"The Rosary is a means given by the Virgin to contemplate Jesus and, in meditating on his life, to love him and follow him ever more faithfully. It is this message that Our Lady has also bequeathed to us in her various apparitions.” (Benedict XVI, Angelus, October 7, 2009)
Throughout church history, Our Lady's consistent messages through approved apparitions has been to pray the Rosary daily for conversion of heart not only for ourselves and our family but also for the whole word.
Prior to the 1960s, a general practice within Catholic families was to pray the daily family rosary. Sadly in the 1970s and 1980s this practice fizzled out. During that time period through today, many Catholics grow up and lose their faith as adults. Why does this happen?
Fr. Hugh Twaites, SJ suggests:
It seems to me that a principal cause of the loss of faith is the dropping off in the practice of the family rosary ... the abandonment of the family rosary is a main reason why so many Catholics have lost the faith.... the Church of the future is going to consist solely of those families who have been faithful to the rosary. But there will be vast numbers of people whose families used to be Catholic.
(taken from the booklet, "Our Glorious Faith and How to Lose It" by Fr. Hugh Thwaites, S.J.)
"In this epidemic of adult children leaving the Faith, many older Catholics are distressed because their adult children have fallen away and their grandchildren are not being raised in the Faith. Many of these older people are devout, daily communicants who don't understand how this happened.
Fr. Thwaites has an explanation. He tells of a man, "a great Catholic, the pillar of the parish, whose children had all lapsed, one after the other. They had all fallen away from the sacraments and from attending Mass." The man admitted that once he had a family of his own, worldly distractions slowly but surely took the place of the family rosary. "When the rosary goes, the faith soon collapses," warns Fr. Thwaites." (Quote from https://www.catholicmom.com/articles/2013/11/08/the-family-that-prays-the-rosary-together)
On the other hand, parents who make the commitment to pray the Rosary daily can recount a miraculous growth of faith, joy and peace within their marriages and in the lives of their children and grandchildren.
"Many saints have written about the power of the Rosary to protect against the devil. Saint Padre Pio called it the "weapon for these times." Saint Josemaria Escriva urged us to "use it with confidence." Saint Louis Marie de Montfort promised that "if you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory." Saint Therese admitted that " the recitation of the rosary is more difficult for me than the wearing of an instrument of penance," but she persisted with the sure hope that Our Blessed Mother knew her good will. We don't need to go through a litany of evils that are destroying the world but we need to know how to combat those evils within our families. "As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live." (St. Pope John-Paul II)
A family that falls away from the Faith is a destroyed family, no matter how successful or upstanding it appears to the world. Nothing accelerates that destruction faster than the absence of the rosary in family life. In August, 2013, Pope Francis reminded us that “Mary joins us, she fights at our side. She supports Christians in the fight against the forces of evil. Especially through prayer, through the rosary. Hear me out, the rosary... Do you pray the rosary each day?”
(Excerpt from https://www.catholicmom.com/articles/2013/11/08/the-family-that-prays-the-rosary-together)
How Should we Respond to the Call?
Our parishes of St. Mary's and St. Agnes/St. Paul have had the same experiences as those recounted above. We have seen a steady decline in the number of parishioners attending Mass regularly and in the number of active families with children.
During this time of Eucharistic Revival, we may be experiencing a sense of hopelessness, wondering HOW we can reach those we love with the message of the Gospel and the gift of the Eucharist.
The answer is to turn to the Blessed Mother, to become spiritual warriors interceding daily on behalf of our family members who have fallen away. The Blessed Mother has an immense desire that ALL men should come to know her Son; her prayers for them through our offering of the Rosary are extraordinarily powerful.
As a parishioner, you are being asked to become a warrior for our parish family and your own family members: commit to pray the Rosary daily for the intention of bringing family members and parishioners back to the practice of the Faith and back to Jesus in the Eucharist.
How can I pray the Rosary daily with my busy life?
For most of us, the idea of praying the Rosary daily seems an impossible task. On one level, praying the rosary seems like one of the simplest, most basic things a Catholic family can do yet when we try it at home we often encounter many little irritations which get in the way of success. Can you pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time? It’s a rare person who can do it on the first try. Most of us would need to practice long and hard to train our hands to do two different things simultaneously. It’s like this with the rosary; your voice is reciting the prayers while your mind is thinking about a mystery and your fingers are keeping track on the beads. Factor in self-imposed distractions (wandering thoughts), and outside distractions (wandering kids, family members, phone calls) and it’s no wonder we can easily become frustrated!
Below are some tips for training yourself and your family to pray the Rosary:
- Have reasonable expectations and attainable goals (don’t expect to get through a whole Rosary on the first try!)
- Memorize the Rosary prayers (Our Father, Glory be, Hail Mary).
- Ask the Blessed Mother to pray for your success.
- Use a prayer aid or app such as:
- Daily Rosary Meditations
- Family Rosary App
- Family Rosary's Mobile Rosary App
- The Catholic Rosary App
- Daily Holy Rosary Prayers App
- iRosary App
- Learn how to pray the Rosary here.
“The family that recites the Rosary together reproduces something of the atmosphere of the household of Nazareth: its members place Jesus at the center; they share his joys and sorrows; they place their needs and their plans in his hands; they draw from him the hope and the strength to go on … It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this prayer the growth and development of children … To pray the Rosary for children, and even more, with children, training them from their earliest years to experience this daily “pause for prayer” with the family, is admittedly not the solution to every problem, but it is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated.” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae (RVM) 41, 42)
