By Their Fruits: The 2021 Prayer Pledge // Day 31
At the beginning of this new year, at the dawn of our time together in this year’s Prayer Pledge, we contemplated this quote about the Rosary from Blessed Bartolo Longo:
a community of women who want to grow together in prayer and community
At the beginning of this new year, at the dawn of our time together in this year’s Prayer Pledge, we contemplated this quote about the Rosary from Blessed Bartolo Longo:
Saint Josemaria Escriva said: “The Holy Rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you’ll be amazed at the results.”
I have been a faithful Catholic since I was baptized as an infant and, as difficult as it might be to believe, prior to my invitation to travel to Lourdes, France, I had never heard of Our Lady of Lourdes. I never knew that the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette in 1858, identifying herself as the Immaculate Conception, and revealing a spring of healing water that has led millions of pilgrims to travel to France praying to be healed.
I can still recall the first time I made my Saint Louis de Montfort Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. In the summer of 2008, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the ministry I worked for invited me to travel to Lourdes, France in the hopes I would be miraculously healed in the bathes of Lourdes.
As a former youth minister, I have witnessed thousands of teenagers receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. So when I became a college campus minister, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the norm on Easter Vigil when over twenty college students entered the Church. Uproarious joy, clapping, and hymns were audible after each catechumen was baptized.
About twelve years ago, I lost my vision for a week’s time. I wasn’t completely blind, more like a “Claritin” unclear commercial. At first, I was scared, then a peace rushed through my soul as I recalled Romans 12:12, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
In imaginative prayer, I often return to an undocumented moment in Jesus’ life: Jesus visiting Mary after His Resurrection.
In a small living room, my mom and dad’s closest friends from their “Marriage Encounter” days back in the ’80s gathered to pray a Rosary like they had every Monday night for years. But this night, it was different.
Traditionally, Saturdays are dedicated to Our Blessed Mother. As we conclude our meditations on the Fruits of the Sorrowful Mysteries, we can ask Our Lady of Sorrows for the grace to give ourselves—mind, will, and heart—to God.
The saints have said that at the end of our lives, we will be judged on how we have loved, especially how we have loved the most underprivileged among us. The Lord allowed Himself to be nailed to the Cross, to be humiliated and abused beyond our imagining.
Many of us have had seasons in our lives when we were not sure how we would get through the day. Faced with life’s inexplicable and sudden burdens, our legs buckle and hearts tremble. Our Lord also knew the crushing weight of darkness, of sin. He bore all of it, carrying the Holy Cross up Mount Calvary.
In the previous Mystery, we reflected on the purity of Our Lord and Our Lady’s intention: their singleheartedness. In the Crowning with Thorns we see the truth: “He was tested as we are in every way but did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
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