Children's Rosary

The Children's Rosary® is a prayer group movement that was begun out of love for Our Lady and Her Son. Jesus tells us "Truly, I say to you unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 18:3). The Children's Rosary is an effort to begin in parishes rosary prayer groups composed of children and led by children. Through prayer of the Rosary Our Lady will guide our young people while at the same time sanctify families and Parishes.

Showing posts with label Fruits. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

"The World Was Created For the Glory of God"

This statement appears in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is what follows:
"Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: 'The world was made for the glory of God.' St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things 'not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it, for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.'" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 293)

Looking at these exquisite tulips while walking, I was overcome with the magnificence of spring. For so long we have waited with anticipation. For many weeks of April when normally there are buds and flowers coming, we had snow. But then spring seemed to flood in with a breath of warm air. Out of seemingly dead sticks life burst forth.

Then with amazing speed buds were coming. God shows us so much through His Creation.

One of the things that seems very clear is how fast time moves. Flowers come and within a week or two they pass. Spring teaches a great lesson in how precious time is and how we should make use of every moment. These blossoms in the photos are on fruit trees in our yard. We will be looking as summer comes for fruit. Just so, Our Lord will be looking to us to see what comes from us. We are now in the month of Our Lady. We turn to her for help. Through prayer She helps us to comprehend the passing of time and the urgency to protect our flowers so they will bring fruit. We wish to make use of this time so that we too like all of Creation may give Glory to God!

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Fruits from the Garden

It is harvest season here in New England where we live. Since I was a child I have loved to garden. Even after losing a lot of the use of my hands due to a joint disability my love has not lessened. However, the kids now are my hands and they help in working the soil and harvesting what we grow. We have learned many lessons in the garden.

We live on a small piece of land in a town that has many many squirrels. The squirrels which seem to increase in number every year, pass their time raiding the garden. We have adopted several strategies to deal with this. One of the primary ways is to go underground. Growing vegetables such as tomatoes although a favorite of our family, rarely produces mature fruit. Before they turn red, they are stolen by the critters. We always plant a few tomatoes holding out hope but more and more we try to grow things underground which has proved to be much safer. Our crops of choice are garlic and potatoes. Garlic is too smelly for most insects and rodents to interest them. The potatoes while sometimes get dug up for the most part seem to grow undetected.

In looking at our harvest bucket of potatoes waiting to be made into a potato salad, some thoughts came. What about our faith and the fruits that we wish to come through it? Are there not so many predators or as Scripture calls then birds who will carry away our seeds. How do we yield fruit today? Do we need to go very deep so those looking to take our fruit cannot find them...so they can grow and be ready for the harvest? Indeed our roots may have to grow very deep. Another lessen we learned is that the fruits we as a family grow are not the same as our neighbors. I do not know why we cannot grow certain things and others can when they live only a few yards away. Why do the squirrels take our vegetables and yet others have no problems? The garden has taught me many things. It has also taught me season to season certain plants in the garden will do well one year and not another even though seemingly everything is the same. To this one must just work and toil, wait and hope. We are not entitled to the fruits...it is by God's grace. To this we must always be grateful.

This year we had a happy surprise. There was a hope this spring that maybe we could try to grow pumpkins again. While in the past squash or anything similar to this was taken by our friends the squirrels, there was a hope we should not give up completely. The kids made mounds and planted some Cinderella pumpkin seeds. Pumpkins in New England take a long time to grow. One can plant them in June and they are not ready to harvest until the fall.

Something unexpected happened this year. Due to some grape vines growing near the garden that actually overshadowing some of the plants the pumpkins were able to grown undetected. We held our breath for weeks hoping no one would catch sight of them. While we could have waited longer for them to grow in size, as soon as they were showing their orange skin we picked them. The kids were very excited to pick our own home grown pumpkins! We have yet to decide how we are going to cook the pumpkins. But that too is the fun of waiting for one's harvest with anticipation. The cooking of the food is more special and much thought goes into the meal. We can share the potato salad we made with one batch of the potatoes we grew. Yes despite many efforts by the squirrels there were fruits that came from our garden this year.

P.S: I should introduce you to one of our friends. They had many nice dinners thanks to the garden but we managed to have some, too. On a positive note Alina finds them a fun subject for her photography.

Other Posts You May Enjoy:
How to Start a Children's Rosary
Special Release of Our New Video
A Child's Devotion to St. Joseph

Don't forget to unify prayers with the children during their meetings. A schedule of meetings is present on our website. By clicking "Join in Prayer" you can add your gold flashing light to our View from Heaven map.

For more information about the Children's Rosary visit our website: www.childrensrosary.org
Visite nuestro sitio web en español para obtener más información: www.rosariodeninos.org

Friday, July 28, 2017

Bearing Fruit

Today at daily Mass the Gospel included this passage,"the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirty fold." (Matthew 13:23) The priest at daily Mass asked us to look at our prayer life and ask if it is bearing fruit in our lives.

His words reminded me of something Fr. Jude had shared Wednesday evening. He had written about the Children's Rosary in his parish in Uganda. He has a Children's Rosary prayer group in the main parish and also in several of the outpost stations of the parish. The picture above is of a Children's Rosary group at Our Lady of Fatima Mwera Parish - Mayirye. This is one of the outposts at Fr. Jude's Parish. The children had their first meeting on Feb 18th 2017. They meet Saturday and Sunday evenings at 6PM local time. I asked Father Jude to tell me about these children. Did they have anything to share or anything he has observed.

This is what he shared: "The children feel happy when they pray together. Some have learnt how to lead others in prayer. The parents also are grateful.
Some have asked to start taking readings during Mass. Others have shown willingness to join religious life. Some encourage their fellow children to recite the rosary when they meet at school. Mother Mary is doing miracles in their respective families. Some things are working out in a miraculous way. Got good results about the fruits of the Rosary from the groups! I'll be informing you. God is good all the time."

Fr. Jude also shared that the numbers in the groups are growing. I asked him if the children are encouraging others to join the Children's Rosary. He answered,
"In our parish the pastor is so grateful because he is seeing the fruits. It's true they encourage others. That's why the numbers are increasing in all groups."

It is beautiful to see how fertile is the soil in the hearts of these children. Their meetings to pray are indeed fruitful in their lives. "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."(Matthew 7:18)

Other Posts You May Enjoy:
How to Start a Children's Rosary
A Child's Interview about the Children's Rosary (in Spanish)
Resources to Help Begin a Group

Don't forget to unify prayers with the children during their meetings. A schedule of meetings is present on our website. By clicking "Join in Prayer" you can add your gold flashing light to our View from Heaven map.

For more information about the Children's Rosary visit our website: www.childrensrosary.org
Visite nuestro sitio web en español para obtener más información: www.rosariodeninos.org