Promoting peace within ourselves promotes peace worldwide because peace grows one person at a time. Praying the rosary offers a way to do just that.

This beautiful, Christ-centered devotion takes only about 20 minutes. We begin praying the rosary with the Sign of the Cross and The Apostles’ Creed, which declares our Christian beliefs. We then pray the prayer Jesus taught us, the Our Father (Matthew 6:9-13); the Hail Mary, which comes from the Annunciation (Luke 1:28) and the Visitation (Luke 1:42); and the Glory Be throughout the rosary.

We also meditate on what we call Mysteries. These Mysteries center on Jesus’ Incarnation, ministry, Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and Mary’s Assumption and Coronation.

October is dedicated to praying the rosary, and October 7^th is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. In addition, on October 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children and said she was the Lady of the Rosary. Mary asked that we pray the rosary every day, that the rosary was a means to grow closer to her son and promote needed peace throughout the world.

Will you pray this devotion this month? Pray alone, with a group of friends, or with family. If an entire rosary is too overwhelming, pray a decade. At the very least, pray three Hail Marys and ponder a few of the Mysteries.

We seem to have time for everything we feel is important. Shouldn’t time with the Lord top that to-do list?

*For an easy way to learn how to pray the rosary, see my book The Rosary Prayer by Prayer, available from Amazon.com, ACTA Publications, and my website.

*Check out the awesome photos of Cave of the Mounds on the post, “Caves! What Lies Beneath.”

*Floral photos taken at Cantigny Park, Wheaton, IL.