The 15 Promises of Our Lady to those who pray the Rosary with Devotion

(from St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche)

1. Whosoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.

2. I promise my special protection and the greatest Graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.

3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against Hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.

4. It will cause good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant Mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men [and women] from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire for Eternal Things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5. The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.

6. Whosoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself [herself] to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just he shall remain in the Grace of God, and become worthy of Eternal Life.

7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.

8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the Light of God and the plenitude of His Graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the Merits of the Saints in Paradise.

9. I shall deliver from Purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.

10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of Glory in Heaven.

11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by recitation of the Rosary.

12. All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire Celestial Court during their life and at the hour of death.

14. All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only Son, Jesus Christ.

15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

The Rosary and Saint Dominic Defeat Heresy

The Rosary—as spiritual weapon against evil—has a very long and precious history. In twelfth and thirteenth century France, a group of heretics known as the Albigensians was destroying the minds of the Catholic laity with its erroneous ideas. The Albigensians’ teachings encouraged suicide, many times by self-induced starvation, because they believed that the body was an intrinsic evil and that the soul must be liberated from matter at all costs. However, as history often shows, Providence raises up great Saints in times of dire crises. This time it was no different. Saint Dominic, born of noble lineage, received the Rosary from Our Lady in the year 1214. Our Lady gave Saint Dominic the Rosary as a weapon to combat the awful Albigensian heresy.

The Rosary as we know it today took some time to develop. After Saint Dominic died in the year 1221, the Rosary was almost immediately forgotten. However, in 1464 Our Lord, Our Lady, and Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan de la Roche, a Dominican friar, after which he preached the Rosary until his death in 1475. This tremendous apostolate by Blessed Alan de la Roche, through the direct intercession of Our Lady, made the Rosary a widespread devotion. The fifteen mysteries as we know them came about through the many confraternities founded after Blessed Alan de la Roche’s preaching, and were formalized with Pope Saint Pius V’s encyclical, Consueverunt.

SANTO DOMINGO DE GUZMAN: Priest and Founder of the Order of Preachers

SANTO DOMINGO DE GUZMAN

c.1170-1221

Priest and Founder of the Order of Preachers

Saint Dominic was born around 1170 at Caleruega in Spain of the noble De Guzman family.  After completing his studies at Palencia, he was ordained to the priesthood and became a Canon Regular in the Cathedral Chapter at Osma.  But soon he was called from his hidden life of liturgy and contemplation to the more active ministry of combating the Albigensian heresy, which at that time was rife in Southern France.  Using as a base the little group of nuns he had established at Prouille, he spent more than ten years ranging the countryside, begging from door to door, preaching indefatigably.  During this time, he became convinced of the need of a special body of trained priests who would spread the truth by preaching and teaching in apostolic poverty.  Out of this conviction the Order of Preachers, formally approved by Pope Honorius III  in 1216, was born.

The Founder was essentially a man of prayer and study, with a burning zeal for the salvation of souls – characteristics which he indelibly impressed upon his Order.  From these qualities stem  others easily  associated with them: his love for silence, his compassion for sinners, his joyous spirit, his singular purity of life and delicacy of conscience.  Dominic was also a leader, an innovator, a founder, and he had traits admirably suited to the dimension of his life: the ability to grip the essence of a problem and its most apt solution, a capacity for organization bordering on genius, a boundless trust in the capability and goodwill of his collaborators.  He had, in addition, a charism for ministering to women and for associating women in his ministry, attested not only by the establishment of three monasteries of nuns during his lifetime, but also in the recollections of many devout lay women who cared for his needs during his years in Southern France.

August 6, 1221, Saint Dominic died in Bologna and was buried, as he wished, beneath the feet of his brethren.  His close friend, Pope Gregory IX canonized him in 1234.

                                    Shining light of the Church, teacher of truth, excelling in patience, pure as whitest ivory, freely you have poured out the water of wisdom: bring us, preacher of grace, into the company of the saints.

                              O God, who has enlightened your church by the eminent virtues and preaching of St. Dominic, your Confessor and our Father, mercifully grant that by his prayers we may be provided against all temporal necessities and daily improve in all spiritual good. This we ask through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

FEASTDAY:  AUGUST 8

SOLEMNITY