FEAST OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY - OCTOBER 7TH excerpts from America Needs Fatima and encyclopedia Britannica Brief History of the Rosary The Blessed Virgin Mary first gave the Rosary to St. Dominic of Guzman in a vision in 1208, as he earnestly begged God for a solution to the Albigensian heresy. This particular heresy maintained that all material creation was evil, and only the spiritual was good, and was aggressively infecting the south of France. After St. Dominic began to preach the reciting of the Rosary, as instructed by the Blessed Virgin, the days of the Albigensian error were numbered. Our Lady of the Rosary The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was instituted by Pope St. Pius V in honor and thanksgiving for the great naval victory of the greatly outnumber allied Christian force called the “Holy League,” against a much larger but less disciplined, Muslim fleet at Lepanto located in the waters off southwestern Greece in 1571. The "League" was formed in response to the attack against Cyprus by the Muslim Ottoman Empire, which had all the intentions of a continued invasion of Western Europe. This battle was also historically remarkable, in that it was the last and greatest engagement with oar-propelled vessels and the first great victory over a Turkish fleet. During the battle, while the fate of Christian Europe hung in the balance on October 7, 1571, the Sovereign Pontiff called for a Rosary procession in Rome. It was during that procession that the victory was decided for the Christian fleet while engage in the “Battle of Lepanto”. In addition to the procession, a hand painted copy of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that was presented to the Christian fleet, was flown atop one of the flagships of the Holy League during the battle. The feast that was first instituted on October 7th by St. Pius the V was first known as the feast of “Our Lady of Victory “but later in 1573, Pope Gregory XIII changed the title to that of “Feast of the Holy Rosary”. In 1716 Pope Clement XI inserted the feast into the Roman Catholic calendar of saints and extended it to the whole of the Latin Rite, assigning the feast to the first Sunday in October but then in 1913, Pope St. Pius X changed the date back to the fixed date of October 7th. Fatima Connection On May 13, 1917, there began in Fatima, Portugal a series of apparitions of a luminous lady to three little Portuguese shepherds, Lucia dos Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto. She asked them to return to the same spot for five consecutive months, and that in October she would work a miracle for all to believe and reveal who she was. In every apparition the lady asked for the daily recitation of the Rosary as a remedy to life’s ills, and for peace in the world. On October 13, 1917, a crowd of 70,000 people witnessed the astounding miracle of the sun, as the fiery orb performed a fantastic dance in the sky above. The heavenly lady then revealed her name: “I am the Lady of the Rosary”. .