This Memorial commemorates the battle of Lepanto (7th October 1571), when a Christian fleet defeated the Turks. The victory was attributed by Pope St Pius V to the recitation of the Holy Rosary. This great Marian prayer is sometimes traced back to St Dominic and his confrères, preaching against the Albigensian heresy in the thirteenth century.
In a deserted chapel, dedicated to San Damiano, St Francis knelt before the icon of Jesus on the Cross. Here, he heard a voice telling him to repair God’s house. First, he thought that he was to restore the chapel, which was crumbling down. Then he realised that the entire Church community was crumbling down, and that preaching the faith was of the utmost importance. This discovery changed his life completely.
Is the rosary anti-Biblical? In the Gospel, Jesus tells us not to use “vain repetition”, often used as an argument against praying the rosary. In this blog, Catholic Answers apologist Tim Staples explains why Catholics don't consider the rosary to be anti-Biblical.
The Rosary is known as a Marian prayer, but at its heart it is a meditation on the Incarnation and the work of Our Lord. In the Rosary, we contemplate Christ's life, death and Resurrection so completely that Pope Paul VI described it as a "compendium of the entire Gospel". Discover how the Rosary can lead us closer to Jesus in this blog.
When Thérèse was finally accepted in the Carmelite convent, she discovered that it was far from the romantic life she had expected. While she realised that she was imperfect herself, she also had to suffer a lot from jealousy and pettiness of her sisters in the convent. What made her a saint is the way in which she dealt with this.