BATTLE RESPONSE TO THE CORONAVIRUS
As we have been watching the news, there seems to be a cloud of darkness and fear spreading over our communities and church. But don't forget we have the spiritual weapons we need to punch back against this pandemic. Historically, the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been prayed in times of distress and disasters. In fact, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated on October 7th every year, commemorates one such example.
On that day in 1571, the Ottoman Empire threaten to overwhelm the “Holy League,” comprised of the armed forces of the papacy and several Italian states, in western Greece’s Gulf of Patras. Pope Pius V had ordered Rome’s churches to be kept open for continuous prayer, and urged the faithful to invoke Mary’s intercession through the rosary.
The Holy League’s triumph at what became known as the Battle of Lepanto prompted Pope Pius V to declare October 7th a Marian feast that his successor, Pope Gregory XIII, renamed “Our Lady of the Rosary.”
Even a more recent endorsement of the rosary’s effectiveness: Servant of God Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the visionaries at the Marian apparition site of Fatima in Portugal.
Sister Lucia said that ‘there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the rosary, no matter how difficult it is,’ Thus this is exactly the prayer that we can wield right now to ask God to bring an end to this trial. Let us pray to Our Lady to bring an end to this pandemic, I have no doubt that she will do it.