March / April 2008   
President's Message  

Click Here To Download a Printable PDF version

Dear Rosary Makers,

The Incarnation (Christmas), the Passion and Death of Christ, the Resurrection (Easter) and some ordinary (time) life of Christ involved for good measure will seldom come closer together than they are poised to do so in this Church year. There is a set of circumstances whereby these events do come closer together and that is in the daily recitation of the Rosary.

Having said this, my thoughts of late once again were born of the daily Mass readings. The Gospel readings were parables related to the sowing of seed. These parables planted the seed in my mind that the Rosary, in particular your mission Rosaries, were just that; seed scattered and sown, both in the form of the beads and the prayers they generate.

With the above thoughts in mind, I would like to share the following with you from Archbishop Dolan of Milwaukee. First, a little story.

I had read these remarks of Archbishop Dolan on the Rosary Evangelization Apostolate website, www.rosaryea.org, a few months ago. I printed them as I thought they were something well worth sharing with rosary makers at some point in time. The clincher came that this was the time, when I read the following at the bottom of the page:

The above Message is from “Some Seed Fell on Good Ground” which is Archbishop Dolan’s personal communication to those with whom he shares ministry in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. For this reason, it is not to be printed in bulletins or newsletters without the prior permission of the Department for Communication.

With prior permission in hand, and with the thoughts above, I am pleased to pass on the Archbishop’s remarks.

"As I meet our teachers in Catholic schools, our catechists in our programs of religious education, and our parents, I learned about some of the challenges facing them these days.

Archbishop, we really need to teach our children to pray…

Our kids do not even know the life, events, and teaching of Jesus…

Do you know of any new methods, or books, or programs to help us…?

Well, no…I don’t know of any new methods. I do know of one thousands of years old that might help…

The Rosary.

Yep, the rosary. Think about it: if our children learn the rosary, they would know by heart the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be, the basic prayers of our faith. They would learn that prayer is simple, scriptural, in union with Mary, leading to an absorption into the mysteries of our salvation. So, we could teach them to pray.

If our children knew the rosary, they would know the basics of the life, teaching, death, resurrection, and glorification of Jesus as they learn the twenty mysteries of the rosary.

I know it’s not the answer to all our catechetical challenges; I realize it has difficulties of its own; I admit it does not appeal to everybody.

But I still propose to you that the rosary is not only an effective, beautiful prayer, but a remarkably effective catechetical tool.

After all, St Dominic utilized it in successfully preaching against a popular belief of his day, called Albigensianism that denied the reality of the Incarnation.

So, let’s give it a try again today…"

The Rosary Almanac said this was about the earliest Easter can be and advised seeds be planted early and often regardless of the phase of the moon in order to reap a bountiful harvest all year long.

Michael A Ford
President