Rosary Congress set for Oct. 1-7

Pictured above: An attendee of the 2019 Rosary Congress at St. Rita Church in Harahan kneels before the Blessed Mother. The 2022 Rosary Congress beginning on Saturday will move across six churches during the seven-day event rather than taking place at one church. (File photo by Beth Donze, Clarion Herald)

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

This year’s Greater New Orleans Rosary Congress Oct. 1-7 will deviate from its usual schedule of seven days of seamless prayer and worship at a single church and roll out as a seven-day prayer event hosted at six different churches.

Under the theme “Our Lady Queen of the Angels,” the 33rd annual Rosary Congress will feature Masses, hourly rosaries, sacred music and eucharistic adoration at the following churches. An hourly rosary and perpetual eucharistic adoration will take place between the opening and closing Masses at each site:

• St. Dominic Church, 775 Harrison Ave., New Orleans: Prayers begin Oct. 1 at 10:30 a.m., with the opening Mass celebrated by Archbishop Gregory Aymond following at 11 a.m..; closing Mass Oct. 2 at 5:30 p.m.

• St. Christopher Church, 309 Manson Ave., Metairie: Opening Mass Oct. 2 at 6 p.m.; closing Mass Oct. 3 at 7 p.m.

• St. Stephen Basilica (in Good Shepherd Parish), 1025 Napoleon Ave., New Orleans: Opening Mass Oct. 3 at 7 p.m.; closing Mass Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. 

• St. Ann Church and Shrine, 3601 Transcontinental Drive, Metairie: Opening Mass Oct. 4 at 7 p.m.; closing Mass Oct. 5 at 7 p.m.

• St. Matthew the Apostle Church, 10021 Jefferson Hwy., River Ridge: Opening Mass Oct. 5 at 7 p.m.; closing Mass Oct. 6 at 7 p.m.

• St. Benilde Church, 1901 Division St., Metairie: Opening Mass Oct. 6 at 7 p.m.; closing Mass and healing service Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.

“We’re having a pilgrimage this year,” said Marie Wojdac, Rosary Congress coordinator, of the moving prayer event. Participation can be as short as a few minutes in church to longer stays that include Mass and overnight time in front of the Blessed Sacrament, she said.

“After the pandemic we decided (having the Rosary Congress at multiple churches) would be the best way, because it’s very difficult for the same parish to host us for seven days,” Wojdac said. “It also gives an opportunity for more people to come and pray. These seven days are very powerful days for prayer, and prayer is so badly needed in our world.”

The rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet will be prayed every hour, on the hour, throughout the seven days (except during Mass times), and confession will be available one hour before the start of each Mass. Accompanying prayer pilgrims to the six host churches will be a first-class relic of St. Padre Pio and a silver rose representing Our Lady of Guadalupe, on loan from the North American Knights of Columbus. Children’s choirs from archdiocesan schools and adult choirs from area parishes will lift worship at the Masses. 

The origins of the Rosary Congress stretch back to the pontificate of St. John Paul II, when the Catholic faithful of Poland gathered in 1979 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa for seven days and nights of adoration and rosaries in the prayerful hope that the Communist government would allow the pope to visit his home country.

“On the last day of that first Rosary Congress, the sanctions were dropped by the government, and the pope was allowed to come into Poland. Their prayers made a big difference,” said Wojdac, counting the subsequent fall of communism and the tightening of Poland’s once-loose abortion laws among the rosary’s miracles.

Inspired by Poland’s prayer effort, an American named John Downs brought the idea home to the United States in 1988, holding the first American Rosary Congress at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.. The prayer movement has since spread to more than 30 Catholic dioceses in the United States, Wojdac said.

For more information on the Greater New Orleans Rosary Congress, call Wojdac at (504) 508-7100 or visit www.rosarycongress.org. 

bdonze@clarionherald.org