Our Lady of the Rosary, Memorial
Saint Dominic's involvement in the Rosary that we know and love today is not without some controversy. The tradition is that St. Dominic had experienced a vision of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and in this vision she encouraged recitation of the Rosary. In almost every large Catholic church to this day, there is an image of Mary handing a pair of rosaries to St. Dominic. According to Pope Saint Pius V, writing in 1569, St. Dominic, by the early 13th century, began to promote the recitation of "the Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary" in order to combat the Albigensian heresy. "This same method St. Dominic propagated...Christ's faithful, inflamed by these prayers, began immediately to be changed into new men. The darkness of heresy began to be dispelled, and the light of the Catholic Faith to be revealed." Saint Dominic and other Dominican friars were involved in the promotion and development of the Rosary as we know it today: Meditation upon Gospel