Rosary in History
Homily on the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, Wednesday, 26th Week in OT, 7 Oct 2026; DBPH Chapel Talamban
We celebrate today the feast of our Lady of the Holy Rosary. Pope Pius V established this feast in the 16th century to commemorate the historic victory of the Christians against the Muslim Turks in the famous Battle of Lepanto on this day in 1571. According to the Pope, this miraculous victory could not have been won if not for the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose powerful intercession the Catholics invoked by praying the Holy Rosary esp. in procession along the streets of Rome.
Today many families continue the tradition of gathering every day to pray the Holy Rosary. In fact, you yourselves who come to Mass daily are among those who join the Church in praying the Rosary daily.
It is good to recall that the praying of the Rosary was first entrusted to St. Dominic de Guzman, around the 13th century when our Bl. Mother appeared to him. Later on, in the 15th century, another Dominican priest by the name of Bl. Alanus de Rupe took up the task of promoting this Marian prayer and he started organizing Rosary confraternities in many different places. That was how the praying of the Holy Rosary became part and parcel of Catholic devotion and spirituality in every part of the world. And soon this pious practice eventually became a most powerful defense against the evil one. This was clearly proven and manifested at the battle of Lepanto in 1571.
This Marian devotion was brought to our country by the first batch of Dominican missionaries who came in 1587. If you would still recall, our first Filipino saint, San Lorenzo Ruiz, was a great Marian devotee and member of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary in their parish in Binondo, Manila.
Seventy-five years after Lepanto we Filipino Catholics were also blessed with a historically significant event similar to that of 1571. I am referring to what had happened in 1646 this time in Manila, when naval forces coming from the Dutch Republic made several repeated attempts to conquer the Philippines in a bid to control trade in Asia. Because our people kept praying the Rosary, our Blessed Mother intervened again, and thus the Catholic Church won another decisive victory. Consequently, the same Virgin Mary was given the title, Our Lady of La Naval de Manila.
In fact, sixteen years later on 9 April 1662, the Cathedral Chapter of the Archdiocese of Manila declared that naval victory a miraculous event owed to the powerful intercession of the Virgin Mary. Listen to what the Church said: “Granted by the Sovereign Lord through the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin and devotion to her Rosary, that the miracles be celebrated, preached and held in festivities and to be recounted amongst the miracles wrought by the Lady of the Rosary for the greater devotion of the faithful to Our Most Blessed Virgin Mary and Her Holy Rosary.
Dear brothers and sisters, you might think that the praying of the Rosary is far greater and more powerful than the celebration of the Mass and the other sacraments. No. Our Catholic liturgy which includes the Holy Mass, the Sacraments and other sacramentals are actually more pre-eminent and efficacious because these are real and transformative encounters with Christ. Whenever we celebrate his passion, death and resurrection in the liturgy, Jesus is made really present in our midst.
And we believe our praying of the Rosary is a most fitting complement to the liturgy because in praying the Rosary we do not simply mumble and repeat words, but above all we meditate and contemplate on the paschal events of our salvation, the very same mysteries which we celebrate in the liturgy. Moreover, the Rosary is the most Biblical among all other catholic devotions because at every bead of the Rosary which we pray, we actually use the very same words coming from the Sacred Scriptures – from the sign of the Cross, to the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be. All these prayers are actually drawn from the text of the New Testament writings. And so whenever we pray the Rosary, we actually proclaim and contemplate the Good News of our salvation; the same Gospel which St Paul took pride in preaching, as he himself said in today’s first reading (Gal 2:1 – 2, 7 – 14).
Therefore, if we are to follow the Gospel teaching we have heard today (Lk 11:1 – 4) to pray as the Lord had prayed, there is no other fitting prayer after the “Lord’s Prayers” than the Holy Rosary. May our participation in this Eucharist help us understand and appreciate better the great role of Mary in our lives and in our history as a Catholic nation. And may we continue to grow in our Marian devotion along with our Catholic faith so that we may come closer to Jesus through Mary, Virgin Mother of every disciple. GiGsss!
