By Michael Ogunu
In her final apparition in Fatima, Portugal on October 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary declared thus:
I am the Lady of the Rosary. I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and to ask pardon of their sins; they must not offend Our Lord anymore, for He is already too grievously offended by the sins of men. People must say the Rosary. Let them continue saying it everyday.
According to Sr. Lucia, one of the three shepherd children to whom Our Lady appeared at Fatima in 1917, “The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families … that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary”.
Blessed Alan says that he has seen several people delivered from Satan’s bondage after taking up the holy rosary, even though they had previously sold themselves to him in body and soul by renouncing their baptismal vows and their allegiance to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Let all men, the learned and the ignorant, the just and the sinners, the great and the small praise and honour Jesus and Mary, night and day, by saying the most holy rosary” says St. Louis de Montfort.
“The immense good that this noble devotion [the rosary] has done to the world is well known”, says St. Alphonsus Liguori … “How many, by its means, have been delivered from sin! How many led to a holy life! How many to a good death, and are now saved!”. “If we want to help the souls in purgatory”, says the saint, “then we should say the rosary for them because the rosary gives them great relief”.
“The rosary is a weapon in our hands with which we can overcome the devil’s attacks” (St. Pio of Pietrelcina). “Our Lady has never refused me a grace through the recitation of the rosary” continued St. Pio of Pietrelcina, the famous Padre Pio. In his words, “The rosary is the weapon that wins all battles”.
The Servant of God Patrick Peyton says that “The rosary can bring families through all dangers and evils”.
What have the Popes said about the power of the Rosary?
The Roman Pontiffs have continuously and consistently stressed the importance of reciting the Rosary every day.
Pope St. Pius V, one of the greatest Popes who ever ruled the Church, said the rosary every day.
“Among all the devotions approved by the Church, none has been favoured by so many miracles as the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary” (Pope Pius IX). The Pope says that: “If you desire peace to reign in your hearts and families, gather together each evening to recite the rosary”.
Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical “On Devotion of the Rosary” issued September 1, 1883 “earnestly, exhort all Christians to give themselves to the recital of the pious devotion of the Rosary publicly or privately in their own house, and family, and that unceasingly”. According to him, “The rosary is the most excellent form of prayer and the most efficacious means of attaining eternal life.
It is the remedy for all our evils, the root of all our blessings. There is no more excellent way of praying”. “We strongly urge all the faithful, whether it be publicly in the Churches or in private homes and within the family, to pray the Rosary and, as far as possible, not to relent in this holy exercise”.
Michael Ogunu is the International President of the World Apostolate of Fatima
(To be continued)
