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The year was 1571, and the Turks had been threatening invasion of the island of Cyprus, which would have then given them control of the Mediterranean Sea and put them in a greater position to attack and conquer countries such as France, Italy, and Spain. For many years, Pope Pius V had attempted to form an alliance of some of these countries, but it wasn’t until May 1571 that he was able to gather enough support and create the Holy League, which was made up of forces from Spain and Italy.
They set sail, and on October 7, 1571, they met the Muslim fleet—which far outnumbered the Holy League—in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the coast of Greece. Pope Pius V asked all Catholics to pray the Rosary for the success of the Holy League. And after a five-hour battle, this vastly outnumbered fleet defeated the Muslims.
Pope Pius gave all the credit to Mary’s intercession and declared October 7 the Feast of Our Lady of Victory. Just two years later it was renamed the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and today we not only celebrate this victory, but we dedicate the entire month of October to this powerful spiritual weapon.
Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the children that Mary appeared to at Fatima, once said: “There is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families . . . that cannot be solved by the Rosary.”