In his Encyclical Letter Ingravescentibus malis, Pope Pius XI insisted that, "Among the various public prayers which we successfully address to the Virgin Mother of God the Holy Rosary occupies a particular and distinct place. In the time of the Crusades one voice, one single supplication arose from all people throughout Europe. See here. Today also, the people must seek by their insistent entreaties to obtain from the powerful Mother of God that the enemies of Christianity and human civilization be deterred, and that true peace may shine upon tired and disturbed men."
If this be true - and it most certainly is - why are our ""shepherds" (for the most part) today in the Catholic Church remaining silent about the efficacy of this most powerful spiritual weapon? Could it be that many of these clerics are simply anxious to provide cover for the supporters of Satan and their crusade against Christ's Church?
The Universal Living Rosary Association (of which I am proudly a member), in their booklet on Father Mateo's Rosary Meditation, reminds us that, "The Heresy of Worldliness chiefly among the well-to-do and the ruling classes is this: Drink, dance, enjoy yourself, drain the cup of all the illicit pleasures and so make life a carnival and one unending round of pleasure without the least concern about death, judgment and eternity! The worldling lives or rather vegetates in a noisome swamp. And, all the while, in the somber underground, devious plots are being woven by secret societies to hold the Church in check, and to counteract Her work through secularized legislation.....The paganized laws of divorce, of the godless school, the secularized state, all tending towards the official ostracism of God and His Christ - all these laws have been nurtured by the modern Sanhedrin of the Masonic associations. It was the great Pope Leo XIII who wrote the famous encyclicals on the Rosary, ordered the three Hail Marys and the prayer to St. Michael to be said after Mass because he has explicitly in mind these Lodges and their vicious propaganda. Masonic groups have been solemnly condemned by nine Sovereign Pontiffs under the gravest censures!"
The Rosary Crusade against Satan and his followers is one of pity and mercy for sinners. It aims at the conversion of these poor lost souls. The Rosary, as the ULRA remins us, "..had its origin on the field of battle. It was raised as a fortified wall around the City of God to protect it from invasion by heresies."
Could this be why so many priests today refuse to preach on the Rosary or to encourage its devotion? In order that the Trojan Horse of Heresy may all the more easily infiltrate into that Holy City?
I have always viewed the sling which David used to slay Goliath as a harbinger, a sort of figure or sign pointing to the Holy Rosary which would be given to the faithful by Our Lady and by which they would “crush the head of Satan” – “the very seat of his pride” as Saint Louis de Montfort puts it. We read in 1 Samuel 17:
“With his shield-bearer marching before him, the Philistine also advanced closer and closer to David. When he had sized David up, and seen that he was youthful and ruddy, and handsome in appearance, he held him in contempt. The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog that you come against me with a staff?’ Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods and said to him, ‘Come here to me, and I will leave your flesh for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.’ David answered him: ‘You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted. Today the Lord shall deliver you into my hand; I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will leave your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; thus the whole land shall learn that Israel has a God. All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he shall deliver you into our hands’…David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he fell prostrate on the ground. Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone..” (1 Samuel 17: 41-47, 49-50).
The Devil is the adversary of faithful Christians. And, like Goliath, he seems to cast a big shadow. But when we approach him on the battlefield [“For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens,” Eph 6:12] we have our own sling as a weapon – the Holy Rosary. And every bead, every Hail Mary prayerfully recited, is hurled as a weapon against the Devil’s head, the seat of his pride. Therefore, Montfort exhorts us, “So arm yourself with the arms of God, with the holy Rosary, and you will crush the devil’s head and stand firm in the face of all his temptations. That is why even a pair of rosary beads is so terrible to the devil, and why the saints have used them to fetter him and drive him from the bodies of those who were possessed.” (The Secret of the Holy Rosary, 85).
Related reading here.
