Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

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

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

Originally it was called the Feast of Our Lady of Victory

because when the victory comes, it will come through the Rosary.

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 300 ships was masked just south of Greece in the Gulf of LaPanto, poised

to invade Europe and wipe out Christianity.

Pope St. Pius the 5th saw this danger looming on the horizon. In response,

he begged the kings of the 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 turned to the Christian people, asking them to take up the weapon of the rosary and prayer daily in Don Juan of Austria, who cobbled together a much smaller fleet, and he chose Giovanni Andrea

to be the Admiral. And they agreed to lead the Christian armada against the Islamic

onslaught. Now Giovanni Andrea was important because not only was he a great sea captain, but he possessed

one of only five copies of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that had been touched to the original Tilma,

and it was a gift from the King of Spain,

and he hung this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in his flagship on October 6th, 1571, the night before the Great

Sea Battle of LaPanto.

Don Juan required all his sailors and soldiers to pray the Rosary,

while the Pope himself led the Rosary at the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome,

for the Pope knew that if Europe was to be saved, it would only be through the intervention of the mother of God and the

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