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."



Looking Back on 2012, Looking Forward to 2013

Posted by Jacob


Looking Back on 2012

For many of us, myself included, 2012 was a difficult year.  Personally, for me, it was a year that brought hardship, anxiety, and doubt.  There were days where it was a struggle to find my faith.  As such, I had a little less time to blog than in previous years, although was able to maintain my daily praying of the Holy Rosary.  I have often wondered and prayed about how best to continue this blog (and whether I should continue), but I think my “answer” comes with some of the statistics from 2012:




Locations of last 500 visitors to 365 Rosaries: A Year of Prayer
With your help, I received over 1,000 prayer requests from over 100 countries around the world this year.

Over 150,000 people visited my humble blog—nearly 20,000 of them during October, the month of the Holy Rosary.

Just some of our constructed Rosaries
I received many donations, prayers, and words of encouragement, allowing the continuation of construction of Holy Rosaries for missions overseas and military personnel deployed abroad. 


If you would like to make a donation, please click on the "Donate" 
button in the left-hand margin (see picture at right).  It costs approximately $1.20 to purchase the materials for one mission-style Rosary.

Reflecting on these numbers, I feel pulled to continue this holy mission, and ask for your prayers, support, and encouragement moving forward.  Together, reflecting on 2012, we offer a prayer of Thanksgiving to our most gracious and forgiving Lord:

Father in Heaven, Creator of all and source of all goodness and love, please look kindly upon us and receive our heartfelt gratitude in this time of giving thanks.

Thank you for all the graces and blessings. You have bestowed upon us, spiritual and temporal: our faith and religious heritage. Our food and shelter, our health, the loves we have for one another, our family and friends. 

Dear Father, in Your infinite generosity, please grant us continued graces and blessing throughout the coming year. 

This we ask in the Name of Jesus, Your Son and our Brother. Amen.



 Looking Forward to 2013

As I look forward to 2013, I am excited with a new year of possibilities, only made possible through the grace and generosity of God.  A few planned “highlights” (finances permitting, of course) of the year include:

Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Pilgrimage to Mexico City, Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe:
It was my pilgrimage to the sacred grotto at Lourdes that began my mission, and I feel called to recommit to Our Blessed Mother by visiting one of the sites of her holy apparitions.  As with Lourdes, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to beckon to me, and I hope to visit during 2013. 














Church of Saint Mary Major, Rome

Visit to Rome Cathedrals and Vatican City:
My work will take me to Rome this spring, and I plan to take full advantage by visiting the Holy Sites of Rome and the Vatican City, among them the Church of Saint Paul Outside the Walls and the Basilica of Mary Major.










Interior, Church of Saint Paul Outside the Walls
Chapel of Blessed Bronislawa
Historic Churches of Krakow, Poland:
There are currently over 130 active Roman Catholic churches in Krakow, Poland, many of which are named for, and house, the relics of the saints of Eastern Europe.  Among those I hope to visit are the Chapel of Blessed Bronislawa, the Crypts of Saint Stanislaus, Church of the Transfiguration, and Basilica of Corpus Christi.
Crypts of Saint Stanislaus
Time permitting,  I hope to visit the Black Madonna of Czestochowska
Lastly, for some years, I have felt a certain inexplicable pull to visit the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland, and offer a Rosary for those who so unjustly perished during the second World War.  I feel certain that this is what I have been called to do by Our Blessed Mother, and so hope to schedule this during my spring trip to Europe. 

Of course, I will resume my blogging about the Saints, and holy men and women of our Catholic faith. 




As we look toward 2013, we lift a prayer to Our Lord, a prayer of blessing upon the new year and all that lies ahead.

O sacred and adorable Trinity, hear our prayers on behalf of our holy Father the Pope, our Bishops, our clergy, and for all that are in authority over us. Bless, we beseech Thee, during the coming year, the whole Catholic Church; convert heretics and unbelievers; soften the hearts of sinners so that they may return to Thy friendship; give prosperity to our country and peace among the nations of the world; pour down Thy blessings upon our friends, relatives, and acquaintances, and upon our enemies, if we have any; assist the poor and the sick; have pity on the souls of those whom this year has taken from us; and do Thou be merciful to those who during the coming year will be summoned before Thy judgment seat. May all our actions be preceded by Thy inspirations and carried on by Thy assistance, so that all our prayers and works, having been begun in Thee, may likewise be ended through Thee. Amen.
(source: The Daily Catholic)


May the Lord bless each of you throughout the coming year.

In Christ,
Jacob







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