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."



Our Lady of Banneux, Virgin of the Poor

Posted by Jacob


Today marks the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Blessed Mother at Banneux, Belgium. On January 15, 1933, eleven year old Mariette Beco, the eldest of seven children born to a poor Belgian family, was reportedly looking for her younger brother Julien, who was late to arrive home. At around seven o’clock in the evening, while staring out her kitchen window, Mariette was surprised to see the luminous figure of a beautiful young woman. Mariette described this woman as “made of light.” She was dressed in white, with a light blue sash, and a golden Rosary over her arms which were joined in prayer.


While the Beco family was Catholic, they neither went to church nor prayed. Mariette had years earlier found a Rosary on the street, and always carried it with her, although she did not know how to pray with it. Upon spotting the woman through her window, Mariette called out to her mother, “Our Blessed Lady is smiling at me.” Mariette removed her Rosary from her pocket and began to pray while watching the apparition. The Blessed Virgin’s lips were moving, but Mariette could not understand her, and felt called outside to be closer to the apparition. Her mother, however, unable to discern the figure her daughter saw, forbade her to leave the house out of fear.


Mariette told her father, friends, and the local priest the following morning what she had seen, but was greeted with disbelief.

Our Lady of Banneux, the Virgin of the Poor, would appear to Mariette seven more times over the course of the next month. Her message each time was to pray for the poor, the sick, for sinners.


From the official site of Our Lady of Banneux, a prayer for intercession:

Blessed Virgin of the Poor, lead us to Jesus, Source of grace.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, save all nations.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, relieve the sick.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, alleviate suffering.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, pray for each one of us.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, we believe in you.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, believe in us.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, we will pray hard.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, bless us.
Blessed Virgin of the Poor, Mother of the Saviour Mother of God, we thank You.


Mary, Virgin of the Poor,
You lead us to Jesus, source of grace, and you come to alleviate our suffering.
We implore you with confidence: Help us to folow you Son with generosity, and to belong to Him unreservedly.
Help us to welcome the Holy Spirit Who guides and sanctifies us.
Obtain us the grace to look like Jesus everyday more, so that our life will glorify the Father and contribute to the salvation of our Brothers. Amen.



As with other Marian apparitions, on the anniversaries of each time Our Blessed Mother visited Mariette in Belgian, I will write about her message.

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