After a diagnosis of aggressive cancer and during a five-week stint in the hospital she prayed the rosary.

Tammy Peterson's story

Tammy Peterson's relationship with the rosary began in 2015. She had a renal cell carcinoma diagnosis and painful arthritis that made it difficult to use stairs.

As her husband gained massive popularity as a media commentator, she struggled with daily tasks.

Then she had a second biopsy and worse news arrived.

Her cancer was far more aggressive than initially supposed. Her doctor gave her ten months to live.

That's when the rosary entered her life.

The rosary

Queenie Yu, a Catholic convert, introduced Peterson to the rosary when she visited Peterson in hospital.

She brought with her a rosary Pope Francis had blessed, as well as a pamphlet on how to pray the rosary and an image of Our Lady with baby Jesus.

"Jordan and Tammy were together at the hospital and they both thought the image was beautiful" Yu recalls.

"And when she saw the rosary, she [Tammy] said ‘Oh it's a rosary.' I said ‘Oh you know what it is' and she replied ‘Yes, but I don't know how to use it'."

She soon learned.

Over the next five weeks, while Peterson was in the hospital, she and Yu prayed the rosary together every morning and shared their thoughts about faith and family.

Today - eight years later, Peterson tells her story about her faith and health scares.

Finding God in illness

"Through my illness, I found God and what could possibly be better than knowing your own Creator?', Peterson says.

She prayed through her physical pain, she adds.

"I'd wake up at night and I'd pray the Lord's Prayer until I went back to sleep. I didn't allow myself to worry," she said.

"I pretty much prayed all night unless I was sleeping."

During her illness, one of Peterson's friends - Father Eric Nicolai - gave her a blessing and novena to Saint Josemaria Escriva who founded Opus Dei.

On the novena's fifth day, Peterson was scheduled for surgery.

That was when her doctors shared exciting news - her medical issue had resolved itself. She no longer needed surgery.

Conversion

Peterson was raised in a Protestant family. Her parents stopped attending Church however, leaving her without any religious direction.

Since her association with the rosary she's set her sights on the Catholic church. She's recently announced her intention to begin classes in the Order (formerly Rite) of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA).

The OCIA is the programme the Church uses to prepare adults who hope to become Catholic.

Her husband Jordan supports her choice.

"She's trying to aim up" he says.

"This is an extension [of] what's happened to her in recent years, of that vow she took when she first decided we were going to get married.

"It's a crucial thing to commit to the truth."

Through her trials and health battles, Tammy Peterson says she has gained a powerful testimony to her faith in the Lord.

She plans to become a baptised member of the Catholic Church at Easter once she has completed her OCIA classes.

Source

• ChurchPop

"My mission is to spread the power of the rosary and our faith to the world through my business," Henry says.

It all started a few years ago when a friend made Henry an Irish penal rosary made up of just one-decade, a type used when Catholicism was illegal in Ireland.

Henry was so enthralled with the gift he immediately started an online business (Rings of the Lord) making and selling classic and Irish penal rosaries.

He says the rosary his friend gave him is beautiful, though not fragile.

"You could tell there was a lot of care put into it just by holding it.

"The beads are brass, so it felt really nice just to hold it in your hands. It looked pretty at the same time.

"You didn't think it was going to break on you, and you wouldn't have to order four rosaries a year.

"I think that's what really stuck out to me, that you could have one rosary that's both durable and beautiful at the same time.

"We use amazing materials like bronze and brass and sterling silver. Our rosaries are all very, very durable. So once you buy a rosary, you're probably not going to need a new one for a very long time."

Irish penal rosaries

An Irish penal rosary looks much like a typical rosary.

There are several significant difference, though.

The rosaries were designed to avoid detection during the Irish penal period (1695-1829) when the practice of Catholicism was outlawed.

The arms of the crucifix are shorter than is typical. This makes the rosary fit more comfortably in a closed palm.

The ring on the end of the rosary looks like one worn as a piece of jewellery. It can be moved from one finger to the next, helping the user track the decades as the rosary is prayed.

History, faith and mission

Henry says he was immediately captivated by the penal rosary's history.

The symbolism of the crucifix represents the Passion, he says. Images along the crucifix mark out a ladder, spear, hammer, crown of thorns, chalice and the wounds of Christ.

While his business is still at a fledgling stage, Henry is selling rosaries across the world, getting on with his mission to spread the Catholic faith.

Henry has also begun creating a rosary map - tracking rosary miracles and saints with a particular connection to the rosary.

He said the map, which is still in its early stages, was inspired by the Eucharistic miracle map maintained by Blessed Carlo Acutis. This was the Italian Catholic youth who died in 2006 at 15 years of age and is best known for documenting Eucharistic miracles and cataloguing them on a website he created.

Source

• The Pillar

Daniel Panneton claimed, "The rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or ‘rad-trad') Catholics." Read more

The 30-second clip of The Men's Rosary Crusade on the forecourt of St Mary's Cathedral in the heart of Sydney's CBD is now taking social media by storm … literally.

Filmed on a phone in atrocious weather conditions, around 100 men prayed the Rosary on their knees for around an hour while torrential rain bucketed down around them.

Daniel Ang, the Director of the Archdiocese of Sydney's Centre for Evangelisation, said the huge response proves "God really is present in our lives and in our city".

"Some might baulk at such a scene, but the response it has elicited speaks to the power of Christian witness," he said. Continue reading

At the time, living with her family in New Zealand, Naomi was a believer but unbaptised, wandering the online wilderness through "anti-Catholic" websites searching for "something more".

"My family's not Catholic," the Queensland University of Technology law and justice student said, "and I never went to church for the first 16 years of my life."

"I always believed in God but couldn't explain it."

She encountered a Catholic writer online who said to pray and go to church.

"‘Pray?'" she remembered thinking, "I'd never thought of that. Okay, I'll do that."

It was Easter of last year, and she was going to church regularly, when the people in the pews around her stood up to renew their baptismal promise and, seeing that, she said she "felt this longing".

"I want to be baptised," she said.

Naomi approached the priest after Mass and asked to be baptised - to the priest's chagrin. "He said, ‘Actually, we baptise people during Easter'."

Naomi couldn't wait a whole year.

She went through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and, after postponing because of the death of her grandmother, she was baptised, confirmed - with the name Mary - and received First Holy Communion in August 2018.

She had moved from New Zealand, leaving her high school friends behind, to study in Brisbane and lived with her brothers who studied at University of Queensland.

Her brothers were atheists and she lacked family support in her faith.

Her family thought she read her Bible too much, her mum was worried she was getting too involved in her faith and her dad said going to church every week was "extremist".

She struggled with theological roadblocks too.

Online, where she had self-catechised for years, she found many Protestant websites attacking Catholic beliefs about Mary.

"The Protestants would say, ‘They (Catholics) worship Mary - you shouldn't do that'," she said.

That sounds right, she said at the time.

But then the Catholic websites would say they didn't worship her, which would only add confusion.

Naomi struggled, and continues to struggle, with Mary.

At university she joined QUT Freedom ministry, and was soon invited to pray in a Rosary group.

"I don't know what the Rosary is," she remembered thinking but she went along anyway.

Someone there asked if she needed some Rosary beads to pray with and offered her a set.

The shape and the beads looked familiar and she said, "I think I have one of those."

She reached around her neck and pulled off the necklace her mum had given her years ago.

"That was pretty amazing," Naomi said.

"God gives you things that you don't even realise you need until years later".

"God's given you so much already, and I look back on my life, I realise God was always with me; I just didn't see it."

Naomi recently started a consecration to Mary.

"Now I'm at the point where I'm like, ‘Okay, time to pray the Rosary, anyone want to pray it with me?'" she said.

"I think it's nice because I never had a mum I could pray with. And now I have a mum that's in the Church, not even that, she's up there." Continue reading

They will be praying will be to defend life, from conception to natural death.

On the same day parishes, groups, families and people of good will gather in Wellington to take part in the National March for Life.

They will gather at the Civic Square at 2 pm and march down Lambton Quay to Parliament grounds where the rosary will be prayed on the Parliament Lawn.

The Rosary Crusade organisers are hoping that all who can, will travel to Wellington to join the March for Life.

But those who cannot get to Wellington for the March for Life can join the Rosary Crusade prayers at various other locations throughout the country.

The organizers are looking for people to lead the Rosary Crusade programme in their locality.

You can contact Clare on 022 1912 886 or clarests4@gmail.com to register your group or visit rosarycrusade.co.nz

Bishop Patrick Dunn is a patron of the Pro-Life Rosary Crusade, and four other New Zealand bishops, have offered us their prayerful support.

For more information on the National March for Life, visit march for life.nz, contact Michael on 021 825 955 or email him at michael@fli.org.nz

Supplied
Michael Loretz
Education Director
Family Life International NZ

Clare Dargaville
National Organizer
NZ Rosary Crusade

John Mallon, who helped organise a Rosary on the Coast event last Sunday afternoon said he thinks this is because "young people crave stability in a world that often changes quicker due to technological advances."

The event was held in 350 locations in the British Isles .

"The timeless traditions of the Church - an inheritance of 2000 years - is not something to gather dust but are to be at our disposal for us to grow spiritually," Mallon says. Read more

The women's ordeal started last week when ISIS fighters entered the church-run sanctuary in Kirkuk where the women were living.

Kirkuk is about 60 kilometres to the south of Mosul.

Speaking through an interpreter, the women said it was about 4am when they heard gunfire and explosions outside.

Hearing people in the building, the women, who had already wrapped themselves in blankets to protect themselves from stray bullets, hid and prayed the rosary.

The fighters then came into the room the women were hiding in, using it as a refuge to eat, pray and hide from Iraqi Army forces.

They also used the beds to care for two of their fighters who were wounded.

"Father, help us," one of them texted Father Roni Momika, a young priest in Erbil who ministers to displaced Christians.

"Are you in contact with the army?"

"Pray to the Virgin Mary. She will protect you" he replied.

I was speaking with them all the time," Momika says.

He says there was "a strong girl" who told him "Father, I will continue speaking with you and tell you all our news and what ISIS is saying."

Momika and the young women say their survival is a miracle as ISIS didn't see them.

Afterwards, one of the girls told Momika "when ISIS entered our room, they didn't see us [and] we feel that the Virgin Mary closed their eyes from seeing us."

Source

• CNN
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Holy Mass images

There is a companion booklet with writings from Baxter, Aubert, Mere Hohepa, Jessie Munro and others as well as Stoneman's own writing.

Stoneman, who is based in Patea, has visited Hiruharama a number of times and her most recent visits have been as an informal artist in residence.

"It is a unique and special place," she says. "I feel different when I am there - my thoughts are clearer, not so restless. Perceptions around space and time change. The air is different."

Stoneman says she relished the stillness and calm of Jerusalem and it was not an easy place to leave.

Stoneman is not Catholic but has a "thing about Mary" which she says was likely inspired by time spent with her Catholic grandparents.

She said they took her to church a few times when she was a child. She remembers her fascination with the ritual and ceremony, the scale and beauty of the church, the symbols, incense, intense light and ... "Mary everywhere.

"One Christmas I had to walk the aisle between pews to kneel beside the manger and I was uncomfortable with the overdressed church children. The songs all seemed to have the same tune. I just zoned out; staring at Mary."

Stoneman recently inherited her grandmother's rosary beads. They are cut glass, a dusty wine colour.

She used them to create the cyantype series Luminous Mysteries which she features in her exhibition... "exposed by the milky winter light at noon, cast through the convent sash windows.

"I got carried away with the repetition and timing the light, an art of meditation, gently calming while allowing the mind to wander, or be still."

View some of the works in the exhibition

Source

• Wanganui Chronicle
• NZPoetryShelf
• Space Gallery

This decidedly masculine rosary apparently was commissioned by the U.S. government and distributed upon request to soldiers, sailors and Marines during World War I. Read more

It's still there because I identified with a Mercy Sister's concern about a prayer added after each decade of the Rosary: ‘O my Jesus forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are in most need of God's mercy'

Sr Olive McConville of Co. Down says that meditations on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus should fill us with peace and gratitude, not fear of punishment by a vengeful God who has to be appeased.

I totally agree with her.

The Rosary for me is a beautiful familiar road and this bleak addition is a huge pot-hole in it. It has nothing to do with the God I know, who holds us in unconditional love.

There was no mention of hell in the Old Testament. In the Gospels, hell is parable based on Gehenna, the big rubbish dump outside Jerusalem. It burned day and night and was a horrible place. Corpses were thrown on it, and sometimes, people who were not dead.

Those images of Gehenna were carried over in the early church to extract obedience and social order from the faithful. But in effect, they created a false God.

Today we see hell as the egoic state of mind that locks us into a prison of selfishness. Hell, for us, comes from a failure to love, a failure to forgive. Our remedy for the ‘hell' we know, is the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Praying the mysteries of the Rosary also takes us out of that self-absorbed state. The decades are about a God who loved the world so much he chose to become one of us. "As the Father has loved me, so I love you. Remain in my love."

Do we dare to use human standards to question or even try to measure God's love?

So yes, I do cringe when I hear the beautiful Rosary turned into a fear-filled lament to a small, punitive God.

Recently though, I've found a book that brings the traditional Rosary to a larger place. This is "Praying the Rosary - a journey through Scripture and art" by Denis McBride CSsR. It is published by Liguori Publications.

It is a book of beauty, appropriate for the greatest love story ever told. Each decade has a reading from the New Testament followed by a meditation. There is a fine reproduction of a classical painting illustrating the mystery, a note about the painting and, finally, a prayer.

It doesn't matter if we are new to the Rosary, have had a life-long devotion to it, or see it as ‘old hat.' Denis McBride uses scripture, prayer art to take us directly to our heart space, and like Mary we feel ourselves pregnant with God. This is a life-enhancing book that takes us and the Rosary to a new class in life school.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

"On hearing the news of the earthquake that has struck central Italy and which has devastated many areas and left many wounded, I cannot fail to express my heartfelt sorrow and spiritual closeness to all those present in the zones afflicted," Francis said.

He offered his condolences to all who have lost loved ones, and his expressed his spiritual closeness to those who are "anxious and afraid." Read more

A few years back, however, something stood out to me, that makes me think that the "soul" of the rosary was always present in the Apostles' prayer. Continue reading

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri diocese, in Borno State, recounted the details of his vision to a conference in Spain this month.

The Catholic News Agency reported the bishop saying that vision occurred late last year.

Bishop Dashe was praying the Rosary in his chapel, in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

In the vision, the prelate said, Jesus didn't say anything at first, but extended a sword toward him, and he in turn reached out for it.

"As soon as I received the sword, it turned into a rosary," the bishop said, adding that Jesus then told him three times: "Boko Haram is gone."

"I didn't need any prophet to give me the explanation," he said.

"It was clear that with the Rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram."

The bishop said he didn't want to tell anyone, but "felt that the Holy Spirit was pushing him to do so".

In 2009, there were around 125,000 Catholics in his diocese.

After a surge in violence from Boko Haram Islamist extremists, today "there are only 50 to 60 thousand left", he said.

Most of those who fled sought safer areas in other parts of Nigeria, he added.

Some of the same families are now returning as armed forces from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon liberate their homes.

In 2014, Boko Haram became known worldwide when members kidnapped nearly 300 girls from a school in Borno State.

The group has killed 1000 people across Nigeria in the first three months of 2015, according to Human Rights Watch, which reports that more than 6000 have died in Boko Haram-led violence since 2009.

Last month, the group pledged its allegiance to ISIS - also known as the Islamic State.

Nigeria's bishops' conference has consecrated the country to the Virgin Mary twice in recent years.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Aleteia

James Foley, 40, was the oldest of five children in a Catholic family in New Hampshire.

Working for the Global Post and AFP, he was kidnapped in Syria in 2012.

Commenting on his shocking killing, the Pope's senior communications advisor Greg Burke pointed to an article wrote describing Mr Foley's faith in captivity.

Mr Foley wrote for Marquette University, where he once studied, describing how his faith sustained him when he was previously kidnapped by pro-Gaddafi forces in Libya in 2011.

After being in captivity for 45 days, Mr Foley wrote: "I prayed my mom would know I was OK. I prayed I could communicate through some cosmic reach of the universe to her.

"I began to pray the Rosary. It was what my mother and grandmother would have prayed. I said 10 Hail Marys between each Our Father.

"It took a long time, almost an hour to count 100 Hail Marys off on my knuckles. And it helped to keep my mind focused.

"Clare (my colleague) and I prayed together out loud. It felt energising to speak our weaknesses and hopes together, as if in a conversation with God, rather than silently and alone."

He wrote that prayer enabled his inner freedom.

After the Islamic State posted the video of Mr Foley's murder online, his mother, Diane, wrote on the Free James Foley Facebook page: "We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages."

"Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.

"We thank Jim for all the joy he gave us. He was an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person."

Mr Foley's family was visited by their parish priest on August 19, who left without speaking to reporters.

Islamic State has threatened to kill other kidnapped journalists unless the US stops airstrikes against their forces in Iraq.

US President Barack Obama said that "no just God" would stand for what the jihadists had done.

"ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day," he said.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Marquette University
• Image: Marquette University

Each decade (or "mystery") of the Rosary is paired with an exercise designed to build a particular virtue, like humility, love of neighbor, material detachment, sacrifice and joy.

Participants reflect on the mysteries silently while following along with each exercise.

The brain child of Colleen Scariano and Deanne Miller, parishioners at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Carmel, Indiana. Continue reading

"I now want to suggest a medicine.

'What?' you ask, 'the pope is now a pharmacist?'" Francis said, shaking a box resembling a pack of tablets, after reciting the traditional Sunday Angelus prayer from a window overlooking the square.

Labeled "Misericordina, 59 Beads for the Heart" and emblazoned with an image of the human heart, the box contains a rosary and instructions in several languages.

"Can be used once a day, but in case of emergency can be taken as much as the soul needs," the instruction leaflet says, adding: "The dose is the same for adults and children."

The unusual medicine box was inspired by followers of Polish nun Mary Faustina Kowalska, who was made a saint in 2000 and is known as the Apostle of Divine Mercy, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.

"Don't forget to take your medicine, because it is good for the heart, the soul, the whole life," the pontiff said. Source: GMA News

The Rainbow Sash Movement called off the same-sex marriage Rosary after Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, denounced it as "blasphemous".

The movement had called on its supporters to mount a "loud Catholic presence for marriage equality" in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, just before the 5.15pm Mass, to wrap up a daylong rally in support of legislation that had stalled in the state legislature.

"It is blasphemy to show disrespect or irreverence to God or to something holy," declared Bishop Paprocki.

"Since Jesus clearly taught that marriage as created by God is a sacred institution between a man and a woman (see Matthew 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-9), praying for same-sex marriage should be seen as blasphemous, and as such will not be permitted in the cathedral.

"People wearing a rainbow sash or who otherwise identify themselves as affiliated with the Rainbow Sash Movement will not be admitted into the cathedral and anyone who gets up to pray for same-sex marriage in the cathedral will be asked to leave.

"Of course, our cathedral and parish churches are always open to everyone who wishes to repent their sins and ask for God's forgiveness," he said.

Bishop Paprocki was aware of the risks in opposing the homosexual movement.

Earlier this year, during a debate on same-sex marriage with gay rights advocate Sister Jeannine Gramick, he revealed that his former secretary had been murdered by a gay activist.

He said the secretary, Mary Stachowicz, a 51-year-old mother of four, was beated, stabbed and strangled by a gay co-worker after she urged him to change his lifestyle.

Sources:

LifeSiteNews

Chicago Sun-Times

LifeSiteNews

Image: The Raw Story

This is a typical example of the 497 men being ordained to the priesthood in the United States this year, according to a survey conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

According to the survey, 81 per cent of the new US priests came from families in which both parents were Catholic.

More than half said they had more than two siblings, while one in five reported having five or more siblings. Only 3 per cent of the sample were only children.

More than 40 per cent attended Catholic schools (but a disproportionately high proportion of 4 per cent were home schooled).

A high proportion of 67 per cent had served as altar servers, 55 per cent as readers, and 46 per cent as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist before entering the seminary.

While 47 per cent said they had participated in a parish youth group, 20 per cent had attended a World Youth Day.

Nine per cent of the new US priests said they were converts.

Thirty-four per cent of the ordinands had a relative who is a priest or religious.

The survey found that 67 per cent were encouraged by their parish priest to consider a vocation; 46 per cent were encouraged by a friend, 38 per cent by a parishioner, 34 per cent by their mother, and 22 per cent by their father.

But 19 per cent were discouraged by a priest from considering a vocation; 30 per cent were discouraged by their fathers, 28 per cent by their mothers, and 43 per cent by other family members.

Nearly one third of the ordinands were born overseas, and 10 per cent were of Asian or Pacific Island origin.

Sources:

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

The Class of 2013 (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate)

Image: Catholic Herald

But now, thanks to the new Rosary Plus iOS app from St. Clement ePress, I might just have a real contender for that ever-elusive perfect rosary app. (Well, on second thought, it might be a tie with iRosary.)

What I love about Rosary Plus: It's easy to use.

Though I think it should be required, I find that many rosary apps are not intuitively easy to use, even for me, a wannabe techie and an admitted rosary geek. Rosary Plus IS easy to use: you tap the beads to pray. Period. It's that easy. And when you need help, it's easy to find. Continue reading

Image: St Clement Press