I never thought that the Rosary had such power!

Few years before the Genocide in Rwanda, Our Lady of Kibeho told the young visionaries that if those who prayed the Rosary would gather in their villages and pray the Rosary for peace in Rwanda, then the terrible thing that was coming (the genocide) would not happen. Sadly the people of Rwanda did not listen. In 1994, a genocide started against the Tutsis tribe and more than one million Tutsis were massacred. Everyone in the country suffered in one way or another. It was one of the worse things that can ever happen to anyone.

The first time I found out about the power of the prayer of the Rosary, I was finishing primary school and I was trying to get a scholarship to go to a good high school. I passed the exams but didn’t receive a scholarship. So I went to another private school and it was hard for my parents to pay the school fees.

However, two years later, I had another chance to reapply for a scholarship to a better school. I took the exams, and this time I got the scholarship and I was placed in the school my parents and I wanted. I was super happy but what made me even happier was what my father told us. He told us that for two years, he had said the whole Rosary every day—15 decades—asking Our Lady to intercede for me and give me a scholarship. He also asked her to please get me into the school he wanted. I exactly got all my father asked for in his prayers. I never thought that you can actually pray for a personal intention, and that we had such power in the Rosary. Since then, I’ve developed a special love for the prayer of the Rosary, and I know with that prayer, I will never lose hope or be desperate. 

Adapted from a letter by Immaculée, August 2019

(Immaculée Ilibagiza is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Nearly her entire family, including her father, was brutally killed. She lives in the United States and offers retreats teaching forgiveness. She has written many books including Left To Tell and The Rosary: The Prayer That Saved My Life.)