Tom Hoopes, who created our best-selling Rosary of Saint John Paul II family prayer book, reveals what motivated him to introduce the rosary into his family–and the personal fruits he has seen from that practice.
Read his thoughts below:
Our family didn’t always pray the Rosary every day. Like many others, we started after September 11, 2001, when Pope John Paul II called for daily Rosaries for peace and kept it up until, a year later, John Paul II gave our daily Rosary a second wind.
It wasn’t until the Year of the Rosary that we started to see just how serious Pope John Paul II was about this.
“I look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every state of life—to you, Christian families, to you, the sick and elderly, and to you, young people: Confidently take up the Rosary once again,” he wrote in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, “Rediscover the Rosary in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the Liturgy, and in the context of your daily lives. May this appeal of mine not go unheard!” (Rosarium, 43).
How could we refuse that last line? We have said at least a decade (usually five) practically every day since.
We have come to realize that we as a family can’t afford to skip our daily Rosary … and I am convinced that the world can’t afford to have Catholics skip our daily Rosaries, either.
Here are five things daily Rosaries do.
The Daily Rosary can Transform the World
Pope John Paul II was hailed for hastening the collapse of the Soviet Union by encouraging freedom in his native Poland.
But he had a different understanding of what happened: he thought the Rosary did it, thanks to the worldwide daily Rosaries inspired by the Fatima apparitions.
“We must be wary of oversimplification,” he wrote in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, but “what are we to say of the three children from Fatima who suddenly, on the eve of the October Revolution, heard: ‘Russia will convert’ and ‘In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph’?” He saw no reason that the same woman who solved the Soviet crisis couldn’t solve our world’s problems today. “Today I willingly entrust to the power of this prayer,” he proclaimed, “the cause of peace in the world and the cause of the family” (Rosarium, 39).
The Daily Rosary can Transform Families
People think of “the family that prays together stays together” as a quaint old saying. But it was a favorite saying of Saint John Paul II and Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and the daily practice of Pope Benedict XVI’s family, according to his brother’s biographer. Pope Francis says he keeps two things in his pockets at all times: a Rosary and a Way of the Cross booklet.
We have found over the years that when we pray the Rosary, we grow closer and stronger as a family—almost automatically. This goes for partial Rosaries (sometimes we only say one decade, or three decades), hurried Rosaries, bored Rosaries, in-the-car Rosaries, distracted Rosaries, or any Rosary.
Why? Saint John Paul II describes why in his letter on the Rosary: “To pray the Rosary for children, and even more, with children, training them from their earliest years to experience this daily ‘pause for prayer’ with the family … is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated”(Rosarium, 42).
The Rosary stops a busy family in its tracks, quiets the world’s noise, gathers us together, and focuses us on God and not ourselves. This does wonders for a family psychologically and emotionally. But it does far more.
John Paul II asked that Rosaries be said for a “critical contemporary issue: the family, the primary cell of society, increasingly menaced by forces of disintegration on both the ideological and practical planes, so as to make us fear for the future of this fundamental and indispensable institution and, with it, for the future of society as a whole.”
“The revival of the Rosary in Christian families,” he added, “will be an effective aid to countering the devastating effects of this crisis.”
The Daily Rosary Strengthens us against Sin
We may think we are virtuous or good, but it doesn’t take much for an unexpected temptation to defeat us.
“We do not pretend that life is all beauty,” John Paul II once said. “We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through His own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of His Paschal Mystery—the mystery of His Death and Resurrection.”
The Rosary returns us to the light of Christ again and again. We need that.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (and Gaudium et Spes) shockingly puts it: “Man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God’s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.”
Scripture’s answer to this problem is the repeated injunction to “watch and pray.” If we hope to stand a chance in our Christian life, we need regular, systematic, focused time to reconnect ourselves to the spiritual strength of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Brother, and Mary, our heavenly Mother.
We need to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, begging the Father to forgive us and deliver us from temptation. We need to ask Mary to pray for us, sinners.
We need the Rosary.
The Daily Rosary can Transform your Life
Everyone who met Saint John Paul II or Saint Teresa of Kolkata knew that there was something special about them. They were self-possessed but not aloof, gentle but unwavering in what counts, and looked at each person they met with deep attention and concern.
They didn’t have that character because they were naturally wonderful people: it came from prayer. And we, too, can gain a little bit of what they had, if we pray.
“Just as two friends, frequently in each other’s company, tend to develop similar habits,” John Paul wrote, “so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and by living the same life in Holy Communion, we can become, to the extent of our lowliness, similar to them and can learn from these supreme models a life of humility, poverty, hiddenness, patience, and perfection” (Rosarium, 15).
The Daily Rosary can Transform your Death
A family we know tells the story of how devoted the father was to the Rosary. He insisted that his family say the Rosary each night at 6:30 p.m. If guests were visiting, those guests would say the Rosary at 6:30 p.m. with them. If saying the Rosary at 6:30 p.m. would interfere with the start time of a school or sporting event, then the family would be late for that event. The Rosary came first.
In his old age, when their father was dying in the hospital, his adult children came to be with him and their mother. They decided that they should say a Rosary for him at the bedside. As they finished the Rosary, he died. They looked up at the clock. It was 6:30 p.m.
There are many such stories. Mary, it seems, really does look out for us “now and at the hour of our death.”
Saint John Paul’s apostolic letter ends with these lines:
“You will be our comfort in the hour of death: yours our final kiss as life ebbs away. And the last word from our lips will be your sweet name, O Queen of the Rosary … O dearest Mother, O Refuge of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the Afflicted. May you be everywhere blessed, today and always, on earth and in Heaven” (Rosarium, 43).
Saying the Rosary daily deepens our Catholic identity, touches our loved ones, and moves Heaven and earth for our intentions. The saints all recommend daily meditative prayer; the Rosary is exactly that. To have a real relationship with Christ, we need to know Him and talk to Him. The Rosary reveals the major events of His life in prayer.
There really is no good reason not to pray the Rosary, daily.
[the essay above is excerpted from the introduction to The Rosary of Saint John Paul II Prayer book–special sale below!]
The Rosary of Saint John Paul II prayer book contains everything you need to rediscover the Rosary by praying the way Saint John Paul II recommended.
This book contains the tools to help you apply Saint John Paul II’s method of praying the Rosary, which he outlined in his 2002 apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae.
He provided 8 recommendations “to produce the intended spiritual effects,” and this booklet has been constructed to make it easy to implement all (or just some) of them, including:
- The Saint’s optional introduction to the Rosary
- Sacred Art for each Mystery (in hi-res full-color)
- A Scripture Passage for each Hail Mary (10 for each decade)
- A prayer for the fruits specific to the Mystery to conclude each mystery
- The Litany of Loreto
- And more!
A beautiful and practical guide to contemplating the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
NOW: You can get 3 copies for the price of just 2 (one for you, one for a friend, one to leave in the chapel). Click HERE.
“An excellent guide to praying the rosary in the way given to us by one of its greatest champions–Pope St. John Paul II! The graces offered through the gift of the rosary cannot be overstated. I am confident the prayerful meditation on it through The Rosary of Saint John Paul II will prove fruitful to many.”
–Curtis Martin, Founder & CEO Fellowship of Catholic University Students–FOCUS
“Wow. What an amazing read. I admit I’ve read a lot of boring books on the Rosary, and this was a breath of fresh air—an absolute joy to read and to use! The Rosary of Saint John Paul II is thoroughly informational and joyfully engaging. Whether you pray the rosary already or have always wanted to, this book will enhance your devotion to Our Lady.”
–Shaun McAfee, Founder/Editor EpicPew.com
At Holy Heroes, we have dozens of Rosary resources for Catholic families! Here are some of our customers’ favorites:
A Little Catholic’s First Rosary Book series was developed through extensive research with hundreds of moms of children aged 6 & up. Read all about it on our blog here!
“I have 4-year-old and 6-year-old boys, and I ordered this rosary book set for them for Easter. At night, we do a decade of the rosary before bed using one of the books. They love it! Many nights, they will ask if we can do another decade because they don’t want to stop 🙂 It has also sparked many interesting conversations about things they see in the pictures or that we read in the statements. This is one of the best purchases I have made, and I cannot recommend them enough!”
–Mary from GA
“These books are incredibly well done. I love them just as much as my boys. The other day, my four-year-old asked me to “keep praying the rosary” while he was playing nearby. I didn’t even realize he was listening or paying attention. I will be getting this for every first communion or baptism gift from now on!”
–Stephanie from ID
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