The New Advent Encyclopedia informs us that on the first Sunday of October we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Rosary. It goes on to explain that Leo XIII personally instituted this practice in an Encyclical (September 1, 1883) in which he urged the faithful to dedicate the month of October to the Queen of the Holy Rosary “in order to obtain through her intercession the grace that God may console and defend His Church in her sufferings, and for nineteen years he published an encyclical on this subject. By the decree of the Congregation of Rites (20 Aug., 1885; 26 Aug., 1886; 2 Sept., 1887) he ordained that every year during the entire month of October, including the first and second of November, in every cathedral and parochial church, and in all other churches and chapels which are dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, five decades of the Rosary and the Litany of Loreto are to be recited, in the morning during Mass or in the afternoon whilst the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, and by the encyclical letter of 15 August, 1889, a prayer in honor of St. Joseph was added.”