Homily for Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary

Homily for the Memorial of
Our Lady of the Rosary

Oct. 7, 2025
Collect
Jonah 3: 1-10
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

The Battle of Lepanto
by Antonio de Brugada

“God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish” (Jon 3: 9).

On Oct. 7, 1571, a fleet of galleys—the sort of oared ships we saw in Ben-Hur—from Spain, Venice, Genoa, and the Papal States won a stunning victory over a Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Patras, off Lepanto in western Greece.  They crushed a force poised to invade Italy, where the Christian faithful—insofar as they were aware of international affairs—feared they’d perish.  Lepanto was the last sea battle involving galleys, involving hundreds of vessels on each side.  Heavily gunned sailing vessels were the future of naval warfare.

That’s a matter of history, as is the fact that Catholic Europe had been praying desperately for the expected Turkish assault to be stopped.  In particular, Pope St. Pius V urged the praying of the Rosary, and aboard the Christian galleys, so did the commander, Don Juan of Austria, half-brother of Philip II of Spain.

It’s reported that in Rome at the moment of victory, Pius V had a vision that the battle had been won.  Gratefully, he added the invocation “Help of Christians” to the Litany of Loreto and instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory, soon changed to Our Lady of the Rosary.

Faith interprets the historical facts to agree with the Pope’s vision.  Victory is attributed to the Mother of God for inspiring the Christian battle tactics, guiding the seamanship of the commanders, causing a beneficial shift in the wind, even choosing the narrow confines of the Gulf of Patras as the place where the 2 fleets met.

As Catholic believers, we may interpret the facts of battle to say that God intervened, “withholding his blazing wrath” so that Christian Italy should not perish, as for example much of the Christian Balkans did.

The collect today, so familiar to us from the Angelus, speaks of the Incarnation of Christ, which is a faith statement—that the Son of God intervened by taking our human flesh so that humanity should not perish.  The collect speaks of Christ’s passion and cross.  His birth, suffering, and death are historical facts, like Lepanto.  Faith tells us those facts are prelude to resurrection and eternal life for all who believe in the power of his cross and cry to him from the depths of their struggles with the Devil (cf. Ps 130:1).

Mary of Bethany chose the better part by sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to him (Luke 10:30,42).  The Virgin Mary chose the better part when she assented to Gabriel’s message (collect), prodded him to act at Cana, stood under the cross, and joined the 120 faithful disciples in the Cenacle.

When we look at our own lives, we may see how God’s grace intervened so that we might turn from, or avoid altogether, the invasion of sin and attain victory.