The Rosary: A Weapon of Peace

On July 13th, 1917, three children were greeted by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal. The children had already received two previous visits in May and June; however, this message would be the longest yet. Our Lady told them many things, but in perhaps her most relevant message as we see it now, she begged the children to pray the Holy Rosary every day for the establishment of peace in the world. At the time of the apparition, the First World War was raging, and it seemed that almost every nation was hellbent on conquest no matter how many cities were bombed out or how many young men died in the trenches. To many, Mary’s simple solution must have seemed almost an absurdity. Certainly, the rationalist cynic would mock the idea that a simple prayer could obtain the end to such a destructive conflict, and even many within the Church might be tempted to say that God just doesn’t work like that. At Fátima, however, Mary remained steadfast in her request. On September 13th, she once again appeared and requested that the Rosary be prayed for the end of the war.

A serious examination of the Rosary makes it very clear why the prayer would be so efficacious in seeking from God an end to violence. A standard five-decade Rosary will involve 53 Hail Marys being prayed. At the end of each Hail Mary, one asks the Blessed Virgin to pray for us “now and at the hour of our death” – to ask for her prayers “now” means asking for her help in our current situations. The Hail Mary is, thus, a prayer for the here-and-now. When Our Lady hears it, she knows exactly what prayers to offer for us in whatever moment we find ourselves. It is not a prayer dealing with hypotheticals, but with where people actually are, and so where there is war, it is most fitting that the Hail Mary be a great prayer for peace.

Furthermore, when praying a five-decade Rosary, one will pray the Our Father six times. The Our Father, an especially precious prayer, was taught to humankind by Christ Himself, and contains an invocation that the will of God be done “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” From Sacred Scripture, it is known that the new Heaven and new Earth of God’s Kingdom resplendent in all its glory will be a place where “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4). This is exactly what we ask for when we pray that God’s will is done on Earth and in Heaven. There is no room for senseless war in this future. Rather, love reigns, and we can trust that each Our Father we pray is a plea for God to wipe from the Earth all such war and establish a true peace in our times.

It can clearly be seen now that the backbone of the Rosary is made up of prayers which, separately, are already efficacious in obtaining peace for the world. Consider also how pleasing it is to God when they are placed in the context of the Rosary itself! Mary’s Psalter is rooted in the mysteries of Our Lord’s life, death, and resurrection. The Rosary is the act of centering yourself in Christ, the Prince of Peace, and offering glory and praise to God, while at the same time invoking the name of Mary, virgin and mother. This is why so many saints and mystics have recommended the recitation of the Rosary, and why the Mother of God herself stresses it so much at Fátima and her other apparitions – because it is a prayer that covers all the bases for what a good prayer looks like. If anyone still doubts the great merit found in the Holy Rosary, consider only that its principal prayer is drawn from the words of the Angel Gabriel and Saint Elizabeth themselves, who both rejoice in Heaven, and that the second most prevalent prayer was given to us directly by Christ. For this reason, the Rosary is an almost sure path to the edification of the soul and the obtaining of requests – it finds its basis in the literal words of God, His angels, and His saints.

Although the First World War is over, the message of Our Lady of Fátima remains ever pertinent. War, it seems, is still a daily headline in much of the world. On February 24th, 2022, Europe once again felt the pummeling of bombs on its soil as Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine. Just over a year later, on October 7th, 2023, Palestinian terrorists slaughtered Israeli civilians, launching a war in the Middle East that seems to be growing larger by the day. In the Israeli response, Palestinian civilians have faced displacement, massacre, and starvation warfare in what have become some of the most brutal military operations seen in years. Now, the United States of America, the world’s foremost superpower, has been drawn into the fighting, sending bombers against Iran to strike the country’s nuclear capabilities. It might seem, looking from the
perspective of geopolitical “realism,” that war is simply how things have to be. There are certainly many powerful people who would love to convince us of this. Nothing could be farther from the truth, however. Our Lady’s message at Fátima was simply a reiteration of Our Lord’s words in the Gospel: “Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matthew 26:52). In the coming weeks, months, and years, we will hear many a politician and ideologue tell us that we must pick up the weapons of war. Instead, may we pick up our Rosaries, our weapons of peace, and storm Heaven with prayers for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, keeping unceasingly in our minds the promise of Christ, that “blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).