3 minute read
A Look At Our Parish Rosary Group
On Tuesday evenings, one may find the church at St. Vincent de Paul echoing with the cadence of a dedicated group praying the rosary.
The Rosary Group is a group of men and women that come together to pray the rosary for the intentions of the parish, individual members’ requests, vocations, the Pope’s intentions, and our country.
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The group began over 20 years ago, meeting in parishioners’ homes. Eventually, it moved to the chapel at St. Vincent’s and after taking a year from meeting in person due to COVID, they began meeting in the church to allow for more space for the members.
“We miss the coziness of our small chapel but being able to pray in front of the tabernacle and in the presence of Jesus, that is something special as well,” says Beverly Keiser, a longtime Rosary Group member and the head of the Devotional Ministry.
While all are welcome to join them in the church every week at 7 p.m., the group shares their love of the rosary with the parish in a more prominent way during a couple months of the year.
“October is the month of the Rosary and May is the month of Mary,” Beverly says. “So, Fr. Philip asked us to assist with leading the rosary before each Sunday Mass.”
Parishioners are encouraged to arrive a little early on Sundays so they can join in praying with others each week. Many people have an individual devotion to Mary and the Rosary, but there is something uniquely special about praying it as a community.
“As a group, there is just a feeling you get in the power and the peace that it gives you,” Beverly says.
Some members come and go as their situations or lives change yet Beverly notes this ebb and flow with encouragement as “so many members are drawn back, thankful for the prayers answered and the blessings given.”
The history of the Rosary is long and storied. While the roots of the rosary go back to early Christian prayer traditions and the mysteries of the Rosary were given to St. Dominic of Prussia in the 1400s, the name of the “Rosary” and its current form date back to 1597. This format remained largely the same until Our Lady appeared to the children at Fatima in 1917. She asked them to include what is now known as the “Fatima Prayer” at the end of each decade. The Rosary itself is very powerful. Mary asked the children at Fatima to pray the rosary every day for peace in the world.
“Our Lady has asked us to pray the Rosary,” Beverly says. “It has lasted through the ages, and we are united in it.”
The Rosary has lasted through the ages, indeed, and is truly a universal, worldwide devotion. Beverly witnessed this firsthand during a trip to Germany.
“We were told that we needed to see this local church that was not on the tour, so before dinner, we went to the church,” Beverly says. “And there at one of the side altars was a small group praying out loud in German. I immediately recognized the rhythm of the Rosary. Even in a different language, it was almost like a song.”
These powerful prayers and traditions within our Church unite us across borders, cultures, and languages. The word “catholic” itself means “universal.”
In addition to the Rosary Group, several other types of prayer groups fall under the parish’s Devotional Ministry umbrella.
“Our purpose is to promote the communal devotions as a parish and grow spiritually,” Beverly says. “While the Rosary group is our main devotion, we also have Stations of the Cross during Lent, and before COVID began, we were working on promoting the Divine Mercy devotion during the Easter Season.”
Anyone is welcome to join the Rosary Group in the church every Tuesday at 7 p.m., and Beverly encourages any parishioner interested in other devotional prayer groups in the parish to reach out to her with suggestions.
The Rosary Group is a group of men and women that come together to pray the rosary for the intentions of the parish, individual members’ requests, vocations, the Pope’s intentions, and our country. The group began over 20 years ago, meeting in parishioners’ homes.
