Official feasts used to be an important part of the human community. People would gather together to remember something sacred, express their faith and hope for the future, and / or just be together formally, recognizing each other as being part of a shared community. Few things express a desire for shared companionship and social intimacy more than dining together. Sadly, the gathering together for feasting is increasingly a relic of the past – at least here in the West.
It need not be so! Today we will remember the ancient feasts.
The Feast Day of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary
This is a Christian religious celebration, also known as Our Lady of Victory, commemorating the Holy Mother, the Holy Rosary Prayer, and the anniversary of the decisive victory of the combined fleet of the Holy League of 1571 over the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Lepanto.
This feast day is considered a Marian Title in the Roman Catholic Church, and also in the Antiochan Orthodox Church.
The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, formerly known as Feast of Our Lady of Victory and Feast of the Holy Rosary is celebrated on 7 October in the General Roman Calendar. 7 October is the anniversary of the decisive victory of the combined fleet of the Holy League of 1571 over the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Lepanto.
In the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the feast is optionally celebrated on 7 October, under the title The Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The story of Dominic’s vision was recorded by Alanus de Rupe, a 15th-century Dominican friar who is credited with promoting the Rosary among the faithful in Europe. This traditional origin for the Rosary was generally accepted, including by many popes, until the 17th century, when the Bollandists concluded that the account originated with the account recorded by Alanus, two hundred years after Dominic’s death. However, several popes after the 17th century, like Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI, continued to attribute its origin to Dominic in official documents such as encyclicals.
Our Lady of Victory
Mary had been honored in the West under the title “Our Lady of Victory” from at least the thirteenth century. Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester built the first shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Victory in thanks for the Catholic victory over the Albigensians at the Battle of Muret on September 12, 1213. In thanksgiving for victory at the Battle of Bouvines in July 1214, Philip Augustus of France founded the Abbey of Notre Dame de la Victoire, between Senlis and Mont l’Evêque.
In the East, the title “Our Lady of Victory” is even older. The feast of Our Lady of Victory, on February 25, commemorates the deliverance of the city of Constantinople “from the siege of the Saracens by the aid of the Blessed Virgin, A.D. 621.”
Feast day
Background
In 1571, Pope Pius V organized a coalition of forces from Spain and smaller Christian kingdoms, republics and military orders, to rescue Christian outposts in Cyprus, particularly the Venetian outpost at Famagusta which, however, surrendered after a long siege on 1 August before the Christian forces set sail. On 7 October 1571, the Holy League, a coalition of southern European Catholic maritime states, sailed from Messina, Sicily, and met a powerful Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto. Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct material disadvantage, Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory, and led a rosary procession in Rome. Pius V instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory in order to commemorate the victory at Lepanto, which he attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
After about five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off western Greece, the combined navies of the Papal States, Venice and Spain managed to stop the Ottoman navy, slowing the Ottoman advance to the west and denying them access to the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas. If the Ottomans had won, there was a real possibility that an invasion of Italy could have followed so that the Ottoman sultan, already claiming to be emperor of the Romans, would have been in possession of both New and Old Rome. Combined with the Great Siege of Malta (1565) and the unfolding events in Morocco where the Sa’adids successfully spurned the Ottoman advances, it confined Turkish naval power to the eastern Mediterranean. Although the Ottoman Empire was able to build more ships, it never fully recovered from the loss of trained sailors and marines, and was never again the Mediterranean naval power it had become the century before when Constantinople fell.
In 1572, Pope Pius V formalized the number and content of the Mysteries of the Rosary and actively promoted its recitation.
In 1573, Pope Gregory XIII changed the name of the feast into Feast of the Most Holy Rosary of the Bl. Virgin Mary, to be celebrated on the first Sunday of October. The Dominican friar, Juan Lopez, in his 1584 book on the Rosary, states that the feast of the Rosary was offered “in memory and in perpetual gratitude of the miraculous victory that the Lord gave to his Christian people that day against the Turkish armada”.
In 1671, the observance of this festival was extended by Clement X to the whole of Spain, and somewhat later Clement XI, after the victory over the Turks gained by Prince Eugene in the Battle of Petrovaradin on 5 August 1716 (the feast of Our Lady of the Snows), commanded the feast of the Rosary to be celebrated by the universal church.
Leo XIII raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class and added to the Litany of Loreto the invocation “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary”. On this feast, in every church in which the Rosary confraternity has been duly erected, a plenary indulgencetoties quoties is granted upon certain conditions to all who visit therein the Rosary chapel or statue of Our Lady. This has been called the “Portiuncula” of the Rosary. During his pontificate, Leo XIII issued eleven encyclicals about Our Lady of the Rosary and its feast.
Pius X, in 1913, changed the date to 7 October, as part of his effort to restore celebration of the liturgy of the Sundays. In 1960, under Pope John XXIII, it is listed under the title Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary; and under the 1969 liturgical reforms of Pope Paul VI, Our Lady of the Rosary is mentioned as a mandatory memorial.
Our Lady of the Rosary by Anthony van Dyck, between 1623 and 1624
For an explanation about both the background of the prayer, and of the Feast, I highly recommend the following video:
What is a food to eat when celebrating the Feast Day of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary?
I got the idea of a Rosary Cake from another site, and I really liked it so I’ll share it below. The focus of the idea was on the cake decoration, rather than upon the cake itself, so I then sought out and found a cake recipe to go with the Rosary-themed cake decoration. I’ll combine those things below:
I know there is a movie and a book that came out with the title “Eat, Pray, Love.” I have heard a bit about them but have not seen the movie or read the book. I couldn’t help but use a similar play-on-words with this post! When we made these edible Rosary delights, followed by praying, eating, and loving, I thought about that recent movie and book title. The prayer came first, then we indulged in some “sweet” Rosaries. The love is automatic, both giving and receiving, when you pray the Rosary, right? Hence the title of Pray, Eat, Love~The Rosary.
For the Rosary Cake
(Pictured Above) We used mini M&M’s for the 53 Hail Mary beads, as well as the beginning Our Father, Glory Be, and the Crucifix…
Then we used a regular-sized blue(for Our Lady) M&M to mark the 5 decades~
We are saying that the “M’s” on the M&M’s stand for Mary!
*A blue border around the cake also represents the color of our Blessed Mother*
Since October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary, we thought it appropriate to bring in some Autumn celebration at the same time!
Try this Autumn Candy Rosary
~Pray, Eat, & Love~
Now we’re ready to pray, eat, & love…We just did all 3 right in one sitting!
This was the yummiest Rosary we’ve ever tasted and prayed at the same time…
Our family had a ball taking turns eating a candy after each prayer.
That description above is hopefully enough to guide you in the cake decoration. However, you might also need a cake recipe, too, so I will provide that below:
One of the workers at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy (who prefers to go unnamed, but whose cake-baking skills are legendary) shared with us this recipe for the occasion. Try it out, or bake your favorite cake to celebrate the birthday of the Mother of All the Living, the Queen of All Hearts, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Lemon Cake
1/3 cup soft butter ¾ cup sugar 2 eggs 1 ½ cups sifted flour 1 ½ tsp. baking powder ¼ tsp. salt ½ cup milk Grated rind of one lemon 1 tbsp. lemon juice 1 tsp. vanilla
Beat together soft butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. Add grated lemon rind, lemon juice and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add alternately with milk to the sugar mixture. Pour batter into greased 9 inch round cake pan. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 50 to 60 minutes.
In the meantime, heat juice of one lemon with 1/3 cup sugar in a small saucepan until sugar is dissolved. After cake is baked, take out of baking pan and place on a cake plate. Pour warm lemon sugar mixture over warm cake.
Lemon Butter Frosting
½ cup butter ½ cup cream cheese 1 tsp. vanilla 2 tbsp. lemon juice 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
Mix all together with electric mixer.
After the cake has cooled, frost with lemon butter frosting [and then add the Rosary decorations described above]
What is a prayer you can say on the Feast Day of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary?
The answer to this question feels obvious. However, as this prayer is foreign to a lot of people from outside the Catholic Tradition, I thought it would be prudent to give some history and explanation for the prayer, too. Most of the elements of the prayer date back to the earliest days of the Church, and the Rosary Prayer as a whole dates back to the Medieival period and specifically to St. Dominic.
the Glory Be in the space before the next large bead; and
the Lord’s Prayer at the second large bead
The praying of the decades then follows, repeating this cycle for each mystery:
announcing the mystery (e.g. “The First Glorious Mystery is the resurrection of Jesus.”)
the Lord’s Prayer on the large bead
the Hail Mary on each of the ten adjacent small beads
the Glory Be on the space before the next large bead
To conclude:
the Hail Holy Queen (sometimes with other prayers, while holding the medal or large bead)
the sign of the cross
Here’s an example of the recitation of the prayer:
If you are interested, I do encourage a more thorough look into the topic of the prayer. The history and the evolution of the recitation of the prayer(s) across time are pretty fascinating (particularly – IMO – as they relate to the Marian apparitions around the world and across time), and learning which of the Holy Mysteries meditate upon, on which days, takes some learning, too.
When is the Feast Day of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary celebrated?
This feast is celebrated annually on 7 October.
I hope that everyone who celebrates has a wonderful day!
Our Lady of the Rosary by Anthony van Dyck, between 1623 and 1624
The Vision of Saint Dominic by Bernardo Cavallino, 1640
Our Lady of Victory by Józef Mehoffer, 1896–1897, stained glass window in Fribourg Cathedral
.jpg)
