109 day back to October 7. Twenty-four years later, in 1937, Pope Pius XI published, one after another, three resounding encyclicals. Having firmly condemned Nazism in Mit brennender Sorge (March 14) and Communism in Divini Redemptoris (March 19), he then published his testament: Ingravescentibus malis (September 29). To convey the grave danger which totalitarian and atheistic regimes posed to peace, the pope here reflected in detail upon the victory of Lepanto, encouraging the celebration of the feast of October 7, and he called upon the universal Church to pray the rosary. The Victory of the Prince of Peace In these early years of the twentyfirst century, when it is the Christian individual himself who is threatened with annihilation through the combined effects of relativism and worldly pleasures, the Church continues to guide us to devotion of Our Lady of the Rosary as the help of Christians who wish to live and die as disciples of Jesus Christ. But, in the end, if the Church, Mater et Magistra, “Mother and Teacher,” invites us in the liturgy to celebrate a victory of yesteryear, it is above all to guide us toward the eternal victory—the only victory that counts—that of the Resurrection of Christ. In the Collect of the Mass of Our Lady of the Rosary, as Pope Paul VI renamed this feast, we still pray to this day: Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection. By encouraging us through praying the rosary to meditate upon the mysteries of Christ with his mother Mary, the Church calls upon us to fight the good fight—that of an active faith of love—that we may be given eternal communion in the victory of the Prince of Peace. ￭ Pierre-Marie Dumont
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