The month of October each year is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary. This is primarily due to the fact that the liturgical feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is celebrated annually on October 7. It was instituted to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary in gratitude for the protection that she gives the Church in answer to the praying of the Rosary by the faithful.
Pope Pius V declared the day — October 7 — as a feast day for Our Lady of the Rosary. To celebrate, a rosary procession was held in Saint Peter’s Square.
The presence and protection of our Mother Mary has immense power — requested, channeled, and honored through the rosary. Her immaculate intercession has won wars and conquered hearts. After the feast day was established, the entire month of October was dedicated to the rosary in 1884 by Pope Leo XIII.
We know it to be one of the most recited and celebrated Catholic prayers — used to implore our Mother Mary for her intercession and blessings. Saint John Paul II expanded on the rosary’s power in his 2002 apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, when he announced the Year of the Rosary and the addition of the Luminous Mysteries:
With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.