"Where I am going you know the way.”

Our Blessed Mother helps guide all her children so we might not be lost along the way.  For as Our Lord shared today in the Gospel reading at Mass, He is prepareing a place for us.  How sad it would be if we never see all that has been carefully arranged for each one of us.

"In my Father's house there are many places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?"(John 14:2)

Over the next several days we have many Children's Rosary groups meeting across the globe please consider unifying prayers with them.  

Friday May 16th
Children's Rosary at St. Mary's School in Orange Texas 7:05 AM CT
Children's Rosary at St. Paul School in Odell, IL 8:30 AM CT
Children's Rosary at St. Mary's School Pontiac, IL 9:00 AM CT
Children's Rosary at St. Augustine Church in Iba Esate Lago Nigeria 1PM ET
Children's Rosary at St. Marguerite Parish in Brookfield, CT 3PM ET
Saturday May 17th
Children's Rosary at St. Mary's Parish in Corvallis Oregon 9AM PT
Children's Rosary at St. Augustine Church in Iba Estate Lago Nigeria 1PM ET
Children's Rosary at St. Joseph Church, Shrine on the Westbank in Gretna, LA 3:30 ET
Sunday May 18th
Children's Rosary at Our Lady and St. Patrick's Church in Nottingham, England 9AM local time  (4AM ET)
Children's Rosary at St. Thomas Church in Thomaston CT 11AM ET
Children's Rosary at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hopkinton, MA 11:15AM ET.
Children's Rosary at St. Augustine Church in Iba Estate Lago Nigeria 1PM ET
Children's Rosary at St. Patrick's Chruch in Tacoma WA 11:30 AM PT
Children's Rosary at St. Anthony Church in Lorain, Ohio 3PM ET in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
Monday May 19th
Children's Rosary at Holy Trinity Academy in Shenandoah, PA 12:20 PM ET
Children's Rosary at St. Augustine Church in Iba Estate Lago Nigeria 1PM ET
Children's Rosary at Holy Family Church in Gladstone Michigan 4:30PM  ET
Children's Rosary at St. John the Evangelist Church in Mahopac, New York 4:30 PM held in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

New Children's Rosary Group in Nigeria

May I share some beautiful news. We have a new Children's Rosary group at St. Augustine Church in Estate Lago, Nigeria.  These children meet daily at the Church to lead a Rosary at 6PM their local time (1PM ET)  These children who number over 50 have been meeting for some time and have decided to join the Children's Rosary.  In this way we can unify more prayers across the world.  Each new group that joins our Children's Rosary is asked to Consecrate their group to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary.  In this way it is under the guidance and protection of Christ and His Mother.  The above picture was taken at a celebration for Our Blessed Mother.  

What is particularly beautiful about this new group is that as they meet daily so there is always an opportunity to unify prayers with children each day. 

Daily Meeting Time: 6PM local time in Nigeria (1PM ET)

"Pray the Rosary Every Day" -Our Lady of Fatima

Join Us In Prayer

Today we are blessed to have at least three Children's Rosary groups meeting.  Two groups are meeting at the exact same time despite being in different time zones and many miles a part. Please consider joining the Children in prayer from your home.  The children always pray for those unifying prayers with them.

Children's Rosary at St. Augustine Church in Iba Estate Lago, Nigeria 1PM ET
The Children's Rosary at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Brentwood, California will meet at 6:30 PM ET in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
The Children's Rosary at St. Martin Church in Kingsville, Texas will meet at 6:30 PM ET.

Our Lady of Fatima

Ninety-seven years ago on May 13th in a mountain village of Fatima, Portugal Our Lady appeared to three children: Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta. Our Blessed Mother appeared to them as they were pasturing their parent’s sheep.  Our Lady appeared over a tree and wore a white dress and a mantle over her head and shoulders edged in gold. Lucia later would way, “She was a Lady more brilliant than the sun.” 

On May 13th Our Lady would ask these three simple little children for their help.  

"Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners".  

The children responded, "Yes we are willing."

In addition to her requests for suffering as an act of reparation she also asked for daily prayer of the Rosary.  This would be a request she repeated at all of her apparitions in Fatima.

Our Lady's choice of who to appear to and make her requests speaks so powerfully of the importance of our children and how much they have to give to Our Lord.  It also speaks beautifully to the importance of the Rosary and also the prayers of the Rosary by little children.  Not only are they capable of such prayers, Our Lady is requesting this of them.

Today we are blessed to have three Children's Rosary groups meeting:

Children's Rosary at St. Augustine Church in Iba Estate, Lago Nigeria 1PM ET

Children's Rosary at Holy Redeemer Parish in Menominee, Michigan 5PM CT

Children's Rosary at St. Paul Church in Fenton, Missouri 7PM CT

Please consider joining the Children in prayer.  The Children always pray for those unifying prayers with them.  

A Mass has been offered today for all members of the Children's Rosary as a gift from our group leader at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Hartford, Connecticut.  A special thank you to her for such a beautiful gift.

Another special grace today, one of the members of the Children's Rosary was able to travel to Fatima, Portugal today and has in a special way prayed for all the members of the Children's Rosary and also placed our petitions beside the Statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

A Peace Rose planted by the Children's Rosary on
May 13th 2012 as a gift to Our Lady of Fatima

A Family's Experience Joining the Children's Rosary

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I became aware of a lovely little post on the blog: Training Happy Hearts.  The family who created this blog recently joined the Children's Rosary.  To read their thoughts on joining the Children's Rosary click Here.

Vocation of Motherhood

"God does not choose the qualified but he qualifies the ones he chooses" -Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

A truly beautiful quote and so fitting for those called to motherhood.  Few are ready for the trials of raising children in love and faith.  So often there is a feeling of inadequacy and failure.  Yet such is the path Our Lord laid out for us.  As we heard in todays second reading in Mass:
"But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:20-21).

On a day when many in the United Sates honor mothers I found myself again feeling so often I fall short of the mother I wish I could be.  It is then that I take such consolation in the assistance of Our Blessed Mother.  So often I have written of the graces that are bestowed on our children as they pray in our different Children's Rosary groups.  Receiving the fruits of obedience and purity from the fourth joyful mystery and the second sorrowfu mystery.  Yet today there is a recognition of the grace that we mothers receive from praying the Rosary with our children.  The fruits of the second joyful mystery: love of neighbor and the fourth sorrowful mystery: patience seem all too needed as a mom.  Yet even despite all these graces, there is even more consolation through the Rosary that Our Blessed Mother makes up for our deficiencies with our children when we ask her in prayer to help us.  Yes, Mother Teresa's words speak so beautifully about a role she herself knew much about, for those closest to her called her simply: Mother.  Indeed she was Mother to many and although hard to imagine I'm sure struggled in such a role as well.  For such is the road which Our Lord set out for us.   

“Lord to Whom Shall We Go”

These are the words Simon Peter spoke to Jesus in the Gospel reading from Mass today.

These words invoke a deep interior reflection for this would be a phrase that has come to give me much consolation.  May I share that as an individual who has spent a great deal of my life in the study of the sciences in particular dentistry and the specialty of Endodontics,  my mind has been trained to work in testing hypothesizes and working with facts.  This training fosters a mind keen to details and solidly pragmatic.  Such was the way I responded to an illness that took me by surprise.  It would turn out to be a genetic condition that brings with it a deterioration of ones collagen prematurely due to a genetic defect.  Such deterioration brings with it joint dislocations, pain, weakness and a host of other manifestations.  As a trained clinician my mind began sifting through the details of the case.  What were the factors that seemed to trigger such a rapid decline in function.  How could these be slowed, mitigated and even reversed.  There must be a dogmatic answer or a doctor to right that which was clearly dysfunctional.  Such was the path I set out on.  To talk and speak to anyone who was doing research in this area and to study the condition myself through review of scientific literature. Yet this journey in the world of details seemed to lead no where.  No one had the magic bullet to slow the rapid deterioration in health I was experiencing.  

As a practicing Catholic attending Sunday Mass only, I vividly recall picking up a prayer card with prayers honoring Our Lady’s seven sorrows.  It lay for a long time right by the back door.  One day on the way out the door I picked it up.  I looked at it and interiorly said, I am not bad enough.  It reminds me of a hair dresser I once talked to who complained of back pain but was wearing designer shoes.  I suggested she wear a pair of orthopedic shoes like mine.  She looked at my shoes and said, my back would have to get much worse before I would ever consider wearing those.  I laugh at such a statement because this is what I thought deep in my heart.  Things would have to get much worse to change my pursuit of a scientific solution to my problems and look elsewhere for help.  Yet such would be my fate.  All the things I held on so tightly to: my fierce independence and self reliance would be stripped away layer by layer.  Slowly, I would have to ask for help with everything.  Luxuries such as driving would be lost and even the strength to open the refrigerator.  Yes I would find that place where I would finally give up my pursuit of the details and begin to look elsewhere.  

The gate that opened began with a confession which was long overdue. A pamphlet on Divine Mercy was the wind that blew the door wide open.  Indeed all the despair which seemed to be swallowing me up was washed away by an enveloping feeling of hope.  This began a road in a different direction.  One that ended with a the phrase spoken today, "Lord to whom shall we go"(John 6:68) or the way I find myself saying it in prayer, Lord where else would I go.  Yes this is such a comforting phrase to me. For it is a truth that has been tested in the fire of intense suffering and has shown never to fail.  After exhausting all earthly directions only one place remained...to live and rest in the heart of Our Lord. To not only seek out His love but to be consumed by His love.

When a soul finds this truth it is such a consolation and strength.  Many souls I suspect find out this fact with far less resistance but such was my path.