Our Lady of the Rosary: The Story Behind October 7
Every October 7, the Church celebrates Our Lady of the Rosary. It is one of the few feasts on the calendar that honors a prayer, and the story of how it got there begins at sea.
October 7, 1571
In the autumn of 1571, a fleet gathered by the Holy League sailed to meet the Ottoman navy near Lepanto, off the western coast of Greece. The outcome would shape the Mediterranean for generations.
Pope Saint Pius V had asked the faithful to do one thing: pray the Rosary. Tradition holds that in Rome, members of the Rosary confraternity were praying in procession that same day.
The League won. Pius V credited the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and established a feast of thanksgiving: Our Lady of Victory.
From a victory to a prayer
His successor, Pope Gregory XIII, gave the feast a new name, the Feast of the Holy Rosary. Over the following centuries it spread from a few churches to the whole Church. Today it is kept on October 7 as the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary.
Notice what happened. The feast began by remembering a battle. It ended by honoring the prayer people held in their hands while they waited.
Why the whole month
Three centuries after Lepanto, Pope Leo XIII wrote more about the Rosary than any pope before him. He asked Catholics to pray it every day during October, and the month has belonged to the Rosary ever since.
In 2002, Saint John Paul II added the Luminous Mysteries, which walk through the public life of Jesus. The Rosary he left us has twenty mysteries: the whole Gospel, in order, on a string of beads.
Five ways to keep the feast
- Pray one decade today. If a full Rosary feels like too much, start with ten Hail Marys.
- Pray it as a family. Let each person lead a decade.
- Offer it for someone. Pick one name before you begin.
- Learn the mysteries. Our guide How to Pray the Rosary walks you through them step by step.
- Give a rosary away. Someone who has never prayed it may only need an invitation.
One bag, one rosary
This is why the Rosary is part of how we do business. For every pound of coffee sold, we donate a Rosary, placed in the hands of a patient in a hospital or a family in need by the Franciscan communities who serve at origin. You can read why in The Ave Maria Mission.
Every Guadalupe coffee scores 84 to 89 points, is roasted on demand at origin, and returns 100% of our margin to the Catholic farming families and communities who grow it.
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.