Rosary Resounds Round Diocese

Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s resounded throughout Brooklyn and Queens when school children gathered at five sites to participate in the Diocesan Rosary Rally on Wednesday, Oct. 17.

A bishop was present to lead the recitation of the Rosary at each of the churches which hosted school children from the surrounding areas.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio led the service at St. James Cathedral-Basilica, which was filled to SRO capacity.
Twelve-year-old Terrance Granville, a seventh-grader at St. John the Baptist, Bedford-Stuyvesant, was proud to pray the Rosary with Bishop DiMarzio and nearly 500 school children who attended the St. James rally.

Yellow school buses brought boys and girls from seven schools: St. John the Baptist, Bedford-Stuyvesant; St. Patrick’s, Bay Ridge; St. Francis Xavier, Park Slope; St. Francis Assisi and St. Gregory the Great, Crown Heights; St. Raphael, Long Island City; and Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Sunset Park. Five young women from St. Francis Xavier served as lectors.

Holding white Rosary beads, Granville said he looked forward to telling his mother that he prayed with the bishop. He gathers with his mom and 18-year-old sister in their living room to pray the rosary every night at 9 p.m.

“My mother told us it’s good for our souls,” he said, adding that praying the Rosary also makes him “feel good inside.”

Bishop DiMarzio led the recitation while meditating on the Glorious Mysteries. He said the intentions were for world peace, an increase in vocations and universal respect for life from conception to natural death.

In his homily, the bishop confided fided, “These mysteries of the Rosary are really secrets about the life of Jesus told to us through His mother Mary.”

“Mothers tell us things we need to know, if only we listen to them. Mary can tell us things about Jesus that no one else can. That’s why we’ve come here today – to learn about her Son,” he said.

He said Mary loves children and has appeared to children, like St. Bernadette in Lourdes and Francesco, Jacinta and Lucia in Fatima, so they may convey her messages to the world.

“You are children with a special message to save the world,” the bishop told youngsters. The message, he said, is that “Jesus loves us, God sent His only Son to save us and Mary is watching over us.”

Rudolph Cyrus-Charles, new principal at St. Gregory the Great, believes that the school that prays together stays together, which is why he set his morning responsibilities aside so he could go to St. James and pray with his students.

A smiling Aubrey Marino said the whole experience was “really nice.” She brought a couple sets of Rosary beads in a white zippered case but used her red glass beads with a silver crucifix and links – a First Holy Communion gift from her grandma. Marino’s grandma taught her how to recite the Rosary “when I was younger but I never understood what it was about.”

Now that she’s a bit older, the sixth-grader at St. Patrick’s, understands the meaning and importance of the devotional practice.

“Now I pray the Rosary every night. I feel like I have a strong connection to Jesus. It makes me feel holy,” she said.

In Greenpoint

At St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Greenpoint, Auxiliary Bishop Frank Caggiano told the children that praying the

Rosary was like going on a guided tour of a museum.

“Our guide is Our Lady and each decade is a different room, a picture of Jesus’ life,” he said.

“We went from room to room with a different picture in each room. When you get to the end, you wind up with Jesus,” he explained as he held high the crucifix on his own set of beads.

“Mary’s job is to point to Jesus because Jesus Christ is the center of our lives. Our job as disciples of Jesus, boys and girls, is to show the world how to live like Jesus.”

He described living the life of the Lord as being “obedient, kind, respectful, and merciful.”

“We need to follow the example of Mary and let Jesus shine through us.”

He told the students that living such a life would not be easy.

He said that it would mean following “what is right and good and what is taught to you by your teachers and your parents when the world wants to lead you into rooms where you should not go – even some chat rooms.”

About 350 students attended the rally at St. Stanislaus. Most were able to walk to the church. In addition to the host school, they came from St. Cecilia’s, St. Joseph-St. Dominic, and St. Nicholas. Students from St. Adalbert’s arrived by bus.

In Fresh Meadows

Fourth- through eighth-graders from three north Queens schools gathered at Holy Family Church, Fresh Meadows, to pray with Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius A. Catanello.

Holy Family eighth-graders Melissa Hernandez and Lisbeth Sosa handed out programs to students arriving by bus from Holy Trinity School, Whitestone, and Our Lady of the Angelus, Rego Park.

Smiling Catherine Mariero carried her green Rosary as she processed in with classmates from Holy Family. Most students had their own Rosaries, many in bright colors.

Bishop Catanello led the recitation of the Glorious Mysteries. Lectors from Holy Family – Christopher Lopez, Sean Coffey, Joanna Pingol, Alison Vergara and Rebecca Ziegler – introduced each new mystery.
In his homily, Bishop Catanello told the children that Our Lady gave the Rosary to St. Dominic. In the

mysteries, he said, we have the whole life of Jesus.

Holding up his own Rosary, the bishop said, “There is a tremendous amount of power here…Since I was your age it has never been out of my pocket” except when he was using it for prayer.

“It’s a powerful instrument,” the bishop advised. “Stay close to Mary. She is a great help on this journey” of life.
As students left each church, they were each given a Rosary coloring book and a card with a prayer for vocations.

In Ozone Park

Over 500 students gathered at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Ozone Park. They represented Divine Mercy Catholic Academy, Ozone Park; St. Helen, Howard Beach; St. Benedict Joseph Labre, Richmond; and Sacred Heart, Glendale.

Auxiliary Bishop Octavio Cisneros was joined by Msgr. Gregory Wielunski, pastor of Nativity; Father Angelo Pezzullo, parochial vicar; Father James Meszaros, pastor of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr, Ozone Park, and Msgr. Cornelius Kneafsey, retired.

This was the second Rosary Rally for Charie Marie Reyes, a seventh-grader at St. Benedict Joseph Labre, who said Bishop Cisneros’ homily “was really neat.”

The bishop related to the children that praying the Rosary was equivalent to giving their mothers a huge bouquet of flowers. “When we pray the Rosary, we are doing exactly that… We are giving our Heavenly Mother roses.

“Each one of the individual flowers in the bouquet relays a message. First, it is that we love you and we have great affection for you. Second, it says ‘I am sorry for all the things I have done.’ And third, it says that ‘I want to be good so that you will be good to me.’ When we come to the Blessed Mother, we come because we love her, we thank her and we want to say that we are sorry for the moments when we may forget God,” Bishop Cisneros said.

The diocesan Rosary Rally was sponsored by the Office of Faith Formation and the Superintendent of Schools Office and also was conducted at Blesed Sacrament Church, Cypress Hills, with Auxiliary Bishop Guy Sansaricq.

Contributing to this report were Linda Busetti, Marie Elena Giossi, Stefanie Gutierrez, and Ed Wilkinson.

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