Holy Childhood Association Members: Praying Their Way through Lent

As I’ve traveled around the Archdiocese of Boston the last few years visiting parish Religious Education programs and Catholic Schools to speak about the missions, the point I’ve stressed to HCA members old and new is this: prayer is the most important thing you can do for anyone or about anything. We ask our members to pray one Hail Mary every day for their brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who may not know how much God loves them.

Recently, I was asked this question: “Can we pray more?”

My answer, of course, was an enthusiastic, “Yes, please!”

Then, I proceeded to teach the students our special mission way to do so. It’s called the World Mission Rosary. Started by Archbishop Fulton Sheen when he was the National Director of the Mission Societies here in the United States, this rosary is different only in its appearance; it is recited with the same prayers, the same mysteries. The difference is the colors of the beads. Each decade of the rosary is a distinctive color, standing for a different part of the Mission world. Green stands for the forests and grasslands of Africa, red is for the fire of the faith brought to North and South America by missionaries not that long ago. White represents Europe, the seat of the Holy Father. The blue beads are prayed for the small island countries in the Pacific Ocean that the Church calls Oceania and the yellow beads stand for the sunrise in the East over Asia. Archbishop Sheen said that when you recite the World Mission Rosary, adding the people of those parts of the world and the missionaries who serve them to your intentions, “You have embraced the world in prayer.”

Members of the Holy Childhood Association are receiving their World Mission Rosaries as I visit them, promising to pray their way through Lent and beyond for children in the missions who are not only in need of many material blessings but who most importantly need to know how much God loves them.

Students from St. Mary of the Hills School in Milton, MA

Making our own World Mission Chaplet at St. Peter Parish
Religious Education, Plymouth, MA

Praying the World Mission Rosary at St. Michael School, N. Andover, MA

Click here for more information about the Holy Childhood Association; to schedule a visit to your parish or school, please email me at mheil@propfaithboston.org or call 617-779-3871.

Through the Holy Childhood Association, your children will learn to pray their way through Lent and beyond!

-Maureen Crowley Heil