When I was a kid, anytime we would go on a trip in the car as a family, at some point my mother would blindside us with the announcement that it was time for the rosary. I rarely received the news well. “Ugh!” I’d think to myself, “It’s so long and repetitive and boring!” But, once we got going, it wasn’t so bad. There’s something about the recitation of the rosary in a group that it can draw in even the initially reluctant heart. So, when we’re trying to introduce the rosary into our daily routine, it helps to do it with other people – a spouse, a roommate, a friend, the parish rosary group (which meets at 7am weekdays at the Church of St. Cecilia), or even with the assistance of an online app.
The daily rosary is a devotion that every Catholic should try to adopt. As the month dedicated to the rosary, October is the perfect time to start. Pope Francis has spoken about the importance of the rosary in his life. “I often recite the Rosary before a small mosaic of Our Lady and Child, in which it appears that Mary is at the center, whereas in reality, using her hands, she becomes a sort of ladder on which Jesus can descend among us.” He continues: “As we repeat ‘Hail Mary,’ we meditate on the joyful, luminous, sorrowful, and glorious phases of Christ’s life, but also of our lives because we journey with the Lord.” It’s a prayer we can say in every season of life, and its power to promote peace in our hearts, our families, the Church, and the world has been attested to by many saints over the centuries.
Families who struggle to find time in their busy schedules to pray together might consider taking a page out of my mother’s playbook and say the rosary together when driving to different activities. A full rosary usually takes about 15 minutes, so if you have less than 20 minutes in the car, then only a decade or two would be possible. But on those weekends when the game or the recital is 45 minutes away, that’s a perfect opportunity for a full road trip rosary. Now, most kids are not going to be eager to say the rosary on the way to school or practice. They’re probably not going to respond any better than I did when their mom or dad declares that it’s time to say the rosary. But don’t let that dissuade or discourage you. Instilling a habit of prayer in one’s children is a great gift and a source of blessing in a family, even if they don’t like it at first.
Over the past several weeks we have been announcing at the end of Masses that we will be hosting what’s called a “Living Rosary” on Sunday, 10/13 at 6pm at the Marian shrine on the St. Cecilia campus. A Living Rosary is where people stand in place of the beads that you would normally use to track the prayers. For the gathering on the 13th, we hope to have enough people to represent the 53 Hail Marys, the 6 Our Fathers, the 6 Glory Be, the 1 Apostles’ Creed, and the 1 Hail Holy Queen. As each person leads the recitation of the prayer, he or she holds a lighted candle, which marks the group’s progress through the rosary. There are sign-up sheets at both churches if you’d like to be a “living bead” that night. Otherwise, you can volunteer your services when you get there. Please join us if you can.
posted 10/5/24
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 