Living Rosary for Moms

 I belong to a Living Rosary for Moms group. In this group, we gather together every day in prayer spiritually, praying for one another in our vocations as mothers. We unite our prayers and petitions.

My friend Mary started this group after reading this post. She read this article and wanted to get together 20 of her friends to pray one full 20-decade rosary. What happened next, was a whirlwind for her. (God works like that) Within a couple months she had 9 full 20-decade rosaries!  Each of the 180 women praying a decade for and with each other spiritually. Mary chose the above picture for our group to show the love Jesus had for His mother. His love, joy and respect is so evident

I have the 2nd Luminous Mystery, The Wedding Feast of Cana. Every day I pray my mystery, my Our Father and 10 Hail Mary's, trying to contemplate on the words of Mary about her Son.

"Do whatever He tells you." -John 2:5

She always brings us to her Son.

She does not take away from Him, she adds.

I try to think about all these other women and the intentions they all carry in their hearts, just like me. I pray my decade in the shower, in my taxi van, waiting in line or at a doctor's office, after or before Mass and sometimes in bed before drifting off to sleep.

I can't even begin to describe the bond I feel with all these beautiful prayer warriors. It's our love for our families and our faith that bind us together.

My friend Mary has put me in charge of keeping the Living Rosary for Moms going,

and I currently have several open decades from women that needed to leave for various reasons.

We can also start a 10th 20-decade rosary!

The options are infinite!

If you are interested in being assigned a decade, please contact me via email if you are reading this through my blog:

(jamiejo99 at gmail.com) (no spaces and use @ for at)

I will then assign you a decade to be prayed every day for and with the other moms in the group.  You will be allowed to join the Facebook group if you are on Facebook, introduce yourself if you so wish, and ask for any petitions you'd like to. We won't bother you with any postings other than petitions and Rosary related memes.

Facebook group is HERE if you'd like to look around.

You must message me directly.

If, after you've signed up and been assigned your decade, you find you need to quit it, you'd need to only message me and I will relieve you of your commitment. It is important you let me know though, so I can fill your spot and we have no lapse in the rosaries being prayed.

(I apologize blogger is messing with my text switching from left margin to center not letting me pick just one)

God bless you and may the Holy Spirit prompt you to join us!

Rosary Give-Away!

 I decided a few months ago that I wanted to do a give-away in May, 

 to promote the rosary, 

one of my favorite prayers.

May, being the month of Our Lady and all.

Well, May is long gone and life just took over.

SO June it is!

My good friend Barbara donated one of her beautiful rosaries

for my give-away!

Here is the description of the above rosary:

This sweet rosary is made with 6mm opal glass Ave beads and 8mm millefiori glass Pater beads in green, white, and red, capped with pretty silver flowers. The flowers on the Pater beads look like star-shaped flowers. The beads are linked with base metal eyepins and chain. The crucifix is a pretty flowered style in nickel, and the center is a Miraculous Medal with the mysteries of the rosary etched on plates attached to the back of the medal. The plates fan out from the medal to read the mysteries.

Her rosaries are beautiful and strong,

 the beads feel so nice in your fingers as they glide along while you pray 

A few years ago, I won one of her beautiful rosaries

but someone needed a rosary and I ended up giving it away!

(because it was one of my favorites)

(yes, I have a few favorites, but only a few)

I loved her rosary so much,

 I wanted you to have a chance to win one too.

You can also buy one if you don't win!

Look HERE

 I'm going to entice you with a little chocolate too

Since there are so many opinions on dark or milk chocolate,

I'm giving away both!

 I'll even throw in a CD 

If you don't know how to pray the rosary, 

because it's been a long time or you've never been introduced to it

More CD's HERE

 hopefully, this will help!

I grew up praying the rosary during Lent.

My dad would try to get us to kneel down around the table, next to the chairs

but we ended up only praying it a few times.

My dad always led when we did pray.

When I got older, I always carried my rosary in my purse.

It was a plastic pink and blue one.

Funny thing, even through my hard times, when 

I was not so faithful, I still carried that rosary.

(and my scapular too)

When I went through my conversion (to a stronger Catholic faith)

I wanted to pray the rosary on my own

I listened to several different rosaries and taught myself.

My favorite?

This is Dana and Father Scanlon

(this is only the Joyful Mysteries)

You can purchase it 

HERE

It's so very beautiful!

 One thing I love about the rosary is 

that it is all about the life of Jesus.

It is Mary by His side through it all.

As my fingers go across the beads,

and I pray the memorized prayers, my mind can 

picture and meditate on the life of Christ.

And for whoever I am praying for.

We are to be like Christ, right?

Christ loved His Mother.

 The rosary is one of the few things Mary specifically told us to do

 The saints loved the rosary

 The rosary brings our family together, 

it calms our nerves our anxieties 

It somehow brings peace to our family

 I must add that wearing the scapular is also one of the very few things Mary 

has specifically asked us to do.

Barbara also makes these!

(and they are very special)

I'm curious as to why more people don't wear them 

and why more Catholics don't even know what it is?

 Is it a pain to wear the scapular?

Yes.

It can be itchy and not real flattering coming out of my top all the time

I don't look cool like some people do that wear theirs 

on the outside of their clothes

but it makes me think of Jesus and Mary 

and it somehow grounds me.

And Mary told me to wear it.

 

 Mary said to St Dominic:

"One day through the Rosary and Scapular I will save the world."

That's powerful

So

WEAR YOUR SCAPULAR!

PRAY THE ROSARY!

 I love seeing St Mother Teresa's hands holding her rosary, clutching it always.

(she's one of my very favorite saints)

 Beautiful.

My rosary.

This is the one I pray in the Adoration chapel.

It is adorned with special medals

My little brother Jordan gave it to me the day our Adoration chapel opened.

I was going through a very hard time (divorce and annulment) 

He was only 9 at the time.

(I was 25)

He spent his own money and sent away for this just for me.

I can't even tell you how many of hundreds and hundreds of rosaries

I've prayed on these special beads

I can't tell you how many countless numbers of people I've prayed for.

But I can tell you

 that if I were stranded on an island and could pick one thing 

to have

 it would be this rosary.

It used to be silver.
It turned gold in our Eucharistic Adoration chapel,
at the time, I was going daily.

While on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, Yugoslavia, the crucifix turned gold.

Right before my eyes.

While praying the rosary on the  mountain where our Blessed Mother 

first appeared to those young visionaries.
After the rosary, it turned silver again...a gift for  me.

It is a gift.

It is a reminder for me to keep praying

to keep changing and growing closer to Christ.

(at least that is what I think)

(I pray my Clay Rosary for our family rosary)

I never feel I can do the Rosary justice.

It's a hard thing for me to write about

I love it so much.

I will draw a name next Friday, June 13th.

Please leave a comment if you'd like to enter

(and a way to contact you if you win!)

We will do it the old fashioned way, 

one of my beautiful children will draw a name! 

The Beauty of the Rosary

October is known as the month of the rosary.

I've written about it before,(click here) 

I've wanted to write about it all month, 

but

when I actually sit down to write it, 

I just can't do it justice.

I have it all in my head, 

I've prayed about it.

Bear with me, I'm not that good with words.

Here goes:

First of all, I've never had a problem with Mary.

She is the Mother of God.

Period.

I'm going to quote from the above book:

A Catholic boy from a parochial school was telling a university professor who lived next door

about the Blessed Mother.  The professor scoffed at the boy, saying: "But there is no difference between her and my mother."  The boy answered:  "That's what you say, but there's a heck of a lot of difference between the sons."

(I love Bishop Fulton J. Sheen!)

It is because Our Lord is so different from other sons that we set His Mother apart from all mothers.  

We did not make her different; we found her different.  We did not choose Mary;

He did.

He goes on to say:

It may be objected: "Our Lord is enough for me.  I have no need of her."

But He needed her, whether we do or not. And what is more important, Our Blessed Lord gave us His Mother as our Mother.  On that Friday men call Good, when He was unfurled upon the Cross as the banner of salvation, He looked down to the two most precious creatures He had on earth:

His Mother and His beloved disciple John.

The night before, at the Last Supper, He had made His last Will and Testament, giving us that which on dying no man was ever able to give, namely, Himself in the Holy Eucharist.

Thus He would be with us, as He said, "all days unto the consummation of the world".  

Now in the darkening shadows of Calvary, He adds a codicil to His will.  There beneath

the Cross, not prostrate, as the Gospel notes, "stood" His Mother.

As a Son, He thought of His mother; as a Savior, He thought of us.

So He gave to us His Mother:

"Behold thy mother".

I believe that the closer we are to His Mother, the closer we are to her Son.

I believe she only magnifies our love for her Son.

She points to Him.

As I pray the rosary, my favorite prayer of all prayers, 

I meditate on the life of Jesus.

Even the "Hail Mary" is all about Jesus.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace

The Lord is with thee 

Blessed art thou among women

and Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus

Holy Mary, Mother of God

Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death

Amen.

Only 3 lines are even about Mary, 

and those lines are taken directly from the bible.

The other lines are about Jesus

and US!

I didn't grow up praying the rosary.

My dad tried during lent to get us to kneel down after supper to pray, 

but, I only remember it happening a few times.

He always led.

(I was a lukewarm Catholic and only did what I was "supposed" to do, not knowing the "why?" we do what we do)
When I went through my conversion

 and figured out why we Catholics do the things we do, 

and how important praying the rosary actually was, 

I had to teach myself how to do it.

NOW, I must say, there is no correct way to pray, the only way to learn how to pray 

is to DO IT!

I got one of these FREE CD's  

and prayed along and learned the mysteries.

You can also learn here

I have rosaries everywhere, 

not because I worship Mary, 

they are to remind me to pray,

they remind me of Jesus.

Mary is purifying my prayers, as any mother would.

I always picture her in an old story I heard a long time ago, it goes something like this:

There was once a peasant man who had to go to the King to ask for something.

He had nothing to bring him, except some moldy fruit and an old basket to put it in.

He brought what he had.

When he knocked on the Palace door, the King's mother answered,

listened to his pleas, took his fruit, and told him to wait.

Now, the mother of the King knew him very well, she was his mother!

She knew what he liked and what he didn't.

She replaced the old basket with a shiny silver plate and put all his favorite fresh fruits on the plate,

she presented it to the King.

The peasant man is us

The King is Jesus

The mother is Mary

The old fruit and basket is our prayers before Mary

The fresh fruit on the shiny platter is our prayers purified by Mary for her Son, 

FOR US.

The beauty of the rosary, for me, is that it always leads me to her 

SON.

When I picture God, the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and 

God the Son in Heaven, 

I picture Mary the Mother of God there with Him.

Not His equal, 

His Mother.

Isn't Mary the next closest person who would be there?

Why is she so hard for people to understand?

This post is waaaaaaayyyyyy tooo long and I've probably already lost everyone, 

but, I  just can't do the Rosary and what it means and it's beauty in a short fluff post, 

like most of my posts are.

(OK, my Thankful Thursday posts are long, but come on everyone, they are fluffy)

If you've never prayed a rosary, or it's been a really long time,

 I challenge you to order a free CD and try it.

See how it goes.

It can only lead you closer to her son.

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary!

Happy Birthday to sweet Sophia!

Born on this special day, God bless you honey!

(my good friend Sarah's daughter...more pictures to come later)

This summer I was tagged for a "favorite devotions meme" where you list 5 favorite Catholic devotions. I was tagged several times and just never did it. I couldn't decide which were my favorite. We, as Catholics, have so many wonderful devotions, that I just couldn't narrow it down to just 5.

The rosary would be in that top 5 though.

Praying the rosary, my fingers moving from bead to bead, as I meditate and think about the life of Christ. As I think about the lives of everyone I'm praying for. As I humbly pray for myself and the graces I need to do God's will.

There is a list of the promises here
There is a ton of ideas for ways to teach the rosary here (including some of my ideas)
For an explanation of how this feast day started, read here

I wrote about this favorite prayer here

We plan to pray a candy rosary today and continue to enjoy God's beautiful weather He's providing us this fall!

I am thankful for this great feast day and our rich Catholic faith that has so many feast days and beautiful devotions that can only lead us to be closer to Christ.

(I truly believe that all true devotions must lead a person to Christ in order for it to be true)

More "thankful's" later.....

Cookie Rosary

I picked May to bring the snack for our Schoenstatt group (Little Crowns)

so I could do a cupcake rosary like last year, but decided at the last minute to make a "cookie rosary" instead. It took all day Saturday and Saturday night, but I actually think it turned out prettier. It was much easier to transport cookies compared to cupcakes!
I am not a great cookie decorator, but it looked pretty and was eaten up pretty fast!
Take a look at what Melissa did for the class, she and Amanda had this months lesson.
I did February with LCH (I see her blog has gone private, so no link).
It's a great group for our daughters, each mom picks a month to teach and a month to bring snack. There are guidelines to follow for each class, but it's very flexible for creative mamas to do different crafts and games as long as it fits the theme.

My Favorite Rosary/Petition Thursday

Tonight I will be with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament for my holy hour. I ask you to leave your petitions in my comment box by clicking on the word comments at the bottom. I will pray for your intentions and bring them to our Lord Jesus. He waits for us to come to Him. I only ask you to pray too.

My little brother, Jordan, gave me this rosary about 13 years ago, on the day our Perpetual Adoration Chapel opened at our church. (we actually belong to a different church now, but in the same cluster) As I type this, and add up the years, I realize he was only 9 years old at the time, and what a sacrifice this was for him to buy this rosary for me. I had moved home and was going through a divorce. (yes, I said divorce) I may blog about this another time, if anyone is interested, it is really part of my conversion story. I was young, (married at 23) and 2 priests told me to leave. The marriage was annulled, and so actually was not a marriage at all.

Anyway, it was one of the most painful things I have ever been through. I was staying in my parents basement (well sleeping there) and my little brother cheered me up all the time. He was such a blessing. He hated seeing me cry all the time. He hated seeing me sad. He always made me laugh. I cry as I type this, it was such a humbling time for me. He wanted to do something special for me, (as if he hadn't already, just being there to cheer me up) so he ordered this rosary for me and waited for the opening of the Adoration Chapel, he gave it to me right before Mass. (my mom insisted that I keep it, that he really wanted me to have it)

SO, this is my Adoration Chapel rosary. This is the rosary that I always pray in the chapel. This is the rosary that I always have in my purse. This is the rosary that I have prayed for you with, many times.

The medals have been given to me and were special at the time, so on they went, they actually make it a jingly kind of rosary. 2 St Gerard medals given to me by people who knew how badly we wanted children. (we tried for almost 3 years before conceiving) The other medal is the Miraculous medal and well, that is my favorite medal, so it is on my favorite rosary.

This rosary used to be all silver.
 I hesitate to show you this, but I am, in the hopes of inspiring someone out there to pray the rosary. 2 or 3 months after the opening of the chapel, while praying there, I looked down and couldn't believe my eyes. I blinked, blinked again...then kept praying and looking at our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in pure awe of His blessings on my life. Why did He give me this gift? I am nothing. He is everything. My rosary had turned gold.

Within a few months we (my family and I -all except one brother who is not Catholic) went on a trip to Medjugorje. I quit my job to go, as I did not have enough vacation time to go on a 10 day pilgrimage. Which means it was no vacation, it was hard traveling and took a huge leap of faith to put all our trust in God and Mary to wrap her mantle around us and get us there safely. Our first trip was cancelled because of unsafe travel, we went with another tour group a week later. We traveled there during the war. While we were there you could hear bombs going off in the, somewhere!

 At night you could see them going off in the distance. We were in this safe little village that was untouched by any war and it was totally felt by everyone there.

It took 2 days of travel to get there. Our luggage came 2 days late. We were sick the first couple days. On the 2nd day we climbed up Cross Mountain and when we returned, our luggage was waiting for us. The mountain is unbelievably hard to climb! it is rocky and steep. Yet, on the way up, you can't help but think of all the people of the village in 1934 climbing up the mountain carrying concrete and water to build this magnificent cross for God. Amazing! Once we were at the top, it was breathtaking. It was SO beautiful at the top. There is this amazingly huge concrete cross at the top and a view of the world!

On the 3rd day we went up Apparation Hill. This was not as steep and not as rocky. It was actually easy compared to the other climb. We all (our group) prayed a rosary at the top, I had my little brother laying on my lap and my sister's interpreter's daughter, also 9 yrs old resting on me. While praying the rosary, while on Apparation Hill, while these 2 children are praying on my lap, the crucifix on this rosary turned gold. I blinked, I blinked again, I couldn't believe my eyes.

 Now, I wanted to jump up and tell everyone, but couldn't really do that, it would be rude, so I kept praying and staring at my crucifix. Afterward, (it's amazing how I could forget something so wonderful) there was a lot going on up there and I just didn't say anything and kind of forgot about it until the next morning. That morning, a friend and I decided to get up early and walk across the village and go up the Apparation Hill and pray a rosary and talk. When we got to the bottom of the hill, I remembered what had happened as I took out my rosary, and I started to say, "Oh, my gosh, Victor, I forgot to tell you..." He interrupted and said, "your crucifix turned gold, didn't it?" He said "mine too!" Just during that time, just on the hill, both our crucifixes turned gold and then turned back to silver after the rosary.

Now you can doubt it, say it is from the oils in my hands. But my dad said he sweated his butt off in Vietnam and prayed the rosary every day while there (for 11 months, I think) and his rosary never turned gold. It is not a tainted color, it is a pretty gold.

I don't know why it turned gold. I think it is a gift. A gift to say "keep praying!" "Keep going!" "Keep changing!"

I really do hope this post inspires someone out there to pray the rosary, to pick up a rosary and pray it gold. Pray from your heart. Change what needs to be changed. Our Blessed Mother will lead you right to her Son's Heart.

I believe some of the fruits of Medjugorje were coming home and finding a job working with children as an assistant teacher for a Montesorri school, (having always wanted to work with children) and just being hired based on my smile, literally, my boss told me this! (she's a very nice woman) Then meeting my now sister in law, who at the time was dating my hubby's brother and she then set us up on a blind date! (after months of begging me) We married the brothers and the rest is history. -Did any of that make sense?

Did I see the miracle of the sun? Yes.
 Did you?
 Do you still?
 What do you see?
 Anyone have Medjugorje stories?
 I'd love to hear about them.

Again, for free CD/tapes of the rosary go to The Mary Foundation!

My favorite book about Medjugorje is The Visions of the Children.

I actually have 4 copies for borrowing to people, it's that good.

God Bless you all, remember to leave petitions in the comment box!