When the Incarnation of the Word in the most pure womb of Mary was revealed to the Angels, Lucifer immediately rebelled, provoking the greatest battle in history: that fought between those who followed his cry of disobedience and the faithful army commanded by St. Michael.
Cast into the abyss, the forces of darkness did not cease, however, to spew their smoke over the light of the Most High. From original sin, through the snares prepared against the chosen people and against Christ Himself and His followers, the diabolical artillery knows no respite. The devil encircles souls as a lion prowls around its prey (cf. 1 Pt 5:8). For this reason, the Apostle exhorts us to pray without ceasing (cf. 1 Thes 5:17) and to use spiritual weapons capable of destroying the strongholds of evil (cf. 2 Cor 10:4).
Without a doubt, after the Holy Mass and the Divine Office, the Rosary is the most powerful weapon against the infernal militia. Besides having been instituted by the Queen of Angels herself, it contains the two most perfect prayers, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, in a continuous battery of supplications, in relentless pursuit of the old Serpent. Since it begins with the Creed, cross in hand, the Rosary also reveals that our battle is based on faith, whose goal is the glory of the Blessed Trinity, proclaimed in the prayer repeated at the end of each mystery. Finally, as its concluding hymn, the Salve Regina expresses our joyful and humble praise of the Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
Today, as always, amid the profound crises affecting the most varied sectors of society, the Holy Rosary remains the most effective weapon of the Virgin’s offspring (cf. Gn 3:15). If, over the course of history, its recitation has won so many victories against heresy, persecution and diabolical fraud, it easily follows that there is no human or preternatural power capable of halting the victorious march of the children of the Queen of the Rosary.
If we Catholics, who with the help of divine grace aspire to remain entirely faithful to the Holy Church, her immutable doctrine and indefectible morals, clasp the rosary in our hands, we have nothing, absolutely nothing to fear. The onslaughts of the “ungodly men” who “secretly entered in” (Jude 1:4) will be frustrated, like “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion” (Jude 1:13).
Although appearances may cry out to the contrary, it will also be by means of this implacable weapon against the power of darkness that the greatest triumph of the true Church will be obtained, namely, the advent of the Reign of Mary. And as its natural consequence, we shall behold the complete collapse of the empire built by Satan on foundations of smoke, at the very moment in history when he, in his aspirations full of gaudium phantasticum, imagines that he glimpses, even within the sacred temple, his definitive victory. ◊
