October – Month of the Holy Rosary

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The photo above shows a stained glass window with Mary, Jesus, and Saint Dominic. It depicts the presentation of the Rosary to Saint Dominic. The stained glass window is located in Our Lady of Mercy Roman Catholic Church, Hicksville, New York, USA.

The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary. According to an account by 15th-century Dominican friar, Mary appeared to St. Dominic in 1206 after he had been praying and doing severe penances. Mary praised him and gave him the Rosary as a mighty weapon, explained its uses and efficacy, and told him to preach it to others.

Some Catholics consider the Rosary’s 150 Hail Marys a substitute for the 150 psalms for those persons who don’t have the time, education, or opportunity to pray the Hours of the Divine Office. Thus “Mary's Psalter” is a shortened, simplified “breviary” – alongside the Divine Office of the Church.

The Rosary, Pope Leo XIII declared, “is composed of two parts, distinct but inseparable – the meditation on the mysteries and the recitation of the prayers. It is thus a kind of prayer that requires not only some raising of the soul to God, but also a particular and explicit attention.”

Through the meditations of the complete Rosary, one recalls the chief mysteries of the Christian religion. The twenty mysteries are divided into four equal groups, known as The Joyful, The Sorrowful, The Glorious, and The Luminous. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariae, added the five Luminous Mysteries in 2002 .

The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is celebrated annually on 7 October. It was instituted to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary in gratitude for the protection that she gives the Church in answer to the praying of the Rosary by the faithful.