Why pray the Rosary every day for a year?
Each time the Blessed Virgin has appeared-- whether it be to Saint Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes; to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco at Fatima; or to Mariette Beco at Banneux-- she has asserted the importance, saving grace, and power of praying the Holy Rosary on a daily basis. Based upon her words, the Rosary is penance and conversion for sinners, a pathway to peace, an end to war, and a powerful act of faith in Jesus Christ. Pope Paul VI presented the Rosary as a powerful means to reach Christ "not merely with Mary but indeed, insofar as this is possible to us, in the same way as Mary, who is certainly the one who thought about Him more than anyone else has ever done."
To show us how this is done, perhaps no one has been more eloquent than the great Cardinal Newman, who wrote: "The great power of the Rosary consists in the fact that it translates the Creed into Prayer. Of course, the Creed is already in a certain sense a prayer and a great act of homage towards God, but the Rosary brings us to meditate again on the great truth of His life and death, and brings this truth close to our hearts. Even Christians, although they know God, usually fear rather than love Him. The strength of the Rosary lies in the particular manner in which it considers these mysteries, since all our thinking about Christ is intertwined with the thought of His Mother, in the relations between Mother and Son; the Holy Family is presented to us, the home in which God lived His infinite love."
As Mary said at Fatima, "Jesus wants to use you to make Me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to My Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it; these souls will be dear to God, like flowers put by Me to adorn his throne."
It is hard to believe that an entire month has passed since I began this project! Thanks to those of you (over 350 of you, apparently!) who have visited the blog, offered your prayers in support of this project, sent monetary donations (keep them coming, it's almost time to buy more Rosary-making materials!), and submitted prayer requests for me to lift in daily prayers to the Lord, through the intercession of Our Blessed Mother.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hosting a small Rosary-contruction gathering. Seven friends gave up the greater part of their Saturday to construct Holy Rosaries to be sent to overseas missionaries and American troops deployed abroad. With the Rosaries lovingly created yesterday, along with those that I have been building each morning, I am happy to report that the total constructed is rapidly approaching 100 (a portion are pictured below)! Please keep my Rosary-construction project in your prayers.
As always, God bless each of you, and may Our Blessed Mother, advocate for all mankind, lift your prayers to the Heart of Jesus.
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