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| Carl A. Anderson |
Recently, I had the privilege of participating in the Rosary Bowl, an event sponsored by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Holy Cross Family Ministries, which was founded by Father Patrick Peyton, the brother Knight who made famous the phrase: “The family that prays together stays together.”
I was one of several speakers who addressed the more than 50,000 persons gathered in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl to pray the rosary. I would like to share with you some of my remarks.
After explaining the importance of the rosary to Knights of Columbus families, I went on to say this:
“As we pray the rosary today, we recall that we live on a continent that has been uniquely blessed by the Mother of God. Four hundred and seventy-five years ago, Mary appeared to San Juan Diego in Mexico.
“There, Our Lady began the greatest conversion to Catholicism in history. At a time when the Church was losing millions in Europe, Mary and her image left on San Juan Diego’s tilma called millions to conversion in the Americas.
“Of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pope Benedict XIV wrote in the 18th century: ‘To no other nation has such a wonder been done.’ At the time he wrote those words, that nation stretched from Seattle to Central America. And thus Pope Pius XII proclaimed Our Lady of Guadalupe ‘Empress of the Americas.’ Therefore, the wonder that had been done was for all the people of our hemisphere. We are all citizens of the Catholic hemisphere.
“While many continents have never been Christian, and while many of Europe’s churches are nearly empty, ours are still full. It is here that the Church faces a bright future.
“No other place on earth has as many practicing Catholics as the Americas. It is up to us – in our lives, in our homes, and in our families – to put our faith into practice.
“The rosary and Our Lady, especially under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, must be seen as the common bond of our Catholic hemisphere. In the United States, one in four Americans is Catholic. Our Lady of Guadalupe points us to her Son, but she also points us to unity in her Son, and for Catholics this unity must transcend borders.
“Pope Benedict XVI said in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est: ‘to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbor or hate him.’
“If this is the Catholic hemisphere, then it is also Mary’s hemisphere – under the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
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