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."



May 17: Saint Restituta of Carthage

Posted by Jacob

“Loose me, O Love, and let me willing go; Our life was love, and love be ours in death;
Plead now no more with eyes that are my sun,
A sun that’s setting towards a night begun.
Loose me, and let me with the waters flow
To darkness where yon red star beckoneth!


“O tenderly beloved, my love hath been
Idolatrous. Dear eyes too much adored,
The murdered Christ, our Master, Love Divine,
Hath raised His cross above thy gaze and mine
And set His own thorn-covered brow between
Two shuddering souls, Love’s Martyr and their Lord.


“O eyes of love, lift up! Dear eyes, look high
And seek for these no more, but stay on Him;
Sad longing lips, grow sweet and straight with prayer,
And mourn not my departure otherwhere,
Betwixt the lonely sea and threatening sky.
O passionate lips and eyes, grow meek and dim!”


They struck her speaking on her patient mouth
To silence, and from one in chains withdrawn,
Tore her and set her sweet eyes toward the sea,
Her gentle body unresistingly
Laid on the rotting hulk turned facing south,
And bound her thus with bare brow towards the dawn.


Flung were the long veils of her golden hair
Over the hulk to gild its shapeless prow,
And forth it went, a strange rich argosy:
“Now by the winds and waves go hence and die,
Ponder alone in terror and despair
The vain delusion of the Christian’s vow!”


Through sighing midnight outward darkly drove
The tide from Carthage, bearing on its breast
A living maid upon her funeral bier.
‘Mid sounds of death, poor quivering eye and ear
Alive to catch the last farewells of love
In solitary anguish, can ye not close and rest?”


(“Saint Restituta, Virgin-Martyr,” Rosa Mulholland, 1887)


Today, May 17, we celebrate the feast of Saint Restituta of Carthage (died 304), Virgin Martyr of the Church. Little is known about the life of Saint Restituta, but the facts of her heroic martyr’s death have been preserved throughout history.

Restituta was born in North Africa near Carthage, and lived a life of Christian virtue there. Still young, she had committed herself to Christ in marriage, vowing a life of chastity and temperance. In the last third century, during the reign of Emperor Diocletian, Christian communities were actively targeted for persecution. Among these communities was the Christian community at Carthage (in the city of Abitina), where a large number of Christians continued to meet to celebrate the Eucharist, despite prohibition by the emperor.

During one such Eucharistic celebration, fifty Christians were caught, arrested, and dragged in chains back to Carthage to be executed. Among these fifty was Restituta. Legend tells us that she was tortured more severely than her companions, likely due to her youth and beauty, and the expectation that she would recant the faith under pressure. After refusing to perform pagan sacrifices, she was covered in tar, tied to a blazing boat, and set adrift to perish at sea. Miraculously, she was unharmed by the flames, but died adrift at sea.

"Pancratium Maritimum," the lilies of Santa Restituta
(also known as sea daffodils)
It was not much later that a Christian woman, Lucina, was led by an angel to the shores of Ischia, where Restituta’s incorrupt body washed ashore. There, Lucina found the beach covered with fragrant flowers—the lilies of Santa Restituta (Pancratium Maritimum), and the body of the holy martyr. Lucina gathered the population together and the saint was solemnly buried in sanctuary dedicated to her. Eventually, her relics were translated to Naples, and a grand church, Santa Restituta, was built in her honor (sixty century). Each year, the story of Restituta is recalled for three days in May by the island community of Ischia, where an ancient wooden statue of the Saint is processed through the streets of town.






Year 2: Day 136 of 365
Prayer Intentions: Truth and courage, inspired by faith.
Requested Intentions: For personal intentions (A); Restoration of lost hearing (C); Resolution of relational and financial challenges (S); Comfort following loss of husband, security for family, assistance with housing (B); Healing and return of brother (O); Successful hermitage foundation (S); Support from family, permission to marry (H); Recovery of wife following surgery, freedom from depression (W); Protection and recovery of mentally ill daughter (J); Successful resolution to legal proceedings (N); Freedom from worry and successful employment (M); For successful sale of home and freedom from debt (J); Freedom from pain and illness (E); For successful living arrangements, travels, health, and studies (F); Healing, successful studies, financial success (F); For husband’s successful employment (Y); For children’s faith journey; Recovery of a friend suffering from addiction (M); Successful employment (P); Obedience to the will of the Lord (J); Financial recovery (S); Freedom from evil influence (I); Recovery from illness (J); Freedom from addiction (J); Successful transplant surgery (K); Healing for a daughter (T); Acceptance into school (V); Successful immigration; for a sister’s career and marriage (F); Financial recovery; Successful ministry (A); Financial ability to send children to school (S); Safe return of a runaway (J); Healing of a family (J).

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