PRAYING THE ROSARY NEEDS TO BE A YEAR-ROUND PRACTICE THAT YOUR FAMILY DOES TOGETHER

Although praying the Rosary is sometimes only thought of during the months of May (the month of Mary) and October (the month of the Rosary), it needs to be a year-round practice. The immediate effects of praying the Rosary on a regular basis are this will strengthen your relationship with Our Lord and will provide beneficial prayers for your special intentions as you pray – be it praying for the sick people in your lives or praying for the future well-being of your family members. The long-term effect of praying the Rosary – if done as a family – is you and your kids will greatly improve your chances to get into heaven.

As far as sacramentals go, nothing says Catholic more than Rosary beads, and every child should not only own their own Rosary beads, but there should be a regular time for parents to pray the Rosary with their children. This is certainly being counter-cultural in today’s society. “None of my friends’ parents make their kids pray the Rosary!” is probably the truest statement your child ever will scream at you when you tell them to put down the video game controller and pick up the beads.

Being realistic, I’m not saying I expect today’s parents to pray with their children five decades of the Rosary daily – although that would be wonderful and amazing. But a regular pattern of praying could be in the form of a family always praying the Rosary aloud together one night a week and/or making it your family’s habit to always pray the Rosary together in the car when taking any road trip that is going to last an hour or longer. At a good pace, it only takes 17 minutes to pray five decades. You can promise the kids they can go back to fighting in the car with their siblings or can put their earbuds back in after the 17-minute timeout for family prayer.

If you need a quick refresher on how to use your beads to pray the Rosary, here is a quick resource. To help keep you kids engaged when you pray as a family, have them take turns during the recitation of each decade of being the family’s leader of reciting the first half of the Our Father and/or the Hail Mary.

Popes have strongly promoted the Rosary as a means of deepening one’s faith. Saint Pope Pius X said:

“The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God, and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.”

Saint Pope John Paul II called the Rosary Mary’s prayer “in which she herself prays with us.” His words are a good way to explain to non-Catholics that we aren’t praying to Mary when we say the Rosary; we are asking Mary to pray for us, as we say, “…holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…” Asking Mary to pray for us is like how someone who is sick might ask you, “Can you pray for me?” We appreciate their prayers. Just how much more special is it that the greatest human of all time – the mother of God – would pray for us?!

Let me make one more push for encouraging you as the parent to pray the Rosary on a regular basis (daily is best) and also to get your family to pray it as often as possible (at least monthly). Type in “Rosary miracles” on your internet search engine and start reading the incredible, true stories of people attributing remarkable things to praying the Rosary. 

Most Catholics have heard of the Rosary story of what took place at Fatima and the Miracle of the Sun. But have you also read the miracle of the eight priests who were in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped but they suffered no harm from the radiation, attributing their good fate to daily praying of the Rosary? 

Did you ever hear about Bartolo Longo who was not only a fallen-away Catholic, but he even turned to satanism? He was saved when he went to Confession and then prayed the Rosary, and in turn he tirelessly worked for the rest of his life to promote the Rosary, to build a Basilica, schools, and orphanages, and is now on the path to being canonized a saint.

Did you even know that the Rosary is connected with Ted Bundy, the notorious serial killer who began his grisly murders in the 1970’s in the same county (King County in Washington) I lived at the time as a student? Soon before he was executed in 1989 for numerous murders, Bundy explained why during a night 10 years earlier when he approached three sleeping women in their sorority house, he only murdered two, and stopped from murdering the third. He explained that a “feeling of mysterious power prevented me.” It ended up that that third woman who was saved had fallen asleep with Rosary beads in her hands after praying the Rosary when going to bed.

These are just some of the countless miracles connected with praying the Rosary. I urge you to pray with renewed confidence and vigor in your households!

Of course, I realize with today’s generation of kids, you will get more cooperation and smiles with your child if you hand him or her a cell phone than if you hand out Rosary beads. But no one said parenting was going to be smooth sailing, and it’s the difficult and hard path that leads to eternal life. Jesus made this clear when He said:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

Recall the night Jesus suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he prayed about His crucifixion to come that next day. He exasperatingly asked of those who loved Him but fell asleep, “Could you not spend an hour!?” Today, we are the disciples who love Jesus, but if He were to ask us this same question, could we honestly say that of course we could stay awake at least one hour and devote the time to praying with Jesus? 

If the average parent today was asked to spend an hour driving their children to and from their piano or swimming lessons, these parents would willingly agree to do so. If the average person today was asked to spend an hour waiting in line for the Black Friday store selling low price big screen TVs to open its doors, these people would eagerly spend this time waiting. If the average adult today was asked to devote an entire weekend binge-watching a Netflix series…or an entire evening cruising Facebook and Instagram…there would be no hesitation to spend all that time on their screens.

And yet, when was that last time that same average person spent an hour at Sunday Mass, spent 60 minutes in Eucharistic Adoration, or even took as little as 17 minutes to pray the Rosary? It’s not that I’m saying it is not important to drive your kids or to treat yourself to some leisure time. I’m just saying it is important to deliberate and check your priorities.

Sit down with your children if they whine about having to pray the Rosary or go to church and see if you can get them to agree that Jesus Christ deserves at least some of our time each week. After all, His other titles include the Savior of the World, the Alpha and Omega, and the Head Over All Things. I’d say those titles make Him a little more important than the latest pop star or soccer star, whom your kid would have no problem spending considerable time watching.