The Popes and the Rosary
Many popes have offered the Rosary as a powerful prayer, including Pope Leo XIII, who said in his 1883 encyclical Supremi Apostolatus Officio that the Rosary is an effective spiritual weapon against evils afflicting  society. John Paul II reflected, too, on his own words upon his election as pope in 1978:
The Rosary is my favourite prayer. A marvellous prayer! Against the background of the words Ave Maria the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the complete series of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, and they put us in living communion with Jesus through – we might say – the heart of his Mother. At the same time our heart can embrace in the decades of the Rosary all the events that make up the lives of individuals, families, nations, the Church, and all mankind. Our personal concerns and those of our neighbour, especially those who are closest to us, who are dearest to us.
Thus the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human life.
The meditations of the Rosary help us to enter into the life of Christ with Mary as our guide. We can share the feelings of Jesus as we contemplate His life, death, and resurrection. Blessed Bartolo Longo wrote about this, saying: Just as two friends, frequently in each other’s company, tend to develop similar habits, so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and by living the same life in Holy Communion, we can become, to the extent of our loveliness, similar to them and can learn from these supreme models a life of humility, poverty, hiddenness, patience, and
perfection.
St. Louis de Montfort said that the devotions by which we conform our souls to the Lord are devotions His Blessed Mother, and that “the more a soul is consecrated to her the more it will be consecrated to Jesus Christ.