A Living Rosary and a May crowning

I teach the first-year confirmation class in a local parish. For the last class, I decided that a Living Rosary and a May crowning of the statue of Mary would speak more directly to them than anything I say about the power of Mary in their lives.

In a Living Rosary, each person stands in the place of a bead of the rosary and leads the prayer when it’s their turn. I needed more people to fill in the beads than just my confirmation class, so I opened it up to all the students in religious education, the parents and the parishioners. With little notice and no practice, people showed up after Sunday Mass in the parish hall where I created a large rosary on the floor with circles of colored craft foam. Each person stood on a bead. With some prompting, everyone quickly entered the rhythm of the Living Rosary experience eager to pray their part aloud while seeing the images of the mysteries projected onto a large screen.

What could have been complete chaos turned out to be a powerful testament to the Rosary coming alive for the participants. It brought people together interceding for the world and kept them captivated, children and adults, for more than 30 minutes! The Rosary concluded with a crowning of the image of Mary as we sang “Immaculate Mary.” People left with a lightness of spirit and a new understanding of unity through prayer.

The Rosary is not just a bunch of prayers said in repetition for the sake of saying prayers, as it may sometimes seem. It is a profound meditation on the life of Christ and his mother. The Living Rosary brings this beautiful prayer to life by involving everyone — body and soul. The Rosary, when prayed together as believers, has proven to be most effective in the life of the Church when faced with grave evils as well as in my own life when I feel overwhelmed by anxieties. The antidote to the world’s problems and our own struggles is the Rosary, and perhaps the Living Rosary can be a way to unite us together physically and spiritually even amid our differences.

Sister Nancy Usselmann, FSP - May 10, 2022

The power of the living Rosary