Feast of the Holy Rosary

Or Battle of Lepanto Day!! We'll be celebrating with an afternoon tea party and of course a reading of Chesteron's Lepanto.

Poetry Monday

I love October and not just because it is the most beautiful month. It's because it is the month of the Rosayr and that means it must be Lepanto season!

Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Lepanto or why this is the month of the Rosary

It's Battle of Lepanto week at the Hobbit Homeschool! Today, we studied maps of the Mediterranean circa:1571. And we read the entry for the battle in Great Moments in Catholic History (The Neumann Press) and we read the poem by Chesterton out loud. We also started the day with a decade of the rosary (as usual) and read Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue by Bell, Brindle and Lademan. That lead to an emotional discussion on abortion,the presidential election, what a Knight of Our Lady can do to fight the good fight today, Saint Dominic, the power of Eucharistic devotion (when an abortion clinic attempted to open locally, a group of Catholics started an Adoration Chapel nearby, wherein the abortion clinic had no end of trouble getting staff, proper certifications and whatnot to open and eventual gave up, hurrah!). Tomorrow we will re-read the poem with explanations line by line using the excellent annotations by Dale Ahlquist in the Ignatius Press edition.

I was planning Lepanto week anyway but it seemed especially needed after reading this from the Church er..Faith Community bulletin--October is the Month of the Rosary but did you know it was also National PIZZA Month? --well, no I didn't, but I know why it is the Month of the Rosary...St. Michael's on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north. (Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)