The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary. According to an account by fifteenth-century Dominican, Alan de la Roch, Mary appeared to St. Dominic in 1206 after he had been praying and doing severe penances because of his lack of success in combating the Albigensian heresy. Mary praised him for his valiant fight against the heretics and then gave him the Rosary as a mighty weapon, explained its uses and efficacy, and told him to preach it to others.

The Rosary and the Liturgical Year

The Rosary had its origins in the Middle Ages and was called “Mary’s Psalter.”  At a time when the common folk were, for the most part, illiterate, the rosary and its 150 “Aves” took the place of the 150 psalms of the breviary. 

The Rosary is a meditation on the life of Christ – his advent, mission, passion, death, resurrection and ascension.  The Rosary also contemplates the life of Mary whose life is so intricately intertwined with that of Christ.  Because it covers all the mysteries of their two lives, it is also a summary of the liturgical year. 

Many of the saints have urged the faithful to pray the Rosary.  It was a particularly favorite form of prayer for St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales, St. Louis de Montfort, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. John Bosco, St. Bernadette and many others.

Until the 16^th century, the mysteries of the rosary were many and varied.  The joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries were an attempt to standardize the practice of praying the rosary in public.  Pope St. John Paul II added the luminous mysteries to the original fifteen.  As of now, the mysteries are:

THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES

The Annunciation
The Visitation
The Nativity
The Presentation of the Child Jesus
The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple

THE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES

The Agony in the Garden
The Scourging at the Pillar
Jesus is crowned with thorns.
Jesus carries his cross.
The crucifixion.

THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES

The Resurrection
The Ascension
The Descent of the Holy Spirit
The Assumption of the Blessed Mother into Heaven
Mary is crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth.

THE LUMINOUS MYSTERIES

The Baptism in the Jordan
The Wedding at Cana
The Proclamation of the Kingdom
The Transfiguration
The Institution of the Eucharist

We pray that by the virtue of baptism, the laity, especially women, may participate more in areas of responsibility in the Church.

The eighth month of the old Roman year.  By the Slavs this is called “Yellow month” from the fading of the leaf; to the Anglo-Saxons, it was known as Winter Fylleth, because at this moon (fylleth) winter was supposed to begin.

October 18: St. Luke
October 28: St. Simon and St. Jude

Mottos:

By the 1st of March the crows begin to search,
By the 1st of April they are sitting still,
By the 1st of May they are flown away,
Creeping greedy back again
With October wind and rain.

A good October and a good blast,
To blow the hog, acorn and mast.

In October dung your field
And your land its wealth shall yield.