The Rosary Rally: 90th anniversary of the Fatima miracle

"Through the Rosary and the Scapular I shall save the world"

(Words said to have been spoken to Saint Dominic by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 1208)

This Saturday 13th October 2007 saw the coincidence of the 90th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions to the three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, the Feast of St Edward the Confessor and the Feast of Blessed Gerard the Founder of the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem (now the Knights of Malta).

The annual Rosary Rally was held to preserve the memory of the apparition, to make reparation for sin and to remember our Lady's requests at Fatima.

The Dominican Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary

At an early date among the monastic orders the practice of counting prayers established itself not only with the offering of Masses, but of saying vocal prayers as a suffrage for deceased brethren. For this purpose the private recitation of the 150 psalms, or of 50 psalms, the third part, was constantly enjoined.

Already in A.D. 800 we learn from the compact between St. Gall and Reichenau (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Confrat. Piper, 140) that for each deceased brother all the priests should say one Mass and also fifty psalms.

Ancient Customs of Cluny (Cluny was the famous Benedictine Abbey in the South of France that began a great reform), collected by Udalrio in 1096, tell us that when the death of any brother at a distance was announced, every priest was to offer Mass, and every non-sacerdotal Choir monk or lay brother was either to say fifty psalms or to repeat fifty times the Paternoster (The Lord's Prayer).

To count these accurately an early practice had come in of using pebbles, berries, or discs of bone threaded on a string. It is in any case certain that the Countess Godiva of Coventry (c 1075) left by will to the statue of our Lady in a certain monastery "the circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly" (Malmesbury, Gesta Pont., Rolls Series 311).

Another example seems to occur in the case of St. Rosalia (A. D. 1160), in whose tomb similar strings of beads were discovered. Even more important is the fact that such strings of beads were known throughout the Middle Ages - and in some Continental tongues are known to this day - as Paternosters or "Our Fathers". The evidence for this is overwhelming and comes from every part of Europe.

Indeed, visitors to London's St Paul's Cathedral will notice the nearby streets are called "Paternoster Row", "Paternoster Square", "Ave Maria Lane" and "Creed Lane", named after constituent parts of the Rosary.

There are also streets called "Rosary Gardens" in other parts of London.

In the times before St. Dominic we can see that Paternosters were prayed, and we know from history that during St. Dominic's time the Lord's Prayer and our Lady's Psalter, as the Rosary was then called, were prayed on pebbles, or a string of beads.

St. Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, the Catharist heretics who believed that marriage and child-birth was evil and sodomy and euthanasia were sacramental, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penance in order to appease the anger of Almighty God.

Tradition tells that our Lady appeared to him while he prayed and said: "My son, prayer and penance are the only way to win souls. Pray my Psalter and teach it to your people. That prayer will never fail".

As ever, our Lady built upon existing traditions, hallowed by time and the Holy Spirit, and did not introduce novelties.

Those who could not read Holy Scripture and those who could not understand it often said a Hail Mary for each of the Psalms. Their simple prayer took the place of the one hundred and fifty Psalms of David that the learned ones could read.

Hence the 150 psalms of the Rosary. That is also the reason why there cannot be added to the Dominican Rosary another 50 recitations.

The Luminous Mysteries chaplet of Pope John Paul II is a novelty which can profitably be said as a separate chaplet but it is simply misleading to pretend that it forms part of the Dominican Rosary. It simply does not. And if it did it would disturb the patterns of 150 beads replacing the 150 psalms of monastic tradition.

Popes may approve new chaplets but they cannot simply invent new parts to existing chaplets that have been hallowed by time. That does not honour the memory of St Dominic.

Counting prayers was not new either before the birth of Jesus, the people who belonged to ancient religions had counted on knotted cords the prayers they said to their gods. After the coming of our Lord, the hermits who lived in the desert in the early centuries counted their prayers to God by means of pebbles.

Even today both Islam and Buddhism have chaplets of their own - but they are not addressed to the true God, of course. Still they represent a very ancient religious tradition.

Our Lady said to St Dominic: "Make clear to them the mysteries of their religion, the divine truths that God has revealed but that they cannot understand. Teach them to picture in their minds the events of my Sons life".

She then explained to him the 15 mysteries of the Rosary and how to meditate upon them.

The Battle of Muret against the Albigensians in 1213

St Dominic and his companions prayed the Rosary at Muret on 11 and 12 September 1213 (there it is again - 9/11!) and on the latter day, Count Simon de Montfort and 700 Catholic knights sallied forth to meet the 50,000 strong Albigensian army under King Peter of Aragon.

They charged into the mass toward the Headquarters of the Albigensian army. King Peter was slain (over whose body Count Simon later wept to see him dead) and the Albigensian army fled.

The tiny Catholic force had overcome the heretics with the power of our Lady's chaplet, the Holy Rosary.

The Brown Scapular of our Lady of Mount Carmel

A scapular is a sleeveless outer garment falling from the shoulders. Use of the scapular originated in the monastic orders of priests and monks, forming part of the habit or clothing of the members. Essentially the scapular is a special garment worn as a sign of love and devotion to Mary the Immaculate Queen.

With the passage of time lay people were permitted to wear the scapular as symbolic members of a monastic order, with the attendant spiritual benefits attached to such membership. Over the years the scapular, at least for lay people, became much reduced in size to but small pieces of wool cloth suspended front and back.

According to tradition the Blessed Virgin appeared to St Simon Stock, Prior of the Carmelite Priory at Aylesford in Kent, England, in the year 1251, and, holding a scapular of the Order of Mount Carmel said, "Receive My beloved son, the Scapular of thy Order, as a distinctive sign of My Confraternity. Whoever dies invested with this Scapular shall be preserved from the eternal flames. It is a sign of salvation, a sure safeguard in danger, a pledge of peace and of My special protection until the end of the ages".

St Simon Stock receives the Brown Scapular from our Lady at the Carmelite Priory of which he was Prior in Aylesford, Kent, England. English Catholics and visitors may thus be enrolled in the Scapular at the very Priory where it was first given to St Simon by our Lady.

By the end of the 16th century the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was most widely known and used. It is commonly called today the Brown Scapular, and is probably the oldest scapular in use.

In the year 1322 Pope John XXII is said to have issued a Bull, Sacratissimo uti culmine (although it has not been found yet in Vatican archives) authorising the Sabbatine Privilege. This followed a vision he is said to have had of our Lady holding the Scapular of Mount Carmel, in which she said:

"Those who have been invested with this Holy Habit will be delivered from Purgatory the first Saturday after their death."

The Bull affirmed this privilege and indulgences are granted to the members of the Carmelite Order and to its secular members.

However, a long line of saints have since extolled the Scapular and popes have indulgenced it heavily.

So, folks, get a Rosary and a Scapular and save the world!

The Rosary Rally 2007

Below are some photographs from the Rosary Rally 2007.

Procession sets off from Westminster Cathedral, the Oratory brothers leading, then the Knights of our Lady, the Knights of Malta, the clergy, the statue of our Lady of Fatima and the Faithful behind her.

Through the streets of London

Moving through Knightsbridge to the Brompton Oratory

Into the Oratory through the main port

Processing down the aisle of the Oratory

Censing our Lady's statue in the Sanctuary

Fr Julian Large, Cong Orat, preaches about the Rosary, St Pius V and the Battle of Lepanto against the Moslem Turks, won by the Christian navy and through praying the Rosary

Knights of our Lady at prayer

Flower maidens of our Lady in white dresses

Adoring the Blessed Sacrament before Benediction

Clergy, Knights of Malta and brothers of the Oratory processing out

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us!

St Bridget of Sweden: saint of chivalry

St. Bridget (sometimes called Birgitta) - Feast day 8 October - was born about the year 1303 (by tradition on June 14th) in Upland, the chief province of Sweden, where her father, Prince Birger, was governor. Her mother, Lady Ingeborg of Finsta, was a daughter of the governor of East Gothland. When only seven Bridget had a vision in which our Lady placed a crown on her head, and when ten, after a sermon on the Passion, she saw in a dream Christ wounded and bleeding. These two experiences seem to have been the formative ones of her life.

Her mother died in 1314, and she lived with an aunt until, in 1316, obediently but against her inclination, she married Ulf Gudmarsson. They had four boys and four girls. Two of the boys died young; Karl, the eldest, was worldly but devoted to our Lady; Birger, the second, though married, later became his mother's companion and brought her body home to Sweden from Rome to be buried. Three of the girls married: Merita and Cecilia staying in Swedish society, while Catherine lost her husband and lived with her mother; the fourth, Ingebord, became a Cistercian.

Twenty-eight years after their marriage, Ulf died and Bridget went to live the penitential life she longed for near the Cistercian monastery at Alvastra. While there, she planned the Rule and Office of the order she was called to found but which she never saw in existence. After two years, in 1344, she went to Rome, where she died on July 23rd, 1373. Her canonization took place only eighteen years later, on October 7th, 1391.

St. Bridget had the gift of prophecy and worked many marvellous cures. Once widowed, she lived an ascetic life, eating very little, sleeping short hours, and praying continually. She followed a strict rule and practiced every possible kind of charitable work, even reducing herself to begging. She received constant inspirations which were either taken down by her chaplain and put into Latin, thus becoming known as her "Revelations", or took the form of letters to the succeeding popes, cardinals, and secular rulers of the day, telling them of their wickedness and how to reform their lives. Both in Sweden and in Rome she was either hated violently or loved as a saint. "Strong and full of courage", she was "homely and kind and had a laughing face".

She founded the Order of the Saviour or the Bridgettines at Vadstena in Sweden, was richly endowed by King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden and his queen. King Magnus had been named at birth after Carolus Magnus i.e. Charlemagne the Emperor. The Order really started after St. Bridget's death but with her daughter, St. Catherine of Sweden, as first abbess.

About 1350 she went to Rome, partly to obtain from the pope the authorization of the new order, and partly in pursuance of her self-imposed mission to elevate the moral tone of the age.

She also set herself the task of persuading the Pope to return to Rome from Avignon, a task later completed by St Catherine of Siena.

She also composed a Rosary of 69 Aves in honour the number of years of our Lady's life, with 7 Paternosters and 7 Credos in honour of her joys and sorrows.

St Bridget received great revelations about chivalry and the great virtue of teh knights that fought for Christ and Christendom. Our Lord appeared to her and said in one of her visions, even emphasizing what He said to her, this:

"A knight who keeps the laws of his order is exceedingly dear to me. For if it is hard for a monk to wear his heavy habit, it is harder still for a knight to wear his heavy armour".

These were the very words of our Lord to St Bridget.

It was not until 1370 that Pope Urban V confirmed the rule of her order, but meanwhile Birgitta had made herself universally beloved in Rome by her kindness and good works. Save for occasional pilgrimages, including one to Jerusalem in 1373, she remained in Rome until her death on July 23, 1373. She was originally buried at San Lorenzo in Panisperna before being moved to Sweden. She was canonized in 1391 by Pope Boniface IX (also confirmed by the Council of Constance in 1415).

In 1999, Pope John Paul II chose Birgitta as Europe's co-patroness, along with St Catherine of Siena and St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Our Lady of Victory: when the Rosary beat the Turks at Lepanto

On 7 October 1571, Don John of Austria, son of the Emperor Charles V, commanding the navies of the Pope and the Emperor, together with the navies of Spain and Venice, defeated a much larger Turkish navy off the coast of Greece at a place now called Naupactos.

To the men of his day this place was called by its Roman name:

Lepanto

How did this extraordinary victory come about?

The answer is simple enough. it was obtained - yet again - by the most powerful weapon known to men: the holy Dominican Rosary chaplet of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Prior to this, one of the greatest naval battles of Roman Christendom, the Pope, St Pius V, himself a Dominican friar, ordered the praying of the Holy Rosary throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, just as was later to be done before the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

As a result the feast of our Lady of Victory (later our Lady of the Rosary) was instituted by the popes for an everlasting memory.

Let us hear what Abbot Prosper Gueranger OSB of Solesmes says of that great battle and feast in his great work, The Liturgical Year (the book read to St Therese of Lisieux when she was a child):

"Soliman II, the greatest of the Sultans, taking advantage of the confusion caused in the West by Luther, had filled the 16th century with terror by his exploits. He left to his son, Selim II, the prospect of being able at length to carry out the ambition of his race: to subjugate Rome and Vienna, the Pope and the Emperor, to the power of the crescent.

The Turkish fleet had already mastered the greater part of the Mediterannean, and was threatening Italy, when, on 7 October 1571, it came into action, in the Gulf of Lepanto, against the pontifical galleys supported by the fleets of Spain and Venice.

It was Sunday; throughout the world the confraternities of the Rosary were engaged in their work of intercession. Supernaturally enlightened, St Pius V watched from the Vatican the battle undertaken by the leader he had chosen, Don John of Austria, against the 300 vessels of Islam.

Don John of Austria

The illustrious Pontiff, whose life's work was now completed, did not survive to celebrate the anniversary of the triumph; but he perpetuated the memory of it by an annual commemoration of our Lady of Victory.

His successor, Gregory XIII, altered the title to our Lady of the Rosary, and appointed the first Sunday of October for the new feast [now celebrated on 7 October, the actual day of the battle - ed], authorising its celebration in those churches which possessed an altar under that invocation.

A century and a half later, this limited concession was made general. As [now Venerable]Innocent XI, in memory of the deliverance of Vienna by King Jan Sobieski, had extended the feast of the most Holy Name of Mary to the whole Church, so, in 1716, Clement XI inscribed the feast of the Rosary on the universal calendar, in gratitude for the victory gained by Prince Eugene of Savoy [commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces] at Peterwardein, on 5 August, under the auspices of our Lady of the snow. This victory was followed by the raising of the siege of Corfu, and completed a year later by the taking of Belgrade."

After Vienna, Peterwardein and Belgrade, the Muslim Turks were finally routed and never again troubled Roman Christendom.

Such was - and is - the extraordinary power of the Holy Rosary of St Dominic.

Beads of Paternosters and Aves have been said from very early times and were commonly said by the knights and sergeants of the Military religious Orders when in battle and on campaign, when they could not say their Office.

St Dominic formalised the current Dominican Rosary prior to the Battle of Muret in 1213 (that battle was again won on 12 September - the day after the mysterious 9/11) when he prayed for Count Simon de Montfort and his 700 knights as they sallied forth against a huge army of 50,000 Albigensians - rather like Theoden of Rohan against the massive army of Saruman and Isengard in The Lord of the Rings.

Like Theoden, de Montfort and his knights routed the Albigensians by charging straight into their midst. They gained the Albigensian headquarters and when their leader, the heretic King Peter of Aragon, was slain, the Albigensians fled.

Nevertheless, Count Simon wept over the corpse of King Peter whom he had known and admired as a soldier and whom he had hoped could be spared, powerful heretic and enemy though he was.

Thus the day was won and the tiny Catholic army triumphed over the huge heretic army. This, again, was another great victory obtained by the all-powerful Rosary of our Lady.

Small wonder, then, that our Lady has so often appeared and asked her children to pray the Holy Rosary for victory and peace, as she did to St Bernarde of Lourdes (St Bernadette) and later to the little shepherds at Fatima in 1917 during the Great War.

When we face fearful odds in the cause of right we must turn to our Lady and to her powerful weapon - the sword of the spirit - the chaplet of the Holy Rosary.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!
St Dominic, pray for us!
St Pius V, pray for us!
Ven Innocent XI, pray for us!

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