FEATURE
Champion of Our Lady Devotion to the Rosary was revived in the late 15th century by a Dominican Friar, as Alan Frost explains
B
lessed Alan de la Roche is probably little known among the Catholic population of the UK. It is also probable that he never visited these shores. Even so, his name should be well known, for he was instrumental in the revival and promotion of the prayer so special to Our Lady, the Rosary. His time is the 15th century, particularly the years 1460 to his death in 1475, broadly two hundred and fifty years after St Dominic’s astonishing ministry. He was about 22 when he joined the Order of Preachers in 1450, distinguishing himself as a scholar in Paris before returning to Dinan, a convent in his native Brittany. Here he gained a reputation as a fine preacher and teacher of novices, but his calling was to be much more than these things. According to his own writings, one day in 1460 he was celebrating Mass (possibly in Paris, rather than Dinan, where he was completing a work on The Sententiae of Peter Lombard) when he heard Christ speaking to him from the Host he was elevating. The words were a stern admonition: “You have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach My Mother’s rosary and you are not doing so. If you only did this you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin…” Shocked and horrified he resolved to devote himself to promoting the Rosary. Shortly after, he received words of encouragement in his task from Our Lady herself and would subsequently receive further supernatural messages and visions. These included words from St Dominic recounting his own great success in teaching the Rosary, or the ‘Psalter of Jesus and Mary’ as it was originally known. This was because the number of prayers equalled the number of psalms in the Bible and were said by many instead of them, or as they heard them being chanted.
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Blessed Alan de la Roche depicted in an early woodcut
This, then, can be taken as the beginning of Blessed Alan’s role as the champion of Our Lady in promoting this most special of devotions, a devotion the world has been urged to practise down the ages by the Blessed Virgin herself. Starting from St Dominic,
moving on to Blessed Alan and to others such as St Louis Marie de Montfort, St Bernadette, and the little seers at Fatima. Research beyond this short article may see Blessed Alan referred to as ‘Alanus de Rupe’, the name by which he was known in his convent.
SUMMER 2022
