The Blessed Virgin Mary
Mother of God, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary
The Mother of Our Lord and the first of all disciples, whose consent at Nazareth opened the door of salvation — and to whom the whole Rosary is entrusted.
- Feast
- January 1 (Mary, Mother of God) · October 7 (Our Lady of the Rosary)
Invoked For
- The universal Church
- Mothers
- Families
- All who pray the Rosary
Her Life
Of Mary's early life Scripture says almost nothing, and that silence is itself instructive. She appears in Luke as a young woman of Nazareth, betrothed to Joseph, greeted by an angel with words no one had been given before: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee."
Her answer — "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word" — is the hinge of the Gospel. The Church has always understood it as a free consent, given on behalf of all humanity, and it is the first joyful mystery of the Rosary.
She bore her Son in Bethlehem, presented Him in the Temple, sought Him for three days when He was lost, and prompted His first miracle at Cana. At the end she stood at the foot of the Cross, where He gave her to the disciple — and through him, to us. She was with the apostles in the upper room at Pentecost.
Her whole life is summed up in a line St. Luke uses twice: she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. That pondering is exactly what the Rosary invites us to share.
The Path to Sainthood
Our Lady was never canonized. There was never a time when the Church did not honor her; her veneration is as old as the faith itself, and the Council of Ephesus in 431 confirmed the title by which she is most simply known — Theotokos, the God-bearer, Mother of God.
Four truths about her are held as dogma: that she is Mother of God, that she was ever-virgin, that she was conceived without original sin (the Immaculate Conception, defined in 1854), and that she was assumed body and soul into heaven (defined in 1950).
The Rosary itself grew up around her over many centuries, taking its familiar form through the preaching of the Dominicans. The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7 was established in thanksgiving for the deliverance of Christendom at Lepanto in 1571, attributed to the Rosary prayed across Europe that day.
Prayers to The Blessed Virgin Mary
Tap any prayer to open it large and clear — set for reading aloud. Close it to return here and choose another.