurrection of Christ. This became the most popular form of the Rosary until 16th October, 2002 when the mystery of Light/Luminous mystery was added by Pope Saint John Paul II.

The rosary however grew in popularity and became the spiritual weapon of choice in the 1500s. At this time, Pope Pius V was having trouble with the Ottoman Turks, who were a real danger to Christianity. After months of disagreements and bickering, he was able to untie Spain, Venice, and the States of the Church in a naval expedition to fight the Turks. The two navies met in the Gulf of Lepanto in Greece on October 7, 1571.

On the same day, the Rosary Confraternity of Rome was meeting at the Dominican headquarters there. The group recited the Rosary for the special intention of the Christians at battle. The Christians defeated the Turks in a spectacular victory and believed it was the intercessory power of the Blessed Virgin that won the victory. Pope Pius V dedicated the day as one of thanksgiving to Our Lady of Victory. Pope Gregory XIII later changed the name to the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. This story continues to emphasize the power of the Holy Rosary and Mary’s readiness to help us. It shows therefore that when we are in danger, in pains, discouraged, or having trouble accepting God’s will, we can go to Mary. She will sure pray to her Son for anyone who calls on her. Anyone who prays to Mary no longer feels alone because she prays with them and for them. Mary has continued to encourage the praying of the Rosary in her apparitions. At Lourdes when she appeared to Saint Bernadette, Mary had a Rosary. As Bernadette prayed it, Mary joined in on the Glory be prayers. At Fatima, Mary exhorted the three children who saw her to pray the Rosary for peace.

The Rosary is indeed a deep prayer because as we recite the Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Bes, we meditate on the mysteries in the lives of Jesus and Mary, little wonder it pleases Our Lady dearly when we pray the Rosary. The Rosary remains a veritable weapon against the devil. With our prayers made together with our heavenly mother, we can be sure to obtain great gift of bringing about a change of hearts and conversion. It is never to be conceived as old-fashioned or simply a repetitive prayer, rather it should be viewed as an activity of two sweethearts who many times say one another the words: “I love you”… Believe in the power of the Rosary and pray it as such and not just as one of the prayers of the Church. Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us. In this age and time that we face unprecedented challenges on every front, a time where the present darkness weigh heavy against us. We need to return to the efficacy of the Holy Rosary “Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world” – Blessed Pope Pius IX