The Power of the Rosary

I had a semi mystical experience yesterday. I pray a rosary when I get up in the morning & then I pray one on the drive to work.

On entering the parking bay at school and stopping I had a profound inner conviction that seemed to shout or exclaim in my soul or inner being THE POWER OF THE ROSARY.

Not an inner or outer voice but an absolute conviction of those words.

Why do i think this is real? It has stayed with me, it has convicted me.

And strangely I feel it is prophetic as I sense I am going to teach and or preach about the rosary.

Our Lady has a way of leaving her indelible mark on our lives.

Ave Maria.

 

Well you certainly have a great love and devotion to the rosary.

I can't think of anything much better to be doing than spreading this devotion . I really love the rosary and it is such a simple, easy thing.

 

My wife & I pray a rosary after dinner in the evening.

She has been suffering for a long time with an autoimmune condition causing severe bladder pain.

She said a few nights ago about going to Medjugorje for healing.

We do everything together but I said I get the feeling you are going to be going there without me this time (we were there in 2009).

Its never easy for my wife to get away as she looks after the grandkids three days per week.

In a most definite Godincidence 2 friends of hers rang last night inviting her to go with them to Medjugorje at the end of this month around the 25th of May on a self organised pilgrimage.

And our daughter in law informed us she is taking grandkids out of nursery & school on 25th to visit family in London freeing up my wife to go.

So our Lady is calling her, organising all for her & sorting the grandkids all in one fell swoop.

I cannot go as im doing supply the whole of May.

Please pray for her healing in this month of May our Ladys month.

 

Fantastic! No doubt Our Lady has invited and made the way for your wife. Alyce and I will offer up our prayers for her trip and healing. God is Good!

 

How wonderful! I will be praying for your wife's healing and many graces for her.

 

Will pray? What is her name so I can put it in my little book?

 

Margaret Mary.

 

In the book!

Beautiful name!

 

my wee nickname for her is sister Margaret Mary or if shes particularly good to me St Margaret Mary.

Her everyday name is Maggie. In two years time we will be married 40 years.

I hate to see her suffer as she has with various pains down through the years yet she rarely complains. Ive banged heavens door & literally begged for her healing but its not God's will yet.

I suffer when i see her suffer. Its not like her but she complained recently she can hardly cope anymore hence her desire to go to Medjugorje for healing as there is nothing the medical profession can do for her.

Even this evening she expressed concern about the 4 hour bus journey from Split to Medjugorje due to her bladder condition. I said & believe this journey falls within Divine Providence and our Ladys hands are all over this venture.

 

There must be huge, huge blessings for being faithful to the Marriage Sacrament for so long.

 

The two become one. We literally finish each others sentences or speak what the other thinks and this still freaks us out sometimes.

Been through the rough & smooth together but all glory to God for it takes his grace to make a marriage work

 

This is what prayer is like. We become one.

 

How the Rosary Broke Soviet Power in Austria

I’m actually really curious how much our European colleagues know about this very famous story — something that millions of people used to know about, but sadly today it’s much less talked about. I honestly assume that many of our friends from the U.S. may have never even heard of it.

Namely, I don’t know how familiar you are with the situation in Europe at the end of WWII. On one side, the British, Americans, and the Allies entered France through Normandy and advanced through Italy toward western Germany. On the other side, after nearly 5 million Soviet deaths and several million German deaths, the Soviets crushed the eastern front and rapidly advanced toward eastern Germany.

In the end, they pushed all the way into Yugoslavia and Berlin, and occupied eastern Austria. Everything from East Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia was, of course, communist — this was known as the Iron Curtain.

What very few people know is that Austria itself was once under Soviet occupation until 1955. Most maps people see are usually from later years. At the Yalta Conference, Harry S. Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill agreed on the division of Europe and, eventually, the occupation zones of Germany and Austria.

On the map I attached, blue represents the French zone, purple the Soviet zone, green the American zone, and pink the British zone. In Austria, the Soviet zone made up around 35% of the country — the largest occupation sector of all — and even the capital, Vienna, was divided into four sectors.

Now, after this introduction, you’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with the Rosary. As you know, life under Soviet control was extremely difficult: hunger, poverty, deportations of people to the Soviet Union under accusations, and economic stagnation.

However, at that moment a man named Petrus Pavlicek stepped onto the scene an Austrian Franciscan friar who founded the Crusade of Reparation Rosary Campaign in 1947.
In prayer, he heard these words:
“Do what I tell you, and you will have peace.”
(Much later, he discovered that the children in Fátima had heard the very same words from the Virgin Mary.)

Calling people to pray the Rosary daily for peace, freedom for Austria, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly members of the Rosary Prayer Movement, walked in procession along Vienna’s Ringstrasse — the famous boulevard surrounding the historic city center — praying the Rosary by candlelight from the famous Votivkirche to the Franciscan monastery. The movement grew so much that later several million people took part.

Fra Pavlicek began traveling throughout the country, calling Austrians to penance, prayer, and conversion. His appeals did not go unanswered. Soon the Austrian people followed him. Whenever he celebrated Mass, churches became too small to hold all the gathered faithful. Whenever he heard confessions, long lines formed in front of the confessional. He was known to hear confessions for three days and three nights without interruption. Many sinners converted and renewed their faith.

In 1948, Fra Pavlicek led a famous gathering in a Capuchin church in Vienna. It consisted of Mass with preaching, blessings for the sick and infirm, confessions, and the praying of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Such gatherings usually lasted five days because Fra Pavlicek said that peace is a gift from God and cannot be given by politicians; peace can only be achieved through fervent prayer, repentance, and a true change of life.

Processions were organized every 13th day of the month, and on September 12, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, Fra Pavlicek called on all Austrians to organize processions in every city. This feast day was specially chosen because it had been established in 1683 by Pope Innocent XI after Vienna’s victory over the Ottoman Empire.

The processions were joined by Austrian Chancellor Leopold Figl together with members of his cabinet, and later in 1953 by his successor Chancellor Julius Raab.

“Please, pray!”
Although it was already 1954, the Soviet occupation still continued. It seemed as though the Soviets felt at home in Austria. Numerous negotiations led by Chancellors Figl and Raab had failed because they faced Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, whose uncompromising stance defended Stalin’s hardline policy. Around 260 attempts by Austrian politicians and the Allies to reach an agreement with the Kremlin had failed. The Soviets did not want to return Austria to the Austrians.

Then Fra Pavlicek, supported by 500,000 members of the Rosary Prayer Movement, convinced the government to declare December 8 — the Feast of the Immaculate Conception — a public holiday again, as it had been before Austria was annexed by the Third Reich and during the two years after the war. Thanks to Fra Pavlicek and the Rosary Prayer Movement, December 8 was once again declared a non-working day. It was considered a magnificent votive gift offered to Mary on the centenary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Fra Pavlicek was convinced that the problem of liberating Austria from Soviet occupation could and should be entrusted to the Virgin Mary. “Only with Mary’s help can we turn the Soviet ‘nyet’ into a ‘yes,’” he wrote in a letter to Chancellor Raab.

After Easter in 1955, shortly before the second round of negotiations in Moscow, Chancellor Raab and Leopold Figl, then serving as foreign minister, addressed Fra Pavlicek and all members of the Rosary Movement with these words:

“Please, pray! Let all members of the Rosary Movement pray that the Austrian people may receive God’s grace.”

Then what many considered a miracle happened. On April 13 — the day associated with the apparitions of Fatima — the Soviets unexpectedly changed their position. After accepting generous compensation, they agreed to leave Austria. The treaty providing for the withdrawal of all Soviet troops was signed in May, and on October 26 the last soldier of the Red Army left Austria.

In thanksgiving, church bells throughout Austria rang continuously for three days and three nights. On September 12, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, thousands of people gathered in Vienna. They marched praying with rosaries in their hands, thanking Our Lady of Fatima for her intercession. Chancellor Julius Raab declared:

“Today we, whose hearts are full of faith, cry out to Heaven with joyful prayer: ‘We are free! Holy Mary, thank you!’”

The Help of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The spontaneous Soviet withdrawal from occupied Austria is seen by many believers as a miracle and the fruit of years of prayer by countless faithful. The Soviets usually did not withdraw from territories they had once occupied. Workers in East Berlin and the people of Budapest were living witnesses of this reality. Attempts to free themselves from Soviet domination were brutally crushed. The same happened later in Czechoslovakia and Poland.

To this day, historians have not fully explained why the Soviets behaved so differently toward Austria. For believers, however, there is no doubt — the Blessed Virgin Mary helped the Austrian people. Austrian Chancellor Julius Raab himself expressed the same conviction at the time:

“The Blessed Virgin Mary helped us achieve the peace treaty.”



Procession in Vienna, 1953.

At the head of the procession were Chancellor Julius Raab and Foreign Minister Leopold Figl.




Petrus Pavlicek(1902-1982) was originally a factory worker, later a painter, and an atheist who had abandoned Catholicism. He married another painter, but the marriage lasted only a few months.

Later, he became seriously ill, and during that time he returned to the faith. He first tried to join the Franciscans in Austria, but he was considered too old. Eventually he entered the order in Czechoslovakia, in Prague, and was ordained only in 1941, when he was already in his forties.

Later, he was arrested by the Gestapo. Because of conscientious objection, he did not want to serve in combat, so he was assigned to the Western Front as a medic. He was later captured by American forces, and in the prison camp he served as a chaplain. It was there that he first encountered the apparitions of Fatima.

Friar Pavlicek passed away on December 14, 1982, and on October 13, 2000, the process for his beatification was initiated.




The streets of Vienna filled with millions of believers praying the Rosary in procession, at a time when Austria had a population of only seven million people.

 

WOW! Double WOW!

 

Amazing! I knew that the rosary saved Austria, but I didn't know all of these details. What a good and holy priest, and such a response of faith from so many people! I dream of this for the U.S., and the rest of the world.

 

My husband and I are currently here in Medjugorje. I am hoping for a good day today. I have been unwell since arriving.
I remembered everyone at Mass here. I see Fr Dan Redhill is here currently. Crowds are not huge at the moment and it seems quiter than other years. Yesterday was raining but hopefully it will clear up today.
Please pray for my cousin's daughter Angela who sadly was found dead this week is suspected suicide. Funny thing she has been on my mind for over a week. I haven't met her in some years. Her mother, my cousin Patricia, commited suicide in 2016. It's very tragic.

 

Thank you so much for your prayers Mary. I am so sorry to hear you are unwell especially on such a wonderful pilgrimage.Prayers for your healing and for the souls of Angela and Patricia. Yours names are in my book.

I heard of a very devout young Catholic gentleman who committed suicide just last week. He did lots of good works for the Church but he had Lymmes Diesase and it just got too much for him It must be a terrible illness.

 

I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin's daughter...I will be praying for you.

I hope you will feel better soon! I spent my last Medjugorje trip feeling quite unwell myself, but the spiritual fruits of that trip were even greater than when I went in perfect health. I pray you will receive many graces.

 

Prayers for Angela; suicide leaves a family with so many unanswerable questions.

Inmy rosary.

 

Prayers for angela