Today we celebrate what would be the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. Throughout the month of October our Holy Father has asked that all the faithful pray the rosary as well as the St. Michael prayer each day. Hopefully you have already taken up this task and are doing so as a family. Truly fidelity to the rosary and the strengthening of married life should go hand in hand.
St. John Paul II stated: “The family, the primary cell of society, [is] increasingly menaced by forces of disintegration on both the ideological and practical planes, so as to make us fear for the future of this fundamental and indispensable institution and, with it, for the future of society as a whole. The revival of the Rosary in Christian families … will be an effective aid to countering the devastating effects of this crisis typical of our age.”
To put the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary into context: It was on October 7, 1571 that Pope Pius V requested that all of Europe pray the holy rosary for victory and even led a rosary procession in Rome due to the invading Ottoman Turks. Despite being greatly outnumbered Lepanto did not fall to the invading forces. This victory was attributed to Our Lady and to the praying of her rosary.
In a few days will fall October 13th. This is a special day, not because it is my birthday, but because it is the day that the sun danced about the sky and the apparitions of Fatima came to their conclusion. It was at Fatima that our Blessed Mother appeared to three children. She requested: “pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.”
Sister Lucia, one of the three children who witnessed the apparitions at Fatima, stated: “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family. Don’t be afraid, because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. Nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head.”
In our Gospel Jesus elevates marriage to the status of a Sacrament. I find it interesting that the apostles were explained this teaching and then they turn around had to be told again. Christ affirms here the indissolubility of marriage as something which was intended by God at Creation. It was for this reason “that God made them male and female” in order that “the two may be one.” To enter into the sacramental bonds of marriage is to accept this life long commitment no matter the cross, it is to accept children and to bring them up in the faith, and it is to join them together in order to pursue holiness.
Despite what Christ instructs in our Gospel it seems that in our modern day world that the words of Sister Lucia are coming true. Truly the sacrament of marriage is under attack.
