I hear from people, especially men, that
they're really not into the rosary
because they consider it something that
only old ladies do in church, or nuns do
in a convent, or that people do in
funerals.
There have been numerous men who have
championed the rosary throughout the
last 800 years. Blessed Alan de la Roche
revived the rosary devotion and helped
to spread it all throughout Europe.
St. Louis de Montfort wrote one of the
greatest books on the rosary and did so
much good to promote the rosary.
St. Pope Pius V who asked all of
Christianity to pray the rosary
so that Rome and the Vatican would not
be taken over by radical Islam and he
attributed that victory, the saving of
Christianity, and Western civilization to
the rosary. It was also that same century,
the 16th century, that the great
missionaries went out to the whole world
and when they went to Mexico and South
America and India and the Far East, they
took the rosary and they basically
taught the people the faith through those
blessed beads. When Our Lady,
the Virgin Mary, gave the rosary to the
world in the thirteenth century,
she actually entrusted it to a man to
St. Dominic Guzman, who was a great
priest, a very holy priest, she told him
that it would be a spiritual weapon and
she specifically said that he was to use
it as a battering ram against falsehoods.
And ever since that time there have been
many, many, countless men over the last
eight hundred years who have championed
the rosary. There's the Venerable Michael
McGivney who founded the Knights of
Columbus in 1882, he so much loved the
rosary and championed the rosary that when
a man becomes a Knight of Columbus he's
given a rosary, kind of commissioned to
be not just a Knight of Columbus but
in a certain sense a knight of Mary.
And during the Cristero War in Mexico
beginning of the 20th century, there were
many men who were Knights of Columbus
who
laid down their lives for the faith.
One of them actually, Saint Miguel de la Mora
was shot while praying his rosary.
The rosary really does have an ability to
help a man become a better man, a better
husband a better father.
You're not just providing for the
physical needs of your family but also
the spiritual needs. When children,
for example, see their father being a man of
prayer it means something profound.
So many popes, so many saints have talked
about the importance of family prayer
but especially the family rosary.
When spouses pray the rosary together they're
able to look each other in the eye
because you're exposing yourself to your
spouse. You're acknowledging that you're
not perfect. For the first 20 years of my
life I was not a Catholic. I didn't
believe in God. I didn't have any
understanding of these things when I was
at a real crisis in my life. I went to a
Catholic Church and saw these Filipino
women praying the rosary. I never heard
anything like this before, wasn't even
sure what they were doing, and they asked
me to participate. I began to go to that
church every day in the morning and I saw
those Filipino women doing the same
thing and eventually it piqued
my interest and I began to participate.
It put holy images in my mind and in my
heart. To promote the rosary you don't
have to be an author you don't have to
be a great speaker. All that's required
really is a personal love for the rosary
and a desire to make the rosary more
known. If more men were willing to do
that we would have a changed world.