Our Lady of the Rosary and the Victory of Christianity Over Islam

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, commemorating a great victory of a united European Christian force against the Muslim Turks, through the intercession of Jesus’s Mother Mary.

The Christians who fought at Lepanto all carried a Rosary and fought explicitly for Jesus and Mary. Lepanto was a religious war—Christianity against Islam. The Western world continued to be Christian, and Europeans brought Christianity to the New World, because of the victory at Lepanto; it was a vital and historic victory.

The Rosary refers both to a specific set of prayers and to the chaplet of beads used to count them. The Rosary is a Bible-centered prayer.