Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. October, 7th, 2018

If today, October 7th, hadn’t fallen on a Sunday we would be celebrating the Solemnity of “Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary." Considering the focus of the Gospel today is Marriage, and so also the family and life, I think it would be good to speak about the Holy Rosary, for the Holy Rosary is truly The Marriage and Family Prayer. The original title of this feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary was actually, “Our Lady of Victory;” the title was changed after Vatican II.

The feast of Our Lady of Victory was inaugurated to commemorate the miraculous naval victory of the fleet of the Holy Roman Empire’s, led by Don Juan, over the vastly superior fleet of the Ottoman Empire. It is a critically important historical event, one that we need to be aware of, particularly in light of current events. For if the battle of Lepanto had been lost, your life and mine, and our society, our country, would be very different today.

The battle of Lepanto took place on October 7th, 1571, and involved over 400 ships the largest in history till that time. The Christian fleet was outnumbered three to one, and any chance of victory was impossible by mere human strategic maneuvers. The stakes couldn’t have been higher as one of the Turkish leaders boasted that after the conquest, the first thing he would do would be to turn St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome into a mosque. And it wasn’t an empty boast, for his forebears had done this exact thing with the “St. Peter’s” of the Eastern Church—the Great Hagia Sophia. Hagia Sophia was located in what was the “Rome” of the Eastern Church, the great Christian City of Constantinople. Christian Constantinople is now present-day Islamic Istanbul, and Hagia Sophia is indeed a Mosque and all Christian symbols have been removed and defaced (remind them of this Church that they have all seen in movies etc).

So clearly, if the Battle of Lepanto had been lost, not only would this boast have most certainly become a reality—St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome being turned into a mosque, but all of Europe, then and even to the present day, including all of us in America, would be speaking Aramaic; in fact, American would not exist. Western Civilization would most likely have been wiped out, along with all its positive achievements, for which so many fail to give it credit and take for granted; for example, the founding of hospitals and the great advancements in healthcare; the creation of the university system; orphanages; the equality of women through the Indissolvability of Marriage, woman who before were treated worse than the household slave; the understanding of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life, made in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Christ; the notion of a justice system that sees every person innocent until proven guilty (not guilty until they prove themselves innocent), along with justice tempered with mercy and love even toward our enemies, all of this would have been gone, along with all the intellectual achievements of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.

Thank God, that at the time of the Battle of Lepanto, a great Dominican Pope, Pope Pius V, saw the seriousness of the situation clearly and so instructed all the Churches of Italy to pray the rosary as the battle began. The people responded. And through the faithfulness of so many Christians praying, from their heart and on their knees, the most powerful of all weapons—the weapon of the Rosary, a true miracle occurred, one which allowed the Christian fleet to win a miraculous battle against an almost invincible army, which was on the verge of subduing and oppressing all of Europe.

I think it is easy for us moderns to underestimate the power of the Rosary. Surely none of us here, but many other Catholics dismiss the Rosary as some outdated pious devotion which was done away with by Vatican II—thank God!” They say-we’re beyond that sort of thing. Those with this erroneous idea have never read the documents of Vatican II; and even more so, they have no faith.

Some other non-Catholic Christians can see the rosary as not scriptural but as an idolatrous addition to the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. Actually, however, as you know, the Rosary is entirely Scriptural; it consists of the Salutation of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin of Nazareth, whom the Angel address not as Mary, but by the title, “Full of Grace;” and as well, of the greeting of Elizabeth, “Blessed is the fruit of thy Womb!” In the prayer of the Holy Rosary, let us not forget with whom we are dealing; we are dealing with the Great Mother of God, Mary most holy, whom we address directly as, “Holy Mary, Mother of God.

In the “Song of Song,” in the Old Testament, the question is asked, “Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” Who is she?

She is the Woman that is mentioned in the Proto-Evangelium—the Pre-Gospel found in Genesis 3:15. Here, after Adam and Eve fell and were both expelled from Paradise, their relationship between God and each other having been severely ruptured, God gives satan his punishment, “I will put enmity between you and the Woman, between her seed and yours; you will lie in wait for her heal, and she will crush your head.” The only way there could be enmity between this Woman and satan is for the Woman to be “Immaculate, that is without sin from the first moment of her conception, never under satan’s power; another way to say this is, “Full of Grace.”

It is the Virgin Mary who will crush satan’s head; her humility will overcome his pride and his power over the earth and its inhabitants. This is why so many Statues of the Virgin depict her foot on the serpent’s head. This is not just pious imagery but soon to be historical fact. Jesus has defeated Satan, the death sentence has been pronounced, but not yet carried out; it will be carried out by Jesus own mother.

How much we need the Rosary in the great struggle that we are facing in our world today. The battle we are facing in our times is many many times greater and more important than the People of God and the world faced during the Battle of Lepanto-it is a battle for eternal life.

St. John Paul II, while he was still a cardinal, Karol Wojtyla, visited the United States back in 1976, in Philadelphia on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of independence. At that moment, the future pope and saint prophetically said,

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine Providence; it is trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church, in particular, must take up. It is a trial of not only our nation and the Church, but, in a sense, a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all of its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.”

We see this battle even within the Church. We see it not only in the crimes of the predator homosexual priests but in those bishops who not only covered up their crimes but in those who are homosexual predators themselves, and then as foxes in the hen house, deflect the attention from their own crimes by removing good innocent priests. And doing so without due process, destroying the priest's reputations and even their lives. At least supreme justice, Kavanagh, who too was judged guilty without due process, got to defend himself publically, these priests are denied that human right. We see it as well in the prelates around the world who are trying to change the Church’s teachings on Marriage and the family; for instance, calling for those who are living in adulterous unions to be allowed to receive our Blessed Lord through Holy Communion, the very Lord who in today’s Gospels called their unions, “Adulterous.” We see it in the leaders of the Church who emphasize the protection of the environment more than the salvation of souls.

We, our families, and our world, need the Rosary now more than ever. This is why Our Lady came to Fatima; she came to give us the secret to winning the battle of all battles that is raging right now in our country, in our world and our Church and family. Our Lady of Fatima asked us to pray the Rosary daily-she said it had the power to end wars. At Fatima, along with the
Rosary, she also offered us the Brown Scapular, worn as a sign of our total Consecration to her. These two indispensable spiritual weapons are actually the most powerful weapons in the world, they are means to an end, and that end is full, actual, conscious, and fruitful participation in the Holy Mass.

The Scapular worn with faith is a symbol of our consecration to Jesus through Mary. By wearing it, we ask the Blessed Mother to help us give our hearts totally to Jesus. We can do this anytime spiritually, but it is at the Holy Mass that we are called to do it definitively, by placing it, offering it, on the altar through the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with St. Joseph. And by the prayers of the Holy Rosary, we ask Mary to help us and obtain for the grace we need to live out this self-offering in all the many aspects of our daily life, in everything we think, say or do. Then, all that we do will be done with Jesus, in Jesus and for love of Jesus, and for the love and salvation of our neighbor. This is to be the fruit of our Holy Communion, becoming one with Jesus, one with God and one with one another in God. This, and not politics or other human endeavors or weapons is how the world will be renewed, division ended, relationships mended, peace restored in our hearts, in our families, parishes, in our nation, and among nations, and most importantly, this is how souls will be saved and reunited with God forever and ever.

If we are not doing so already, let us commit today, October 7th, 2018, the Anniversary of the Victory of the Christian Fleet at Lepanto and the feast of Our Lady of Victory, to pray the rosary daily, as individuals, and also as families--"for the family that prays the rosary together stays together." Let us as well return to wearing the Brown Scapular as a sign of our consecration to Jesus through Mary.

I want to share with you quickly, something that I mentioned to many of the patient and families I serve in the Hospital. I ask, “Where is the Rosary explicitly mentioned in the Bible?” I then give them my theory, which by the way, if it is right, it has been mentioned before, but if it is wrong, then I am wrong…but I don’t think I am wrong. I say, the Rosary is mentioned in the last book of the bible which tells us that in the end Satan will be chained in hell. Satan is an angel, fallen, but still an angel. Angels are pure spirits, so that means they have no physicality, that is no body. So, if Satan has no body, what kind of chain are they going to use?

I say it is the Chain of the Holy Rosary. In other words, it will be the prayers of those little ones who accept the Kingdom of God as a child and who don’t “poo-poo” such things as the Holy Rosary. But instead, pray the Rosary daily while meditating on its mysteries, the mysteries of the life of Christ, so as to imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise—Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, and the Son of God, truly Present on earth in the Holy Eucharist, and eternally possessing Him forever. It will be these little ones, who also wear the scapular as a sign of giving their heart totally and with complete trust, to Jesus through Mary. It is these true children of Mary, that she will use as her cohort, her army, to chain satan up in their families, in the Church, and in the world, bringing an end to satan and all the evil spirits prowling about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

In this great battle being waged in our midst against souls, it is only our faithfulness and steadfastness to the Lord that will decide the outcome. I don't mean will decide the outcome of this battle, for eventually, Mary’s Immaculate Heart will triumph as she promised, but our faithfulness will decide the outcome of our own eternal salvation, as well as the eternal salvation of millions of other souls. The stakes could not be higher, but we have hope for we have the secret to Victory-the Secret of the Most Holy Rosary and the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel.

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, Our Lady of Victory, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Cause of our Joy, Gate of heaven, Hope for the hopeless, pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee. Totus Tuus! Amen.