Story by Joe Pisani
What would you like for your birthday? A new iPad? A gift card to Starbucks? How about that super-duper espresso machine you’ve been eyeing for months? Or maybe an Instant Pot that can make yogurt, steam Brussels sprouts, boil eggs and roast chicken?
Or how about something even better? How about something that lasts forever? How about prayers.
No doubt about it, we all could use more prayer, and I always feel a sense of relief, peace and spiritual satisfaction when someone tells me, “I’m gonna pray for you.” (Usually I have to ask, and I ask a lot. And on occasion I’ve been know to plead.)
You see, I’ve always considered intercessory prayer as a sort of spiritual insurance policy. To my thinking, having someone pray the rosary for me and my intentions is right at the top of my most desired gifts.
Carolyn, a friend of mine who never comes up short when it’s time for gift giving, recently told me what she did when her friend was celebrating a significant birthday, which can only mean 40, 50, 60, 70 and or something beyond. Even before the sun rose, Carolyn sent her an email, which said:
“I want you to know that I offered my rosary this morning for you.
The first decade was a prayer for your continued good health.
The second for the health of all those you love.
The third decade was offered to St. Michael the Archangel to always protect your grandchildren.
The fourth was offered for all your intentions.
And the fifth decade was the hope that you will feel 1/10 of the love and joy you bring to this world.
Happy Birthday, Dearest Eileen.
Her email was sprinkled with emojis, which included praying hands, little hearts, smiley faces, bouquets and butterflies. It was quite a festive presentation.
“Everyone loves it when I say a rosary for them on their birthday,” she told me. “It’s the gift that no one ever gave them, but they realize it’s just what they are craving.”
There’s so much truth to that. Most of us feel an enormous spiritual benefit when someone says they’re praying for us or sends us a Mass card.
We all should spend more time praying for the people we love — not to mention the people we despise. We don’t want to leave them off the list because they probably have the greatest need.
I took Carolyn’s idea and rolled it around in my head until I developed my own promotional strategy. How about this: “Prayer is the gift for the man or woman who has everything.”
Of course, the beauty of praying the rosary for someone is that it’s also — to employ another cliche from our consumer culture — “The gift that keeps on giving.” I’ll take a rosary over a Target gift card any day.
I’m fortunate because every birthday I get Mass cards from my family and friends, which I put on the mantle to remind me that in monasteries, abbeys and shrines across America, the Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Dominicans and other religious orders are remembering my intentions during their Masses and prayer.
October is a month dedicated to the rosary, which is an especially powerful devotion. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the Blessed Mother. She is said to have told Blessed Alan de la Roche: “You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the rosary.” And “when you say your rosary, the angels rejoice, the Blessed Trinity delights in it, my Son finds joy in it too, and I myself am happier than you can possibly guess. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there is nothing in the Church that I love as much as the rosary.”
We all need prayer and we all want prayer, especially those of us with health problems, family problems, financial problems and emotional problems.
So even if you decide to get your wife or mother or husband or father or kids that Lego set or Apple Watch, there’s still room for prayer. And always remember that nothing energizes your rosary more than praying it before the Blessed Sacrament in the presence of the Son of God himself.
Praying the rosary for someone is a truly special gift. If you need more convincing, I’ll leave you with the words of Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the visionaries at Fatima, who had a special relationship with Our Lady of the Rosary, whose feast is October 7.
“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each of us, of our families … that cannot be solved by the rosary,” she said. “There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by praying the holy rosary.”