From this healthy exercise have grown up numberless good fruits in the Christian Commonwealth. Among these deserveth well to be named that great victory over the Sultan of Turkey, which the most holy Pope Pius V, and the Christian Princes whom he had roused, won at Lepanto. The day whereon this victory was gained was the very one whereon the Guild-brethren of the most holy Rosary, throughout the whole world, were used to offer their accustomed prayers and appointed supplications, and the event therefore was not unnaturally connected therewith. This being the avowed opinion of Gregory XIII, he ordered that in all Churches where there was, or should be, an Altar of the Rosary, a Feast, in the form of a Greater Double, should be kept for ever, to give unceasing thanks to the Blessed Virgin, under her style of Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, for that extraordinary mercy of God. Other Popes also have granted almost numberless Indulgences to those who say the Rosary, and to those who join its Guild
To commend his own love towards us, and to bring to nought the wisdom of men, God was pleased to take flesh of a woman, albeit a virgin, that he might bring like against like, heal by opposites, pluck out the poisonous thorn, and blot out mightily the handwriting of our sin that was against us. Eve was a thorn, Mary is a rose. Eve is a thorn that pierceth, Mary is a rose that charmeth all the senses. Eve was a thorn that fixed death into all, Mary is a rose that bringeth health to all. Mary was a white rose through her virginity, and a red rose through her love. She was white in her flesh, red in her mind; white in that she followed the path of grace, red in that she trod down sin; white by the purity of her affection, red by the mortification of her body; white by her love for God, red by her compassion for her neighbour.
The Word was made flesh, and dwelleth even now among us. He dwelleth in our memory. He dwelleth in our thought. He hath come down even unto our imagination; and how sayest thou doth he so? By lying in the manger, by nestling in his Mother's breast, by preaching upon the mountain, by remaining all night in prayer to God, by hanging upon the Cross, by turning pale in death, by going down free among the dead and triumphing in hell, by rising again the third day, by shewing to the Apostles the places of the nails, the marks of his victory, by ascending up into heaven while they all beheld him―of which of these things think we not with truth, with godliness, with holiness? If I think of any of these, I think of God, and he is my God through them all. To think of these things I have decreed to be wisdom, and to set forth the memory of their sweetness I have judged to be prudence. The rod of Aaron the Priest brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds; but these things are the almonds of that Rod which came forth out of the stem of Jesse, the Rod whereof sprang the flower, a Rod which was raised in Mary into places higher than the earthly tabernacle, higher indeed, even into places higher than angels, since she received the Word into herself out of the very heart of the Eternal Father.