This Friday, October 16th, is the thirtieth annual Candlelight Living Rosary at Saint Eugene's Cathedral. How amazing to think that this beautiful devotion has been going on for thirty years! The Marian Sodality that we moderate will be helping organize the event. People will sit along the perimeter of the pews in the Cathedral holding candles. Each person with a candle represents a bead on the rosary and will lead that prayer while holding up their candle. The Sisters will also be participating in the music, some hymns and prelude music before and an Ave Maria (of course!). The dim church, bright candles, and people of all ages, races, vocations, sitting at the School of Mary makes this a truly beautiful and prayerful event.

October is the month of the Holy Rosary, and it is telling that the whole month is dedicated to the Blessed Mother under this particular title. Yes, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is in this month (October 7th). This feast honors  the defeat of the Turks by the Christians in the Battle of Lepanto, where the odds were certainly against the Christians. However, through the intercession of Our Lady through the Holy Rosary, the Christians were successful. This is wonderful - not just for the battle won, but for the care Our Lady has for her children.

However, this month can be even more than honoring this one event. Let us remember why this prayer is so dear to the hearts of Jesus and Mary. It is clear from Our Lady herself that she desires the Rosary to be prayed. She appeared with a large Rosary at Lourdes and requested the Rosary to be prayed at Fatima. Many, many Saints throughout the ages extol the wonders of this prayer. Why? Simply because it is time spent with our loving Mother contemplating the redemptive life of our true Beloved - Jesus Christ. She who knows Him most intimately will guide us to a deep union as well. The words of a Saint and of a Blessed sum it up well:

"With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the School of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of His love." Pope Saint John Paul II

"Come, children listen to me, Mary says. Come to the school of my Rosary and I shall teach you holy love and the short and sure way to arrive to Heaven." ~Blessed Bartolo Longo

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

​One way that the Sisters honor a Saint on their feast day is to set up a little shrine in our chapel. We are blessed to have a relic of St. Faustina! It is in these seemingly little things, as well as the more grand, that we are able to live fully the liturgical life of the Church.

Saint Faustina's feast day is October 5th.

Saint Faustina, pray for us!

"You know my extreme littleness,
You don't hesitate to lower Yourself to me!
Come into my heart, O white Host that I love,
Come into my heart, for it longs for You!
Ah, I desire that Your goodness would let me
Die of Love after receiving this favor,
Jesus! Listen to my tender cry.
Come into my heart!"
~Couplet composed by St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the
Holy Face as a preparation for Holy Communion