Rosary: A Powerful Prayer

When I was five, I went with my mom and grandmother to a celebration of the Assumption. Part of the celebration included praying the rosary. I’m not sure I knew my prayers very well at the time, but my mom told me to pray for a little brother or sister. I had been an only child my entire life and I wanted to have a little sister to play with. My mom, grandma, and I all prayed for the intention that my mom would get pregnant again. That night she conceived my little sister.

Years and years passed until I was a senior in high school. My dream at the time was to attend Notre Dame. Having grown up visiting Notre Dame every summer, it was the only place I could imagine going. Unlike almost all of my classmates, I didn’t receive the big envelope in the mail - just a small envelope, with a small card to fill out for a place on the waitlist. I sent the card back in, but figured it was probably a lost cause. The year before no one had gotten off the waitlist. I figured I couldn’t lose anything in trying though, so I went a little nuts. I made a DVD. I visited Notre Dame to talk to admissions. I called the admissions office every day for two weeks. I also started saying my first novena.

A novena is any prayer said for nine days in succession. The nine days are representative of the nine days that the apostles and Mary spent in prayer between the Ascension and Pentecost. Your novena can be said to certain saints or for certain feast days. My mom explained it to me as a way of “bombarding Heaven with your prayer.” As my novena was to Mary, I said the rosary for 9 days in a row, with the intention of being accepted to Notre Dame.

I do not pray the rosary often. I’ve always regarded it as a beautiful and powerful form of prayer, but unfortunately I am not very diligent at staying focused on the prayer and reflecting deeply. I often find myself getting distracted while praying the rosary. During my novena, I realized that there are cool resources online to help you say the rosary. One of my favorite websites was comepraytherosary.org, which lets you join a worldwide rosary saying or pray individually. It also provides reflective pictures to look at while you pray (you can pick between the Holy Land or a church). It will pray the rosary out loud with you and you can follow along. It was an easy way to help keep myself centered in prayer in a way I couldn’t do myself.

A few weeks after I finished my novena, on the first day that Notre Dame started accepting students from the waitlist (I think only 11 kids were accepted that day), I received a call from my admissions counselor welcoming me to Notre Dame. One of the first things I did (after like bouncing around my house screaming) was visit a nearby church to thank God and Mary for listening to my prayer. Rosaries, and novenas can’t guarantee that your hopes and dreams are answered, but they are a way of communicating with Mary in an intimate way and to foster a relationship with our blessed mother.