Today, October 7, is the memorial of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.
October 7, 1571 was a Sunday when the Christian fleets under John of Austria reached a major naval victory over the Turks in the Straits of Lepanto. Thousands of Christians were freed. The Turkish fleet was destroyed, and they suffered their first great defeat at sea.
As a way of thanking the Lord and the Virgin Mary, Pope Saint Pius V declared a yearly commemoration for Our Lady of Victory. In 1573 Pope Gregory XIII moved the feast to the first Sunday of October with the title Feast of the Most Holy Rosary since the victory was won through the invocation of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. In 1716 Pope Clement XII extended the feast to the whole Latin Rite calendar, assigning it to the first Sunday in October. Pope Saint Pius X changed the date to 7 October in 1913 in his effort to bring back the celebration of the liturgy of the Sundays.
In 1960, it was called “Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary” under Pope Saint John XXIII. In 1969, Pope Saint Paul VI’s liturgical reforms turned this “feast” into a “mandatory memorial.”
In the Dominican tradition, in 1206, St. Dominic was in Prouille, France, trying to convert the Albigensians back to the Catholic faith. Dominic was not so successful until he received a vision of the Blessed Virgin, who gave him the Rosary as a tool against heretics. It might be legend that Mary gave the Rosary to St. Dominic, but the development and popularity of this prayer form is credited to St. Dominic’s followers.