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 has been 304 days (ten months!) since I began my year of prayer and spiritual journey. As I have posted before, I could not have anticipated the response to my little blog, and am deeply grateful to all those who have send encouraging words and prayers over the last 10 months.
A few statistics
Since beginning on January 1st of this year:
Over 14,000 readers have visited the blog.
Over 500 prayer requests have been submitted by readers
Readers from over 100 countries on 6 continents have visited
Over 800 Rosaries have been constructed and sent to missionaries and members of the armed forces in need of prayer aids
Over 1/3 of those Rosaries have been constructed thanks to the donations of readers!
But I don’t think the statistics do this project justice, really. I have received so many wonderful and beautiful emails, updating me on the situations that prayers have been requested for, and creating a web-based Catholic community spanning across the globe. These quiet moments are the miracles of my experience, and I thank each of you who have participated in some way.
I get many emails inquiring as to the future of
‘365 Rosaries: a year of prayer,’ given that the calendar year is almost over. I have no specific plan at this point. I am hoping for clarity regarding how to continue. I ask that you pray for me, that I might discern the future of this spiritual journey.
As always, thanks for reading. Keep those requests, comments, and donations coming!
Peace-
Jacob
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