Today is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Why is celebrated today, October 7? It was on this day, in 1571, that a battle was fought that changed the very course of history. Christianity was saved from certain destruction in the West.
Christopher Check, writing for Catholic Answers Magazine:
1571, the year of the battle of Lepanto, the most important naval contest in human history, is not well known to Americans. October 7, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrates the victory at Lepanto, the battle that saved the Christian West from defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
Providentially, God had raised up exactly the right Pope to lead the Church at this critical moment in her history:
Then God intervened and sent one of history’s greatest popes, St. Pius V, who declared, “I am taking up arms against the Turks, but the only thing that can help me is the prayers of priests of pure life.” Michael Ghislieri, an aged Dominican priest when he ascended the Chair of Peter, faced two foes: Protestantism and Islam. He was up to the task. He had served as Grand Inquisitor, and the austerity of his private mortifications was a contrast to the lifestyles of his Renaissance predecessors. During his six-year reign, he promulgated the Council of Trent, published the works of Thomas Aquinas, issued the Roman Catechism and a new missal and breviary, created twenty-one cardinals, excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, and, aided by St. Charles Borromeo, led the reform of a soft and degenerate clergy and episcopacy.
Check vividly describes the events leading up to the incredible battle at sea, which puts old Errol Flynn flicks like The Sea Hawk or Captain Blood to shame! Read it, and say a rosary in thanksgiving for Our Lady’s powerful intercession.