St. Anthony of Padua Church - Our Lady of the Rosary Feast Day Procession, 10/7/2016

"Do not forget that God is more powerful than all of the evil in the world...

The world is on the edge of catastrophe.  Cleanse your hearts through prayer.

The only way is through God."

~ Our Lady of Kibeho, 1981

Today - the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary - is a significant anniversary in the Catholic Church. Very few people, nowadays, know what this feast actually signifies - it was instituted by Pope St. Pius V (d. 1572) to honor Our Lady after a Catholic naval coalition defeated a much larger Islamic fleet during the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The holy Pontiff, being well-aware of the disadvantages the Christian navy faced, called for the praying of the Holy Rosary by all of Europe to invoke our Holy Mother's intercession in bringing about victory for the Catholic forces.

"Love one other.  Forgive each other.  Make peace because if you do not

make it there will be no peace. Never turn to violence."

~ Our Lady of Cuapa, 1980

As history records, after a five hour battle the Catholic coalition proved victorious, thus, effectively preserving western Christian culture against Islamic domination. The feast was originally called the Feast of Our Lady of Victory but it was changed in the 20th Century to its present name.

Feast Day fellowship dinner at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Kailua.

[click on each photo to view larger images]

It all just goes to show how powerful the Holy Rosary is as a weapon; how through this hallowed prayer, the Holy Virgin has aided the Church (and the rest of the world) against dangers of all sorts throughout history. This is why whenever, and wherever Our Lady appears on earth, she almost always carries a rosary and/or encourages that we pray it as a way of ending evil or preventing it. As such, my parish decided to pay tribute on this Feast Day to five of Our Lady's church-approved apparitions, via another candlelight rosary procession. Over a hundred parishioners - parents and children - showed up for this event.

"I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners,

and I wish you to do the same.”

~ Our Lady of Champion, 1859 

So tonight was a somewhat different procession for us - we did something unconventional during our Rosary Prayer. Instead of meditating on the traditional Rosary Mysteries, we substituted five of Our Lady's apparitions: Champion, Wisconsin (USA); Fatima (Portugal); Banneux (Belgium); Cuapa (Nicaragua); and Kibeho, Rwanda (central Africa). Our procession included stops at five special "Pilgrimage Stations" where female students from St. Anthony School became living representations of the Marian apparitions we featured.

The "Living Pilgrimage Stations"

(compare the images of Our Lady's apparitions with their corresponding living representations)

 

Above (L to R): The 1st and 2nd Stations (Our Lady of Champion & Fatima)

Below (L to R): The 3rd, 4th, and 5th Stations (Our Lady of Banneux, Cuapa, & Kibeho)

At each station, we encouraged our participants to imagine themselves on pilgrimage to the particular miraculous site where we narrated the history of the apparition; summarized Our Lady's message; and offered the Our Father and decade of Hail Marys to follow in response to a directive the Virgin delivered. All of the girls who portrayed the Blessed Mother did a great job in their respective roles and a couple of them were so convincing, it left many of the participants deeply impressed and spiritually moved (I had goosebumps!).  It was all BEAUTIFUL and AWESOME!

Procession participants gathered and praying at two of the Pilgrimage Stations.

At the end of the procession. the festivities continued with a potluck dinner in our parish hall, where lighthearted conversation and fellowship flowed. People discussed their positive experience of the procession, as well as just caught up with their fellow parishioners who they hadn't seen in the past week.

Video: Our parishioners ending our procession in the main

church building with a hymn to Our Lady.

In closing, this is the 4th consecutive year our parish has held a Rosary Procession... and I must say - this one was one of the best, given the novelty of our living Marian apparitions! May Our Lady's different messages relayed tonight at our Pilgrimage Stations take root in the hearts of our parishioners and bear abundant good fruits in our lives.  God bless us all.

"Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended."

~ Our Lady of Fatima, 1917