This is Holy Family School of Faith.

So welcome to our Rosary meditation.

Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let's call to mind all those that we've promised to pray for.

Today, October 7th is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Originally the feast of Our Lady of Victory, because when the victory comes it will come through Mary and the Rosary.

On October 7, 1571, a very important battle took place that we commemorate with this feast date.

Throughout the 1500s, the Muslim Ottoman Empire grew in strength, especially by means of its domination of the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1571, their fleet of more than 300 warships was masked

just south of Greece in the Gulf of Lopanto,

La Ponto, poised to invade Europe and wipe out Christianity.

Pope Saint Pius the 5th saw this danger looming on the horizon and in response he begged the

leaders of the Christian West to stop fighting among themselves and unite against

the force that was a threat to all.

But they were too consumed with building their own kingdoms

to come to the defense of the kingdom of God.

So the Pope instead turned to the Christian people, asking them to take up the weapon of the Rosary and

to pray it daily.

Pope St. Pius 5th finally found support in Don Juan of Austria who cobbled together a much smaller fleet of about 200 ships.

Giovanni Andrea, a Genoese admiral, agreed to lead the Christian armada against the Islamic

onslaught.

And he possessed one of only five copies of Our Lady of Guadalupe that had been touched to the original

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