By Frances Dolores
When Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children at Fatima, Portugal 100 years ago this month, she asked that they say one particular prayer for the conversion of sinners each day – that prayer was the rosary. When Christian soldiers were about to be overrun by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire during the famous Battle of Lepanto, they prayed the rosary and achieved what some call the greatest victory in naval history – a victory that saved Christian Europe.
Why is the rosary one of Catholicism’s most beloved and powerful prayers? How did it come to be? Why are the months of May and October dedicated to Our Lady? These and other questions about this most beloved prayer are revealed this week in a special documentary, “Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei,” which airs at 8 p.m. ET, Friday, May 19 on EWTN.
The rosary’s intercessory power was also recognized on a smaller, more personal scale by Bartolo Longo, a confused young man who became a satanic priest. Fortunately, he realized the error of his ways and repented. But he was constantly plagued by doubts that God had really forgiven him. It was Our Lady who told him, as she once told St. Dominic, that whoever spreads devotion to the rosary will be saved. Longo not only took on this task with vigor, he later established a Shrine in Pompeii that even today attracts hundreds of devoted Catholics. Longo’s dedication to the rosary and his inspired works of charity towards the poor and children would eventually lead to his beatification by Saint Pope John Paul II.
“The rosary invites people to contemplate the face of Christ through Mary’s eyes,” says Archbishop Tommaso Caputo. “A simple prayer, yes. But at the same time, it is capable of lifting the soul toward the highest peaks of contemplation.”
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