I am actively campaigning to get more people to pray the Rosary around the world for our persecuted Church. Won’t you please join us?
In December of 2014, while most of us were preparing for Christmas, a lone man in Nigeria knelt in prayer. His country was torn and terrorized by insurrection and senseless violence. Both the circumstances, and the lives lost, weighed heavily on his shoulders.
The man was Catholic Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme, and where he prayed was his chapel in front of the Blessed Sacrament. That day, as he knelt before the exposed Eucharist, he experienced a miraculous vision of Jesus Christ, standing before him.
The Lord handed him a sword. As the Bishop received the weapon, it transformed into a Rosary. He was told to use it to eliminate Boko Haram, the militant Islam group responsible for a steady stream of violent persecution against the Bishop’s flock.
Inspired by the Bishop’s story, I penned the first draft of the Rosary for the Persecuted in the early 2015. The nice folks at CatholicStand published it. I then crafted a post out of it for my writing site, JohnCConnell.com.
Now here we all are, trudging through COVID-Craziness, economic struggles, civil unrest and anarchy, and I am actively campaigning to get more people to pray the Rosary around the world for our persecuted Church. Won’t you please join us?
The blog section of this website is a running chronicle of persecution from every corner of the globe. The Universal Church is universally under attack. If you doubt this, skim through some of the blog posts.
Again, please join us in prayer. As stated in the book of Ephesians, “our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.” (6:12)
Why another Rosary Devotion?
First off, if you are not in the practice of praying the Rosary, or if you are one of my non-Catholic readers and don’t know about the Rosary, it is a wonderful prayer practice built around the events of Christ’s earthly life and Salvation History, from the Bible.
It is also built around a series of Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s. I could easily construct an entire book about the Rosary but suffice to say, it is an excellent, structured way of praying for specific intentions, as well as asking for Mary’s intercession and cooperation with our intentions.
Why ask for Mary’s intercession?
Another book could be written as a response, but we know the saints are alive in Heaven and when we ask for intercession, we are asking friends to not only pray for us, but to join us in praying for our intentions – to assist us in placing those intentions at the foot of Christ’s throne in Heaven.
And, we know from scripture how important Mary is to Jesus, and how he can’t say no to her. Remember how she “interceded” for the couple at Cana and prompted him to turn water into wine, when he originally pushed back?
She acts the same way on our behalf. She acts the same way, on behalf of the whole Church.
“Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.” – Rev 12:17, USCCB.org
Rosary for the Persecuted 