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I’d not like to let this month pass by without a special post about the Holy Rosary. (This is a devotional prayer of Catholics, which is composed of the Our Father, the prayer taught by Jesus Himself, and the Hail Mary*, while honoring, and meditating on, the chief mysteries of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious aspects of the lives of Jesus and His beloved mother Mary, requested by the Blessed Virgin herself in most of her apparitions, like the historical ones at Lourdes and at Fatima, so for the non-Catholic readers, I beg for your indulgence.)

* Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus! Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen. This is the Angelic salutation found in the Bible in Luke 1:28-35, 42-48.

“Say the Rosary every day, to obtain peace for the world”. – Our Lady of Fatima

October is the month of the Holy Rosary and today, October 31, is the culmination, mostly celebrated by “Living Rosaries” all over the Catholic world.

To give a little background: It was to St. Dominic while despairingly asking for help how to defeat the growing sinfulness of his time that the Blessed Mother appeared, and taught him what the most powerful weapon he would use to overcome the enemy, the Rosary.

“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Sister Lucia dos Santos

The fifteen promises of the Blessed Mother for the devotees of the Holy Rosary:

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive powerful graces.
2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.
3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies
4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.
5. The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish.
6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its
Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.
7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.
8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise.
9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.
11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
12. All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.
13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death
14. All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ.
15. Devotion of my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

(More on the Holy Rosary in a later post.)

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