The Rosary, A Weapon To Save Us From Destruction
By Bishop Robert McKenna, O.P.

If my people who are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land. (Paraliponomen II)
 

		The Rosary is not merely a devotion. It is a weapon. It’s author, in the form that we know the Rosary, and we have on the authority of no less than 13 Popes, is the Blessed Virgin herself. She is hailed by the Church as the destroyer of all heresies. The Blessed Mother of God gave the Rosary to St. Dominic in the 13th century, as a means of uprooting, or destroying , the Albigensian heresy, which, at the time was decimating the Catholic faith in Southern Europe. The Albigenses taught that anything material is evil, and is a creation of the devil. They taught that marriage was evil. We know that marriage is a Sacrament. They also taught that the body was evil. Hence, people were taking their own lives. The Dominican Order has, ever since, had the Rosary for its primary preaching. Given as a weapon, the Rosary has proved itself a weapon. In the course of history, there are five battles won by outnumbered Catholic forces. Each victory was attributed to the Rosary which backed up those forces: the battle of Muret against those same Albigensieans at 1213; the naval battle of Lepanto in the Adriatic sea, in 1572. It is that victory which the church commemorates today with the feast of the Most Holy Rosary: the battle of La Rochelle, in 1628, against the Protestant/French Huguenots; the battle of Vienna, in 1683, commemorated by the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, and the battle of Belgrade in 1716. Three of these battles, Lepanto, Vienna and Belgrade were fought against the forces of Mohammed, which tried time and again to overrun
Christian Europe. These battles were won against all odds, we say, by the power of the Rosary, prayed at those times, by the faithful, for that purpose. In the battle of Lepanto, the troops of the Christian fleet of Don John of Austria, themselves, prayed the Rosary, before they joined battle with the Turks, or Saracens, as the Mohammedans were also named. Pope St. Pius V informed his cardinals, at the time of the victory, on the day itself, before messengers brought the news to Rome.

In our own day, two notable unbloody victories were won by the Rosary, over Communism. Both Austria and Brazil were saved from communist domination., by the Rosary. 

Thus I say, the Rosary is not primarily a devotion, but a weapon. It was foreshadowed by David’s sling, in the Old testament. With one stone cast from that sling, he felled Goliath, the giant Phillistine. He took the giant’s sword, and cut off his head.

If you hold in one hand, outstretched, the crucifix on your Rosary, as you would the cross of a slingshot, and with the other hand outstretched, held the beads against your chest, and you see the resemblance of the Rosary to the slingshot. The five smooth stones of young David took for his sling from the running brook….what are those, but the five mysteries of the Rosary in each of its three parts? Again, the Rosary is that ‘ sword of the spirit’ which St. Paul tells us to take for ourselves, along with the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation.

In its 15 mysteries, the Rosary contains the whole word of God…all the truths of our Faith. We Dominicans have a 15 decade Rosary hanging from our belts, as we would a sword. I tell you, brethren, that never was this weapon more necessary than it is today.

May I tell you without fear of error, that it is our only hope …our last hope. Without it, all the conventional weapons of war, even the most sophisticated, will be of no avail in the new war in which we are engaged.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is our last refuge, and devotion to her Immaculate Heart means the Rosary.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary means Our Lady of Fatima, and Our Lady of Fatima is Our Lady of the Rosary. By this title, she identified herself to the three children of Fatima.

The sophisticated scoff at the Rosary. For them it is but a devotion, and one more suitable for women and children, than it is for men. Well so did Goliath mock David, who dared confront him without any armour, and armed only with a sling. So does the Apostle tell us, "The foolish things of this world has God chosen to confound the wise".

Indeed, the Rosary has gone the way of the Immemorial Latin Mass, and other traditions of the church after the Second Vatican Council. The average Catholic in the Novus Ordo parishes has either forgotten, or has never learned how to say the Rosary. These Catholics are virtually defenseless in the war our country is forced to undertake against the terrorists. These terrorists, as we have said, are professed Moslems, disciples of Mohammed…all the more reason for raising, once again, the weaponry of the Rosary against them. It has saved us from them, in the past. To look for some new or better weapon against them is to tempt God. There is no better weapon God could give us.

But you must not content yourselves with simply saying the Rosary yourself. You must become Apostles of the Rosary arming as many others with it, as you can. Wars are won by armies, not individuals. To win the mercy of God on our country, remember we are being punished for our sins….and war, humanly speaking, that looks like it can’t be won…we must get as many as is possible, on their knees praying the Rosary.

We are faced, not only with possibility of more terrorist attacks, but of chemical and germ warfare which can wipe out millions. Had enough Catholics heeded the request of Our Lady of Fatima, to say the Rosary daily, we would not be in this war. There would have been no attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, if people had listened to Our Lady of Fatima. Indeed Communism would not have spread its errors around the world; nor would there have been the second world war. Our Lady said, "there will come a second more terrible war, if people do not amend their lives, and say the Rosary.

If nothing else, start a neighborhood Rosary as soon as possible…a Block Rosary, as it used to be called, in World War II days. Get your Catholic neighbors to say the Rosary with you once a week…on the same day each week, and at the same time in the evening, and taking turns, in each other’s homes. No refreshments or socializing are permitted…this in a spirit of penance and mortification….but simply a gathering to say the Rosary. Then be on your way home. Make this known, when you organize the Block Rosary, the neighborhood Rosary…that this will be the way it works. It will make it easier for people to take part in it. The Rosary, once a week, with your neighbors, taking turns in each others homes on the same day, the same time of evening each week….and just for the Rosary.

To arms! The Rosary in the hands of even your Protestant neighbors of good will! Invite them too, and give them hope of God’s mercy and protection.

God willing, let us spread the Rosary, like a wild fire, to consume our enemies. Without it, I tell you, we are lost.

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