First Sunday of October Feast of the Most Holt Rosary

It is oustomary with men of the world to balanoe their accounts at the end of the year, and asoertain their profits. The Church is now preparing to do the same. We shall soon see her solemnly numbering her elect, taking an inventory of her holy relics, visiting the tombs of those who sleep in the Lord, and oounting the sanctuaries, both new and old, that have been oonseorated to her divine Spouse. But to-day's reckoning is a more solemn one, the profits more considerable: she opens her balance-sheet with the gain accruing to our Lady from the mysteries which compose the cycle. Christmas, the cross, the triumph of Jesus, these produce the holiness of us all ; but before and above all, the holiness of Mary. The diadem which the Church thus offers first to the august Sovereign of the world, is rightly composed of the triple crown of these sanctifying mysteries, the causes of her joy, of her sorrow, and of her glory. The joyful mysteries recall the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Jesus, Mary's Purification, and the Finding of our Lord in the temple. The sorrowful mysteries bring before us the Agony of our blessed Lord, His being scourged, and crowned with thorns, the carrying of the oross, and the Crucifixion. While, in the glorious mysteries, we contemplate the Resurrection and Asoension of our Saviour, Pentecost, and the Assumption and Coronation of the Mother of God. Suoh is Mary's rosary ;

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TlllE AtfTEB PBNtEOOSt a new and fruitful vine, which began to blossom at Gabriel's salutation, and whose fragrant garlands form a link between earth and heaven.

In its present form, the rosary was made known to the world by St. Dominio at the time of the struggles with the Albigensians, that social war of such ill-omen for the Church. The rosary was then of more avail than armed foroes against the power of satan ; it is now the Churoh's last resource. It would seem that, the ancient forms of social prayer being no longer relished by the people, the holy Spirit has willed by this easy and ready summary of the liturgy to maintain, in the isolated devotion of these unhappy times, the essential of that life of prayer, faith, and Christian virtue, which the public celebration of the Divine Office formerly kept up among the nations. Before the thirteenth century, popular piety was already familiar with what was called the psalter of the laity, that is, the angelical salutation repeated one hundred and fifty times ; it was the distribution of these Hail Marys into decades, each devoted to the consideration of a particular mystery, that constituted the rosary. Such was the divine expedient, simple as the eternal Wisdom that oonceived it, and fax-reaching in its effects ; for while it led wandering man to the Queen of Mercy, it obviated ignorance which is the food of heresy, and taught him to find once more * the paths oonsecrated by the Blood of the Man-God, and by the tears of His Mother.' 1

Thus speaks the great Pontiff who, in the universal sorrow of these days, has again pointed out the means of salvation more than once experienced by our fathers. Leo XIII, in his enoyclioals, has oonfieorated the present month to this devotion so dear to

1 Lbott. xiii, Epist encycl. Magna Dei Matris, de Rosario Mariali. Sept. S, 1892. heaven ; he has honoured our Lady in her litanies with a new title, Queen of the most holy rosary \ l and he has given the final development to the solemnity of this day, hy raising it to the rank of a seoond class feast, and by enriohing it with a proper Offioe explaining its permanent objeot. 3 Besides all this, the feast is a memorial of glorious victories, whioh do honour to the Christian name.

Soliman II, the greatest of the Sultans, taking advantage of the confusion caused in the west by Luther, had filled the sixteenth century with terror by his exploits. He left to his son, oelim II, the prospect of being able at length to carry out the ambition of his race: to subjugate Borne and Vienna, the Pope and the emperor, to the power of the crescent. The Turkish fleet had already mastered the greater part of the Mediterranean, and was threatening Italy, when, on October 7, 1571, it came into action, in the Gulf of Lepanto, with the pontifical galleys supported by the fleets of Spain and Venioe. It was Sunday ; throughout the world the oonfrater- interoession. Supernaturally enlightened, St. Pius Y watched from the Vatican the battle undertaken by the leader he had chosen, Don John of Austria, against the three hundred vessels of Islam. The illustrious Pontiff, whose life's work was now completed, did not survive to celebrate the anniversary of the triumph ; but he perpetuated the memory of it by an annual commemoration of our Lady of Victory. His successor, Gregory XIII, altered thi§ title to our Lady of the rosary, and appointed the first Sunday of October for the new feast, authorizing its oelebration in those churches whioh possessed an altar under that invocation.

1 Litter® Salutaris Dec. 24, 1883.

• Decret, Sept. 11, 1887, Aug. 5, 18S8. nities of the rosary were red in their work of

TIME AFTER PEftTECOST

A century and a half later, this limited eonoession was made general. As Innocent XI, in memory of the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski, had extended the feast of the most holy name of Mary to the whole Church; so, in 1716, Clement XI insoribed the feast of the rosary on the universal oalendar, in gratitude for the victory gained by Prinoe Eugene at Peterwardein, on August 5, under the auspices of our Lady of the snow. This victory was followed by the raising of the siege of Corfu, and oompleted a year later by the taking of Belgrade.

MASS

The joys experienced on the other feasts of the Mother of God, are all gathered up and resumed in this one, for us, for the angels, and for our Lady herself. Like the angels, then, let us offer, together with Mary, the homage of our just delight to the Son of God, her Son, her King and ours.

INTROIT

Gaudeamus omnes in Do- Let us all rejoice in the mino, diem f estum celebran- Lord, celebrating a festival tes sub honore beatae Marias day in honour of the blessed

Virginis: de cujus solemni- Virgin Mary, on whose solem- tate gaudent angeli, et col- nity the angels rejoice, and laudant Filium Dei. give praise to the Son of God.

Ps. Eructavit cor meum Ps. My heart hath uttered verbum bonum : dico ego a good word : I speak my opera mea Kegi. Gloria works to the King. J Glory,

Patri. Gaudeamus. &c. Let us all.

The mysteries of the Son and of the Mother are our instruction and our hope. The Church prays in the Collect that they may also be our rule of life and our pledge of eternal happiness.

COLLECT

Deus, cujus Unigenitus per vitam, mortem, et resurrectionem suam nobis salutis aeternaa praemia comparavit : concede qusesumus ; ut haec mysteria sanctissimo beatae Marias Virginia rosario recolentes, et imitemur quod continent, et quod promittunt assequamur. Per eundem Dominum.

O God, whose only-begotten Son, by his life, death, and resurrection, procured for us the rewards of eternal salvation; grant, we beseech thee, that commemorating these mysteries in the most holy rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain, and possess what they promise. Through the same Lord &c.

Then is made a commemoration of the occurring Sunday.

EPISTLE

Lectio libri Sapientiae.

Prov. cap. viii. Dominus possedit me in initio viarum suarum antequam quidquam faceret a principio. Ab aeterno ordinata sum, et ex antiquis, antequam terra fieret. Nondum erant abyssi, et ego jam concepta eram. Nunc ergo, filii, audite me: Beati qui cnstodiunt vias meas. Audite disciplinam, et estote sapientes, et nolite abjicere earn. Beatus homo qui audit me, et qui vigilat ad fores meas quotidie, et observat ad postes ostii mei. Qui me invenerit, inveniet vitam, et hauriet salutem a Domino.

Lesson from the Book of Wisdom. Prov. ch. viii. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived. Now therefore, ye children, hear me : Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord.

Our Lady's mysteries are before all time in Qod'a sight, like those of her divine Son; like these they will endure for all eternity; like them they rule the ages, which oirole round the Word and Mary, preparing for both in the days of figurep, perpetuating their presenoe by the incessant glorification of the jnost holy Trinity, in whose name all Christians are baptized. Now the rosary honours all this series of mysteries; to-day's feast is a glanoe back upon the oyole as it draws to its close. From these mysteries, from this view of them, we must draw the conclusion formulated by pur Lady herself in this passage from Proverbs, whioh the Ohuroh applies to her: 'Now therefore, my children, oonsider my ways; imitate me, that you may find happiness.' Blessed is he that watcheth at her gate! Let us pray to her, rosary in hand, considering her at the same time, meditating on her life and her greatness, and watohing, were it but for a quarter of an hour, at the entrance to the palace of this incomparable Queen. The more faithful we are, the more assured will be our salvation and our progress in true life.

In the Gradual, let us congratulate the Queen of the holy rosary on her perfect life, all truth, and justioe, and meekness, whioh won her the love of the supreme King. In the Alleluia verse, let us proclaim the nobility of her raoe, unequalled in the whole world.

GRADUAL

Propter veritatem et suetudinem, et justitiam, et ness deducet te mirabiliter dextera tua. man- Because of truth and meekand justice: and thy right hand shall lead thee marvellously. f. Audi fUia, et vide, et f. inclina aurem tuam: quia concupivit Bex speciem detuam. sired

Hearken, 0 daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, for the king hath greatly thy beauty.

Alleluia, alleluia. Alleluia, alleluia.