Showing posts with label Rosary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rosary. Show all posts

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Annual Candlelight Rosary Procession


 
Gathering at the State Capitol ~ 6:00 p.m.
Procession begins ~ 7:00 p.m.

Minn. Catholic Conference: Take Action For Marriage

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Take Action. Now!



MCC Action Alert: 5 Ways to Support Marriage between Now and November 6

Warm greetings!
As we get closer to the election (November 6), the Minnesota Catholic Conference would like to share some important ways you and your family can support marriage.
We’re asking for your help, to participate in as many of the following activities as possible, between now and November 6.
1.     PRAY
Archdiocesan Candlelight Rosary Procession with Danielle Rose – Friday, October 5
Gathering at the State Capitol ~ 6:00 p.m.
Procession begins ~ 7:00 p.m.
For more details, please visit MCC’s events page: http://www.mncc.org/archdiocesan-candlelight-rosary-procession/
2.     EDUCATE YOURSELF
Canada Day – Monday, October 8
Join us for a series of panel discussions: “What the Future Looks Like if Marriage in Minnesota is Redefined—A Canadian Perspective,” with the Most Rev. Terrence Prendergast, Archbishop of Ottawa, Ontario and other Canadians who will discuss the harrowing impact marriage redefinition has had on Canadians, especially Catholics.
From 9:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
University of St. Thomas Law School Atrium
1000 LaSalle Ave., Minneapolis, MN
RSVP is REQUIRED to attend this important and informative event. To RSVP and/or ask questions, please email rhuray@mncc.org.
3.     VOLUNTEER
Volunteer to phone bank, help “Get out the vote,” make a donation
Minnesota for Marriage is a pro-marriage amendment campaign created by a diverse coalition of faith and non-faith based leaders and groups to pass the marriage amendment.
Volunteers are needed to staff phone banks at the Minnesota for Marriage office and other locations. It’s very easy, and no debate skills are required! The coalition also needs help in the coming weeks for our “Get out the vote” effort, which will include everything from voter registration to canvassing neighborhoods and going door-to-door.
     ·         To volunteer, visit the Minnesota for Marriage website (www.minnesotaformarriage.com) or call (612) 788-4675.
     ·         To donate, click here: https://donate.minnesotaformarriage.com/contribute.php.
4.     HAVE A CONVERSATION
Be sure you understand what marriage is in the public square and how to explain the Church’s involvement in this important social issue. Pray for the courage to talk to a loved one or neighbor who may misunderstand the issue. Visit our marriage amendment resource page or read our Unique for a Reason: Why Marriage Matters blog to help you find ways to articulate what the Church is and isn’t saying about marriage, and our brothers and sisters with same-sex attraction:
             ·         Responding to Common Accusations and Fallacies
 
             ·         To My “Catholic Voting No” Neighbor    
             ·         Just “Live and Let Live”: A Conversation
5.     VOTE YES – Get to the polls on November 6!
The Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment reads:
Shall the Minnesota constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?
Spread the word to VOTE YES. And remember, a non-vote is counted as a “no” vote!    

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Defend the sanctity of marriage at the 65th Annual Archdiocesan Family Rosary Procession

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Archbishop Nienstedt will not be able to participate
in the Rosary Procession due to a previous commitment.
Taking the archbishop’s place will be Auxiliary Bishop Most Rev. Lee Piché.

Join the Minnesota Catholic Conference in a Rosary Procession for Marriage
Defend the sanctity of marriage at the 65th Annual Archdiocesan Family Rosary Procession (PDF flier)
“As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
—Blessed John Paul II
May Rosary Procession

On May 6, join Archbishop Nienstedt, priests, and faithful from around the Archdiocese and the state of Minnesota at 2:00 p.m. for a rosary procession from the State Capitol to the Cathedral of St. Paul.
What: Archdiocesan Family Rosary ProcessionWhen: Sunday, May 6—gather at 1:30 p.m. at State Capitol, procession begins at 2:00 p.m.Where: Minnesota State CapitolAddress: 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul MN 55155 (Map)
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This year’s Family Rosary Procession is being offered for the grace and courage to defend marriage as between one man and one woman in a lifelong, exclusive relationship of loving trust, compassion, and generosity, open to the conception of children.
Inside the Cathedral, we will offer prayers for marriage and the family, and will close with Adoration and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Special guest Fr. James Kelleher, SOLT of the Eucharistic Family Rosary Crusade (www.eucharisticfamilyrosary.com) will be in attendance.
Come give public witness to our Catholic faith during the month of May, dedicated to our Blessed Mother. Assemble at the Capitol at 1:30 p.m.; the procession begins at 2:00 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there!
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The Rosary Processions are sponsored by the Office of Worship for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in collaboration with the Family Rosary Processions Association (
http://www.archspm.org/news-events/events-detail.php?intResourceID=5419).
For more information, please see the PDF flier above.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Rosary-making ministry in Davenport touches Catholics worldwide

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At The Mustard Seed, a Catholic bookstore in Iowa City, Roy and Roberta Wilsons hold knotted cord rosaries they made.

In Rome in October 2002, while waiting with Catholics from around the world for a papal Mass to begin, Roy and Roberta Wilson believed they saw the Blessed Mother’s hand at work.

As the couple passed time by making knotted cord rosaries, nearby pilgrims showed interest. Members of St. Wenceslaus Parish in Iowa City, the Wilsons tried to teach rosary making to the Catholics, many of whom didn’t speak English.

“Amazingly, they learned the quickest of any group we’d ever taught,” Roberta said. Then, she learned why.

“A man three or four rows behind us said, ‘Praise to Our Lady of the Rosary!’ It was her feast day. So we had some help from her.”


The Wilsons believe Mary has guided them throughout the 14 years they’ve been making and donating knotted cord rosaries, which Roy said have gone to Catholics on six continents. The couple makes 1,200 to 1,300 of the devotional aids each year, and several Catholics who learned the art from the husband and wife also make and donate rosaries.

The ministry has spread further than the Wilsons imagined it would when Roy took up the craft in 1997.

That year he was on a retreat at which a fellow participant, who was often seen carrying cords, piqued his curiosity. “I had to ask, ‘What are you doing?’” The man showed Roy a rosary and asked, “Would you like to learn to make these?”

Roy, who works as a tile setter, learned. “When I got home, I had to make the rosaries; I didn’t know why. I think Our Lady was whacking me around a bit.”

As he continued crafting them, requests poured in from friends, family and fellow parishioners. Seeing he needed help fulfilling those requests, Roberta started making rosaries, too.

Since then rosaries have gone to hospitals, rest homes, mourners at funerals, residents of several foreign countries and, with the help of St. Wenceslaus’ Knights of Columbus, to U.S. troops overseas. The cord rosaries are hard to break, so they’re well suited for children and soldiers, said Roberta, a school teacher.


The most challenging request for rosaries came in 2008 from a Slovakian seminarian who met a friend of the Wilsons while in the United States. The seminarian, now Father Jan Dolny, asked for 600 rosaries for everyone who would attend his ordination Mass — just two months away. Friends and family of the Wilsons ended up helping the couple make 850 rosaries — while praying for each future recipient.

The agnostic boyfriend of one such recipient later went through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, Roberta said. “He was overwhelmed by the idea that someone in a different country was praying for him.”

Brother Erik Ross, a Dominican friar native to Wisconsin, also was moved by gifts of rosaries that the Wilsons sent his community in Poland in 2008. Many of the rosaries went to people whom missionary priests minister to in various countries, Br. Ross e-mailed the Wilsons. “Your generosity, and the generosity of your whole network of rosary-makers, is just astonishing… you are an example and witness to all of us,” he wrote.

Hearing such examples of how rosaries and prayers have touched people keeps the Wilsons going, Roberta said.

Roy agreed. “Realizing I can help promote the faith and bring people closer to God is my reward.”

Monica Hemingway feels similar benefits. She said that after taking a rosary-making class from the Wilsons about three years ago as she prepared for confirmation, she fell in love with the craft. “I like knowing my handiwork will be used by other people and they’ll be able to enjoy it,” said the 16-year-old member of St. Mary Parish in Iowa City. She has helped the Wilsons with rosary-making workshops at the Davenport Diocese’s youth rallies and given rosaries to family members, dinner guests and others. “It makes me feel closer to God and other people.”

At Our Lady of the River Parish in LeClaire, the rosary ministry has snowballed since the Wilsons taught a class there a couple years ago at parishioner Jennifer Hildebrand’s invitation, she said. Prayer partners for Catholics preparing for first Communion or confirmation pray with the knotted cord rosaries, then give the devotional aids to the parishioners when they receive the sacraments. Hildebrand estimates about 300 rosaries also have gone to residents of Grand Bois, Haiti, home to Our Lady of the River’s “sister parish” and where LeClaire parishioners have made mission trips.

For St. Wenceslaus parishioner Jan Dostal, knotted cord rosaries offer a way to reach out to an ill or injured Catholic. She takes them and Communion to patients at University of Iowa Hospitals. Lapsed Catholics there decline the Eucharist but seem happy to receive a rosary, she said.

She and her husband, Bill, have made the rosaries for at least a decade since taking a class from Roy. “As much as we try to pay him for his cord, he absolutely refuses,” Bill said. “He and Roberta are just so devoted to this. It‘s a wonderful cause.”
Davenport Catholic Messenger