At the coming of the month of October, dedicated and consecrated as it is to the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, we urge all the faithful to redouble their piety towards the most holy Mother of God, the mighty helper of Christians, and to pray to her throughout the month, invoking her by the most holy Rosary. We ask this out of love for the Church, whose sufferings, far from mitigating, increase daily in number and in gravity. Universal and well-known are the evils with which we contend: attacks upon the sacred dogmas which the Church holds and transmits; derision cast upon the integrity of the Christian morality which she teaches; even enmity declared against the very person of Jesus Christ.
No new events are these in the life of the Church. Jesus foretold them to His disciples. That the Church may teach men and women the truth and may guide them to eternal salvation, she must enter upon a daily combat; and throughout the course of ages the Church has fought, even to martyrdom, rejoicing and glorying in nothing more than in signing her cause with her Founder’s blood, the sure and certain pledge of the victory whereof she holds the promise.
Nevertheless we must not conceal our profound sadness that so many should be deterred and led astray by error and enmity to God; that so many should be indifferent to all forms of religion, and should finally become estranged from the Faith; that so many Catholics should be such in name only, and should pay to God no honor or worship.
Thus it is absolutely necessary that the Catholic voice should call to God with unwearied instance, “without ceasing;” that the Faithful should pray not only in their own homes, but in public, gathered together under the sacred roof; that they should beseech urgently the all-foreseeing God to deliver the Church from evil and to bring back those who have gone astray to good sense and reason, by the light and love of Christ.
We may well believe that the Queen of Heaven herself has granted a special efficacy to the Holy Rosary, for it was by her command and counsel that this devotion was begun and spread abroad by the holy Patriarch, St. Dominic, as a most potent weapon against the enemies of the faith at an epoch not, indeed, unlike our own, of great danger to our holy religion…
There seemed to be no human hope when timely help came from on high through the instrument of Mary’s Rosary. Thus under the favor of the powerful Virgin, the glorious vanquisher of all heresies, the forces of the wicked were destroyed and dispersed, and faith issued forth unharmed and more shining than before…
Especially during this month, let the faithful assemble around the solemn altars of our eminent Queen and most benign Mother, and weave and offer to her, like devoted children, the mystic garland so pleasing to her of the Rosary. Let us all unite our praises and prayers with one voice and heart at every moment of the day, saluting Mary, invoking Mary, hoping everything through Mary…
OCTOBRI MENSE
Pope Leo XIII
22 Sept 1891