During my teenage years I was a bit unique among my friends – not in my pending priestly vocation (I was dating), not in my simplicity (I had a very bright and loud El Camino), not in my academic prowess (I was firmly entrenched beneath the top and above the bottom)… some of my friends were astounded by the one thing I DIDN’T have that they did – a curfew. I simply left home each day for school, work or leisure to my mom’s two-fold admonition “Be safe and don’t be out too late.”

My mom did not sleep very much [she handed this trick on to me] – so she was always awake when I arrived home. She might be watching tv. Perhaps she’d be reading a mystery novel about cats. Or – on occasion I would walk in the front door to see the den light on, mom sitting in her chair while praying her rosary with a single tear running down her cheek… and that’s when I would realize when exactly ‘too late’ is.

I suspect many of those rosaries were for me and my sisters. October is the month of the Rosary – incidentally, my mother was a Halloween baby, so I suspect she and the Blessed Mother have always shared an extra bond because of their respective October celebrations. I love praying the Rosary – I often pray rosaries in the confessional, but I most love praying them when I am walking or on my bike (which I need to get back out now that the weather is cool). Far from being mindless, the rhythm and Mysteries of the rosary allow us to see the intersection of the daily rhythm and repetition of each day with the great mysteries of our faith – the sorrowful, joyful, luminous and glorious moments of encounter between God and His people.

The fact that we celebrate every ‘flavor’ of mystery ought to give us hope that our trajectory is glory in the end regardless of where we stand, sit or lie right now. In your charity pick at least one person to pray a rosary for during this month. Oremus pro invicem! Let us pray for one another!

In Christ,

Fr. Joe