| Dear Members and Benefactors of the Living Rosary,
October is the month of the Most Holy Rosary, dedicated to the Angelic Psalter and veneration of the Virgin Mary. It was the Mother of God who gave us the Holy Rosary. What a great strength to realize that we are all united throughout the world in this infinitely powerful prayer! Each one of us contributes to the efficacy of this great prayer which resonates from one end of the earth to the other. What we cannot do ALONE, we can do TOGETHER! My dear married couples, you must remember that God has chosen you for the part you must play in your families and, since He has chosen you for this role, He will supply you with all the strength you need to do your job meritoriously and in a way that is pleasing to Him. You may count on His help to achieve happiness and holiness in the marriage you have legitimately contracted and from which you no longer can withdraw. All regrets as to what might have been had you not married, are idle and futile. The only thing that matters is that you make the most of your situation through good sense and the Grace of God. If you are not fully happy in your married life, it is not a sign that you were not destined for it. We are pilgrims in this life steering towards our Eternal Home and the more discomforts and annoyances we undergo, the less we should be disturbed by them. Blessed are they that fear the Lord! Worship God faithfully. Pray aloud as a family in the morning and evening, and before and after meals. The prayer need not be long, but it should be said regularly and constantly by the entire family. Abundant blessings will follow! The family Crucifix should be the most precious object and should form the most cherished and frequented shrine in the entire house. Before this Crucifix, the family pours out their grief and asks solace, courage and strength. In response to blessings, the family kneels before the Crucifix and speaks their appreciation and gratitude. Other Sacraments are administered outside the Communion rail: Confession, Communion, Confirmation and Baptism. But, in Holy Matrimony, the Church throws open the gates to the sanctuary and introduces the candidates into the Holy of Holies, to the very spot where the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is offered. The bride and groom are to learn the greatest tragedy and the highest triumph of Love! Each one must die to himself and live for the other as Christ gave His Life for the Church. God appointed the husband as the leader of the family. The husband is the head of the wife. (Ephesians 5:22-24) Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church. Husbands, love your wives. To the father of the family falls the obligation to organize religious life within the home. He should lead the family in prayer, and devote some time with his family to discuss Scripture thus bringing to them the spiritual food they need for union and strength. The special feasts of the Church should be celebrated in the home with hymns, festive meals and special prayers. Guard must be kept so that the family will remain chaste, moral and respectful of one another. The family is a domestic church. Following these principles, the household will have the greatest possibility of remaining faithful to Christ. Every day, during the month of October at 8 p.m., the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered for all of you, for your family members, all of your spiritual and material needs, for your health, courage and perseverance. During the Sacred Liturgy, we will ask Almighty God to fill your hearts and bodies with joy, health, courage, faith, hope and love. After the Sacred Mass, we are going to celebrate the Service of the Small Paraklesis (Intercessory Prayer) to the Most Holy Theotokos. The Small Paraklesis is chanted in times of distress and sorrow of soul. Then, the Holy Rosary will be prayed for you. I encourage all of you who have sorrow in your life and difficult health issues, problems with your children and who need special protection, to flee to the arms of the Virgin Mary. She is going to help you. “O our most blessed Queen, O Theotokos, our hope, guardian of orphans, intercessor for strangers, joy of the sorrowful, protectress of the wronged: thou seest our misfortune, thou seest our affliction; help us, for we are infirm; feed us for we are strangers. Thou knowest our offence: absolve it as thou wilt, for we have no other help beside Thee, no other intercessor, nor good consoler, except thee, O Mother of God. Do thou preserve and protect us unto the Ages of Ages.” Please unite your prayers with ours as we pray every evening together. If you have the possibility, you may light a candle in your home during your prayers. I impart to all of you, my priestly blessing: + In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen. Fr. IVAN KOLODIY Click here to download a full color .pdf version of this article |
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| Dear Apostle of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,Your gifts, prayers and sacrifices nourish and build up the Mystical Body of Christ in this great battle between good and evil, truth and error, love and hate. What a blessed privilege to help the Mother of God nurture souls unto everlasting beatitude! With the Pope here visiting and so much at stake for families and our Nation, we simply cannot do enough. Souls must be reached. When people are in pain, they are more receptive to spiritual remedies than during times of prosperity.
Now is the time to reach out to Every Soul we possibly can, ONE-by-ONE! Is our faith a sham or a reality? Many of us have the faith, but we are not using it. Our mothers gave it to us, and their mothers before them. The faith is transmitted from mother to son. How meaningful our prayer to our Blessed Mother would be, if only we used the faith that we possess in making it! Our Lord and Our Lady do not do as much as they could for us, because we think they are not able. It is we who limit the bounty of their mercy. The way to reach God is through the intercession of Mary. We must see Mary, walk with Mary, talk to Her, realize She is a real person who will listen, love and respond. Let us look at Mary for the first time with new clarity and intensity. Believe that She is alive, that She is real, that She has eyes, a face, a smile, a memory, an intelligence and a heart! She is a woman with a mother and father of her own, a Son Who is truly God, and Who loves you, and Who will deny you nothing that you ask. Mary is omnipotent in the power of her prayer. Mary is omnipotent in the power of her intercession with Her Son. Mary can do anything God can do. The difference is not what God can do and what Mary can do. The difference is the way they do it. God wills something and it happens. Mary prays to Him for something and He does it! God will NEVER say no to His Mother! Approach Jesus through Mary, and it will be done. Our Lady is not peripheral or accidental to the life of the Church, not the object of a devotion which challenges the centrality of God and of Christ, but an integral part of the Church’s essential life! All for Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary Our prayers are¬ with you both day and night. PATTI MELVIN, Director – ULRA Let us pray for one another. Click here to download a full color .pdf version of this article |
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| Dear Sr. Patti,
Please find some time to spend on this letter which tries to give a short history on spreading of the Living Rosary in our country in the past 15 years. This has been our regular program of the Living Rosary which has fetched thousands and thousands of members: We approach the parish priests and with their permission, we conduct one day or two days seminar in a parish. A single day program usually starts at 9.30 a.m. with Rosary and ends at 4 p.m. Prior to his accident, Brother Roche used to give a short introduction for 30 minutes on Ven. Pauline Jaricot and the Living Rosary. Thereafter, from 10.30 a.m., I motivate the congregation on the Catholic Faith, the role of Our Blessed Mother with reference to Genesis 3:15 and Revelation chapter 12, importance of Family Rosary, and how the Daily Decades hasten the Triumph of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The subject also covers Purgatory, Confession, Mass, Reparation and Fatima. However, before lunch between 12.30 and 1.00 p.m., our focus will be on Daily Decade again which prepares the people to feel proud of being a part of the ULRA. During the lunch time, 1.00 to 2.00 p.m., members are enrolled and books on the Secret of the Rosary and Saint Philomena are distributed. We also form new promoters at this time. After lunch, I again motivate people on wearing the Scapular. The priest then invests the Scapular on the members. The final session from 3.00 to 4.00 p.m. will be taken by Bro. Ruban on St. Philomena. The program concludes with the Holy Mass and people are blessed with St. Philomena oil. This has been our regular program for the past 15 years and through this means large members are enrolled in the ULRA. In order to miss no invitation from any Parish Priest to introduce the ULRA in his parish, I resigned my government job as Deputy Secretary to Government of Tamilnadu in the year 2011. The reason for dealing with fundamental Catholic issues in the ULRA conference is this: “A large number of Catholics have moved to protestant denominations in the past 20 years and this has become a continuous process in our State.” In one parish of South India, out of the 3000 families, 1000 families have moved to Pentecostal denomination. The trend is spreading to other areas also. Apart from this outward threat to the Faith, the church is also facing inward threat. Our State contains 17 dioceses. Already in five dioceses, the Hail Mary, Full of Grace has been changed into Hail Mary, who has obtained more grace based on Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Steps are being taken by the hierarchy to introduce the same in other dioceses also. We are doing our mission with a bleeding heart and teaching people not to lose their Catholic Faith. We are very much aware of the fact that the Daily Decade and Family Rosary are the only remedy to this danger. The ULRA is our duty, obligation and life. Brother Roche has withdrawn due his ill health after the accident, and Bro. Ruban and I will carry on the mission as long as God permits. Even in our absence, rest assured that the Living Rosary mission will go on as we are training some youngsters in the same line. Since the rest taken by Br. Roach, we have conducted the following parish level seminars: In 2014: September and October:¬ Holy Eucharist Church and four parishes. 2015: January: Tambaram Fatima church and in February: four parishes. From March to August, we held conferences in 14 parishes in our city and neighboring cities. The confirmed future programs are as follows: Aug 23: Koilpatti In July and August, we enrolled 570 new members in the Living Rosary. Please send an introduction letter to Ruban and to me, for our recognition as Living Rosary Promoters when we conduct the ULRA conferences in various Dioceses. Please pray for us. Ave Maria! Best regards Click here to download a full color .pdf version of this article |
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Share Your Gift of FaithFor centuries, our cherished Catholic faith has been passed from person to person, parent to child, etc. Each of us carries in our heart a special memory of how God first graced us with the knowledge of the faith and how Our Blessed Mother, Saint Philomena, Venerable Pauline Jaricot and other saints changed our lives and brought us closer to Christ. In our work in the Universal Living Rosary Association, we see first hand how millions of souls are currently living without that knowledge of God and are living outside of His grace. We have been given a beautiful opportunity to carry out Christ’s work and pass on our faith and blessings to others who would otherwise never be introduced to Our Lord, the Savior of all mankind. Just as we pray for the souls in Purgatory who have no one to pray for them, we should also make it a part of our life’s mission to pass on our faith to as many souls as possible who have no one else to pass it on to them, who don’t know Our Lord and His promise of salvation.
This is the box we send out to the foreign Missions $77.95. It contains Rosaries, Scapulars, Miraculous Medals, Cord & Oil, Newsletters, Calendars, Catechism books, 2 TAN books, large color prints, lists and encouragement for our Promoters. |
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