Push on to pray million rosaries for peace

A team of more than 20 young Catholic ambassadors is working feverishly to rouse believers of Christ young and old across the world to participate in a global mission to pray the Hail Mary one million times by Easter Sunday.

The Misión Rosario (Mission Rosary) campaign launched on Dec 8, the feast day of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and will conclude April 4. As of Feb. 12, 439,332 completed rosaries have been tabulated on the misionrosario.com live tracker.

Chileans are currently the leading nation of this campaign as 125,289 from that nation have prayed the rosary and added it to the tally to date. Mexico and Puerto Rico round out the top three with totals of 50,065 and 48,185 respectively.

Ana Rivera, a 24-year-old from Hamilton, Ont., is the Canadian ambassador for this worldwide endeavour. The psychology major at McMaster University has thus far rallied Canadians to contribute 3,889 rosaries to Misión Rosario 2021. She is striving for a Canadian target of 10,000 by the campaign’s end.

“We want to attain as much reach as possible. I’ve contacted bishops, parishes, youth groups, campuses and newspapers to try and get the word out,” said Rivera.

This hustle, while demanding, is a worthwhile enterprise for Rivera to pursue because she values this one million rosary campaign as a global prayer for “peace and freedom in the Americas.”

“I think it was around when the Black Lives Matter movement broke out (in the summer),” said Rivera. “This is when we saw a lot of hate going on, not even with the cause, but we saw people go into stores and committing vandalism. We also saw people in other countries echo the example of Americans by committing acts of violence and vandalism against the Church.”

Rivera says her involvement in this effort is “God sent” as she randomly came across a Catholic Instagram account called “la puerta de los vecinos,” Spanish for “The Neighbour’s Door.” She increasingly became involved in the prayer groups and liturgy hours orchestrated by the account.

One of the Chilean members of a Zoom prayer group Rivera participated in, Chiara Barchiesi, proposed the notion of a rosary campaign.

“She was like, ‘what can we do as Catholics. We can’t be indifferent,’” recalled Rivera. “She remembered the apparitions from Mary who encouraged all of us to pray the rosary every day if we want world peace.”

Lent, which launched on Ash Wednesday, represents an ideal season to incorporate 30 minutes of rosary into your daily routine, said Rivera.

“It is not easy to pray the rosary every day because it is a commitment, but I do think since there is already a mission going on, why not join in? Don’t make it just a Lenten promise, but make it a yearly promise to put some time aside to pray the rosary.

Rivera says that praying the rosary communally helps heighten the impact of offering these prayers to Heaven. She encourages Catholics to join her for a daily Zoom rosary gathering at 9 p.m. ET at tinyurl.com/1ablzgcc. (You can also visit https://catholify.com/praymo/ to network with live prayer groups).

Upon completing a rosary, people are invited to log it into the tracker at misionrosario.com.