.

Forty-five days after the Great Sign, Germany’s annexation of Austria (the Anschluss ) took place, setting the stage for the outbreak of World War II the following year.

If we want peace, we must pray the Rosary.

But they will do better still and will please me even more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death and passion of Jesus Christ — for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.”⁷

Of what does the meditation consist? How often may you say it? At first, he made little headway. No more than highlights of the most important Rosary miracles can here be offered.

During the 16th century, the structure of the five-decade rosary based on the three sets of mysteries prevailed.

Tradition does hold that St. Dominic (d. Our Lady was explicit about this when she later said to Bl. Alan: “When people say 150 Angelic Salutations this prayer is very helpful to them and is a very pleasing tribute to me. If you have just concluded one Our Father, why may you not begin it again at once?

World War II would certainly seem a direct result of disobedience to her commands, for she had prophesied that “if people do not cease offending God, a worse one [war] will break out in the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.”²¹ This “unknown light” illumined the night sky of January 25, 1938.

Once a day? One year later, on August 1, 1717, the Serbian capital of Belgrade, occupied and defended by 150,000 Turks, surrendered to Prince Eugene of Austria after three weeks of siege. When the battle ended at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, no more than 45 Turkish ships were left afloat or uncaptured out of a fleet of 274. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.

26:36-46; Psalm 114:3-4; Luke 22:39-48

The Scourging at the Pillar Mark 15:15; Psalm 37:13-18

The Crowning with Thorns Matt. It would be days before news of the battle’s outcome reached Rome by ordinary means, but from a window in the Vatican St. Pius V was given to see this victory over a supposedly “undefeatable” foe when it occurred.

From the beginning, Don Juan declared that the true victor at Lepanto was Our Lady.

If you only did this you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin — but you are not doing it and so you are guilty of all the sins that they commit.”

That terrible reproach moved Bl. Alan to resolve to preach the Rosary “unceasingly.”¹¹ Such was his dedication that by the time of his death in 1475, he had enrolled over 100,000 persons in the Confraternity.

Here is a list of proofs from the Bible, which prove that this is not so.

• Psalm 135 – a biblical prayer – repeats “for His mercy endureth for ever” at the end of every one of its 27 verses.
• Apocalypse (Revelation, according to King James) 4:8: “…they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.”
• In the account of Our Lord’s Agony in the garden of Olives, both Saint Matthew and Saint Mark say that He prayed using the same words.

  To detail the everyday miracles of grace accomplished through the Rosary — miracles generally known only in Heaven, anyway — is still more impossible. We do so, first, because many popes, following the account given by Bl. Alan, have spoken of the Rosary coming to us from Our Lady, through St. Dominic. Victory in the battle there was won on August 5, 1716.

  Eventually 50 Hail Marys were recited and linked with verses of psalms or other phrases evoking the lives of Jesus and Mary.