rosary

Pope Leo invited everyone to pray the rosary every day this month. Is it wishful thinking to expect the faithful will offer a calendar full of rosaries during October?

This October, over a million children around the world will lift their voices in prayer as pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need marks the 20th anniversary of its One Million Children Praying the Rosary campaign.

Pope Leo XIV asked Catholics to pray the rosary each day in October for peace.

“I hope people fall in love,” Father Mark-Mary Ames, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, the host of “The Rosary in a Year” podcast, said during a virtual press conference Oct. 28. “I hope our listeners and those who make this journey with us … fall in love with the rosary because they experience it as … a privileged door for encounter with Our Lord and Our Lady.”

Born into an aristocratic family in 1799, Blessed Pauline Jaricot used her influence to not only help spread the Gospel, but rejuvenate devotion to the rosary and highlight deplorable conditions of the working class.

Today, 32 years after his death, his legacy of promoting prayer and the rosary continues through Holy Cross Family Ministries, which offers prayer events, formation ministries and family-focused media.

On Oct. 18, Aid to the Church in Need will host its annual “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” campaign, inviting children — as well as families, parishes, catechists and teachers — to join in reciting the rosary that day, pledging their intention to do so at ACN’s dedicated website for the initiative, millionchildrenpraying.org.

Thousands of pilgrims from across the country gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington Sept. 28 to honor Mary, the Mother of God, and her gift of the rosary.