Catholic Motherhood | pray the rosary
My life has been so influenced and blessed by the Rosary. It was the cornerstone of my conversion to Catholicism and is part of the foundation of my faith. Recently this important prayer has been demonstrating its power again. Let me explain.
When I was a young wife and newspaper reporter in Memphis, I had an older friend who was a devout Catholic. She enjoyed sharing her faith, and I remember going to a service at her parish where I received a blue, macrame Rosary. It sat in my car’s glove box for a while, but as I began exploring Catholicism, I took it out and started learning the prayers.
The daily habit of praying the Rosary changed my mind, changed my heart, and changed my life.
The Rosary Influences Conversion
Within a year, my husband and I began the conversion process in our small-town parish. At the same time, back in my home state of Kentucky, my mother was going through a nervous breakdown that had been a long time coming. During my commute to work, I would pray the Rosary for my mother and to direct my thoughts away from worry about her condition.
During the conversion process, my husband and I also learned we were expecting our first baby. The Rosary took on an even greater significance then. I was learning so much about Mary in her role of Blessed Mother and the Church’s view of motherhood at a time when my own mother was unavailable. I read about the Church’s understanding of the family as the domestic church and the importance of the mother in the home. That, as much as anything, influenced my decision to stay home with my children when they were small. I became a busy mom rather quickly, having two children within 16 months.
When the children were very young, we prayed a decade of the Rosary with them in the evening. As they got older and life got busier, the family said short evening prayers, and I would pray a Rosary on the way to work. No matter what was going on, that time spent with Jesus and Mary was a comfort and a grace to me. But the Rosary has again taken center stage in my family's prayer, thanks to a series of fortuitous events.
Learning about Venerable Patrick Peyton
About a year ago, I became a regular contributor to CatholicMom.com after meeting some other contributors at a Catholic writers' conference. But I didn’t realize that the parent organization, Holy Cross Family Ministries, was founded by Father Patrick Peyton. Father Peyton was an Irish-born priest known internationally for his Rosary rallies and his campaign for family prayer, which included the line, “The family that prays together stays together.” The impact of his campaign for family prayer and the Rosary is nothing short of amazing.
Father Peyton's miraculous life story, which includes being healed from an advanced case of tuberculosis, is told in his autobiography, All for Her, and the movie Pray: The Story of Father Patrick Peyton. I learned those details at a recent retreat for CatholicMom.com contributors and was really moved to see how the Rosary’s influence in my continuing conversion seemed to be coming full circle.
The Faithfulness of the Blessed Mother
But Mary wasn’t quite finished. I watched the movie with my husband after I returned to Memphis from the retreat. I wasn’t sure how he would like it because he’s not a huge fan of overtly religious movies. After the movie, he just looked at me and said, “Thank you. We should do that.”
So, almost every night during Lent, we have been praying the Rosary together. We are able to share the concerns for which we are praying, and I know that this draws us closer to one another and to God.
An additional fruit of the retreat experience is that I have received an opportunity to complete a writing project based on the Rosary for a parish publication company. What a beautiful way to share my love of this powerful prayer with others. It’s an opportunity I treasure. I do most of my writing on this project early in the morning during the work week because I also have a full-time job. The time of writing and reflection is a true gift, and I am so grateful to Mary for all of her miracles in my life.
Do you have a story about the impact of the Rosary on your faith and life? I would love to hear it.
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