The Rosary And Fatima

At every one of her 6 apparitions in Fatima from May to October 1917, Our Lady specifically asked for the Rosary to be said every day, and as if to emphasise its importance even further, in her final apparition on 13th October 1917 she declared: “I am the Lady of the Rosary”.

It was this aspect of her message on which she placed the greatest emphasis, and the reason for it was made clear by the declaration on the Rosary by St John Paul II when he first travelled to Fatima in 1982, and subsequently in the luminous teaching on the value and power of the Rosary in one’s daily life as a Catholic, in his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, issued on 7 October 2002.

he teaching in this document which is easily readable is an inspirational aid to understanding the meaning and relevance of praying the Rosary in one’s daily life. It is perhaps best summarised in the following pronouncement:

“The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer … it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium” (Pope John Paul II – Rosarium Virginis Mariae, n. 1).

In his homily at Fatima on 13 May 1982, Pope John Paul II said that the Rosary is Mary’s prayer, “in which … she herself prays with us. Take care of your inheritance of faith … do you want me to teach you the secret of keeping it ?  It is simple, Pray, pray very much, pray, recite the Rosary every day”

The Power of the Rosary

One example of the power of the Rosary was dramatically shown in 1955, when the occupying Soviet Army voluntarily left Austria. Fr Petrus Pavlicek, a Franciscan, had organised a Rosary Crusade from 1946 onwards, which eventually had ten percent of the population praying five decades of the Rosary daily for peace in the country. He also organised candlelit processions in Vienna with a pilgrim Virgin statue of Our Lady from Fatima, which from the beginning were led by the Federal Chancellor, Figl, and then by his successor, Raab.

On 13 May 1955 it was announced that the Soviets were willing to withdraw their troops from Austria and sign a peace treaty. This was the only time in the history of the Soviet Union that the Red Army voluntarily withdrew from a country it had occupied, without firing a shot. In contrast, the attempted uprisings in Hungary, in 1956, and Czechoslovakia, in 1968, were brutally put down by Soviet tanks.

Shortly before the last Soviet troops left the territory of Austria, on 26th October 1955 there was another huge torchlight procession in thanksgiving. In his address to the vast crowd, Raab, the Federal Chancellor, asked Austria’s faithful Catholics to remain true to their faith and unswerving in their prayers to the Queen of heaven. “But for today”, he concluded, “we want to send up a joyful prayer to heaven and end it with the words: ‘We are free ! Mary, we thank you !’” (He taught millions to pray – Fr Peter Pavlicek, OFM,  by Hilda Firtel, Rosary Crusade for the Peace of the World, Vienna).