Mary’s gift of the Rosary to the Church through St. Dominic cannot be doubted

There are those who claim that Mary giving the Rosary to St. Dominic is a pious legend without historical basis.

But, theologians say, this “legend” is so well supported in Catholic Church history, and the tradition documented by at least a dozen popes, that its authenticity as a gift from Our Lady to the Church, through the hands of St. Dominic, cannot be reasonably doubted.

One papal encyclical says: “Our merciful God, as you know, raised up against these most direful enemies a most holy man, the illustrious parent and founder of the Dominican Order.

“Great in the integrity of his doctrine, in his example of virtue, and by his apostolic labors, he proceeded undauntedly to attack the enemies of the Catholic Church, not by force of arms; but trusting wholly to that devotion which he was the first to institute under the name of the Holy Rosary, which was disseminated through the length and breadth of the earth by him and his pupils.

“Guided, in fact, by divine inspiration and grace, he foresaw that this devotion, like a most powerful warlike weapon, would be the means of putting the enemy to flight, and of confounding their audacity and mad impiety. Such was indeed its result.

“Thanks to this new method of prayer – when adopted and properly carried out as instituted by the Holy Father St. Dominic – piety, faith, and union began to return, and the projects and devices of the heretics to fall to pieces.

“Many wanderers also returned to the way of salvation, and the wrath of the impious was restrained by the arms of those Catholics who had determined to repel their violence.”

(Supremi Apostolatus Officio, Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Devotion of (sic) the Rosary).

The Dominicans, the Church’s first religious order devoted to itinerant preaching, were given the special task by Our Lady to preach her Holy Rosary across Europe, and the order in which the universal Church prays the rosary today is taken from the original Dominican form.

Honor Blanco Cabie, September 23, 2023

www.manilastandard.net