October, Month of the Holy Rosary

Fr. D Couture

“What a marvel!, Mary untied this little crown from her brow to give it to us and to turn it into an instrument of contemplation and of efficacy between our fingers. What we call the Rosary, that little grain we squeeze between our thumb and and our index, it is Mary, this Mother of God who has put herself completely between our fingers so that we may make use of her...” (Paul Claudel)

In chapter 2 of the book of Daniel, we read of a little stone, “cut out of a mountain without hand” that struck a mysterious giant statue at its feet and broke it into tiny pieces that “became like the chaff of a summer's threshing floor that was carried away by the wind”. And “the stone that struck the statue, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”

In that prophecy of Daniel, the little stone becomes a mountain, in the Gospel, it is a grain of mustard seed that becomes a great tree. When we “tell our beads”, when we slide our fingers on these little grains, we recall these prophetic biblical images. The Rosary seems so insignificant at times – so the devils tells us – that we unfortunately drop it so easily ... If we just knew its power!! The devil certainly does know it, perhaps better than we do...

Each one of us needs the Rosary for himself: the days we miss it, we often fall into sin. Experience proves that without the shadow of a doubt.

Our families need the Rosary: “A family that prays together stays
together!” (Fr. Peyton). The devil knows that he will not have the last word on a family devoted to the evening Rosary... When we ask couples and families in difficulty if they have been praying the Rosary together, the usual answer is negative. Isn’t that a surprise?

The world needs the Rosary: at Fatima, Our Blessed Lady urged the Rosary “for the end of the war” (WWI), and “for peace in the world”. How many social victories of the Rosary there have been over the centuries! And the conversion of Russia will be the next great one. Stay tuned! And pray the Rosary for that! What happened in Mexico in ten years after the miracle of Guadalupe ̶ 9 million conversions out of a population of 10 million ̶ is a preparation of what will happen in the world after the conversion of Russia, conversion which will be attributed to Our Lady of the Rosary, like in Lepanto in 1571.

The Church needs the Rosary: this terrible crisis of the Church we are living since the “1960s” could have been avoided had we listen to Our Lady’s requests at Fatima. The Liturgy often reminds us that Our Lady alone has crushed all heresies in the whole history of the world. She is therefore the one ̶ and only one ̶ that will crush modernism, but only when we will have prayed her enough. Let us be faithful to our daily rosaries, especially during these days in which we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the apparition of October 13 when Our Lady called herself the “Lady of the Rosary”.