A deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary shared among the members of the Diocese of Allentown’s Commission for Men has organically grown into a “Monthly Rosary for Families” ministry, broadcasting on the commission’s YouTube channel the third Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m.
All men and their families are welcome to join this monthly Rosary to pray for peace in our nation and our world, for an increase in vocations to religious life and the priesthood, both in our Diocese and throughout the Church, and any other special intentions requested by others.
The Rosary was called “the best prayer for men” by Father Patrick Briscoe, O.P., a Dominican friar and the editor of Our Sunday Visitor magazine, in a 2014 article he wrote for the publication, “Dominicana.”
“When we reflect on the mysteries of the Rosary, we join our lives to Christ’s,” said Father Briscoe. “By praying the Rosary, God pierces the hardened shell of our hearts and opens up a place for Him. He will speak to us, to the problems of our own lives, through the Rosary.”
“I have seen the fruit from it,” said Kevin O’Connell, parishioner of St. Thomas More in Allentown and co-chairman of the Commission for Men.
He finds praying the monthly Rosary has provided a “special grace and spiritual glue” that binds together the men and their families who pray along.
O’Connell remembers saying the Rosary as a young boy with his parents, both Irish immigrants to the U.S., and his sisters.
The family visited Ireland during his childhood, and O’Connell recalls every night after dinner, his family kneeled on the floor along with their extended Irish family members, and everyone prayed the Rosary together with great reverence.
“It harkens back to the days before there was television,” he said. “The Rosary has a devotion that sustained the people of Ireland even in their darkest times.”
It was an Irish immigrant priest, Father Patrick Peyton, who brought a family Rosary to the American radio air waves back in May 1945 in the midst of World War II. He popularized the phrase, “The family that prays together stays together.”
Father Peyton finished the broadcast with an impassioned plea for families to pray the Rosary together for peace, and the war ended the following September.
Father Peyton is well on the road to sainthood, having been declared Venerable by Pope Francis in 2017.
In the Diocese of Allentown, the “Monthly Rosary for Families” broadcast is led by Deacon Charles Palmeri, delegate to the parochial administrator at St. Rocco in Martins Creek, and decades are led by various members of the Commission for Men.
People throughout the Diocese of Allentown and beyond can join the broadcast. The farthest participant resides in the country of Lebanon.
Deacon Charles reads the prayer intentions before each decade begins, and the third decade is often said in Spanish to represent the roughly 25 percent of Spanish-speaking Catholics in our Diocese.
“Our Lady often appears to give us strength for tough times ahead,” said O’Connell. “Life is a mixture of joy and challenges. The Rosary tends to sustain us in those troubling times.”
Anyone who wants to join the “Monthly Rosary for Families” broadcast can visit this page on the Commission for Men’s website: www.menaliveinchrist.org/mens-rosary
Prayer requests can be sent through this page on the website: www.menaliveinchrist.org/prayer-requests
The Commission for Men of the Diocese of Allentown exists to encourage and support the evangelization of men and to enrich them in their roles as sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands.
Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash.
