St Dominic and the Rosary

It was in 1208, while St. Dominic knelt in the little chapel of Notre Dame de la Prouille, and implored the great Mother of God to save the Church, beset by the Albigensian heresy, that Our Lady appeared to him, taught him the Rosary, and bade him to go forth and preach.

Dominic had spent a long time in arguments with those involved in the heresy, and had made no converts, despite his brilliant argument. He was discovering that reason, unaided by grace, is not able to grasp the great religious truths contained in the Catholic Church.

When a nation, or an individual, loses the Faith, it is never for intellectual reasons but through the loss of grace owing to absence of prayer and through the commission of sin. The Faith in a country is preserved by the teaching of Christian doctrine and by the self-sacrificing lives of the faithful.

When St. Dominic found that his arguments were of no value, he had recourse to the Mother of God, who told the saint to lay aside the arguments and begin the teaching of the simple Christian doctrine. The Rosary prayers contained the message of the angel to Mary, the beginning of the work of Redemption, and St. Dominic taught the people to repeat this Angelic Salutation, which at once reminded them of the great mystery of the Incarnation. St. Dominic began to teach the people to pray to Mary by repeating the Hail Mary. In between the Our Fathers and the Hail Marys, he taught the people in simple language, one by one, the mysteries of Jesus' life. In a short time the people gave up the heresy and returned once more to the practice of their religion.

Through Dominic, the Church was being shown again the importance of prayer in the work of salvation. Prayer removes the obstacles to the reception of grace, and simple instruction will do the rest. Prayer obtains everything from God, simply because the one who prays prepares his soul for the seeds of grace and sanctification. The absence of prayer means the absence of grace, and so the evils of sin and heresy flourish due to the lack of prayer.

Another factor in the destruction of the Albigensian heresy was the power of the intercession of Mary.
St. Dominic prayed to Our Lady, and he taught the people to do so. Mary is the link that binds the soul to Jesus. Those who invoke the aid of our Holy Mother are assured of success because her prayers are so powerful. The Feast of the Holy Rosary (see article below) is celebrated on October 7th.

Feast of the Holy Rosary

The Fifteen Promises

The Rosary