We Are Not Alone! We Are Never Alone! We Have Never Been Alone!
On Wednesday, the 8th of December, we and Mother Church, celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Our Popes all had a devotion to the Holy Rosary: On September 17, 1569, Pope St. Pius V promulgated devotion to the Rosary, and because of the Christians' victory in Lepanto over the Muslims, he inaugurated an annual commemoration to Our Lady of the Victory.
Speaking of the Rosary, he wrote: "It is the Psalter of Mary, in which the Blessed Mother of God is greeted 150 times with the Angelical salutation (Hail Mary), corresponding to the Psalms of the Psalter of David, together with one Our Father for every ten Hail Marys, and also certain mediations that present the entire life of Jesus Christ." When the Muslims were once again defeated, on the feast of Our Lady of the Snow, August 5, 1716, Pope Clement XI attributed the victory to the Rosary. In gratitude to Our Lady, he placed the Feast of the Holy Rosary on the Universal Calendar.
The First Council of Baltimore in 1846 proclaimed Our Mother Mary: "Mary in her Immaculate Conception Principal Patron of the United States." The Bishops of the United States on February 7, 1847 affirmed it by: "...unanimously placing the Catholic Church under the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin." What was Our Lord trying to tell us? Was He not trying to tell us we are not alone! - Turn to Our Blessed Mother! The Popes before us turned to Mother Mary and the Rosary!
Pope Leo XIII declared on October 2, 1898: "The true form of the Rosary is to be preserved, in reference to the beads by making them up into five, ten, or fifteen decades: likewise that other beads, of whatever form, are not to be known by the name of Rosary. Pope Pius XII on October 31, 1942, consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On November 1, 1950, on the "Holy Year", he declared the Dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven.
Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical Letter on the Rosary, September 15, 1951, declares: "It is above all, in the bosom of the family that we desire the custom of the Holy Rosary to be everywhere adopted, religiously preserved and ever more intensely practiced. While running your fingers over the beads of the Rosary, do not forget those who languish miserably in prison camps, jails and concentration camps. "We do not hesitate to affirm again publicly that we put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of the evils which afflict our times."
On October 11, 1954, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the universal Feast of the Queenship of Mary, to be celebrated every year in the whole world on May 31. What is the Lord and His Mother trying to tell us? He is in charge!