Students draw bead on peace

The sound of 20 soft voices intoning those words can be heard at St. Pius X School in Loudonville where students recite "a decade a day" for world peace.

According to religion teacher Judy Cox, the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders recently studied the story of Our Lady of Fatima, who asked the children she appeared to to pray the Rosary for peace. What began as a lesson has evolved into devotion.

Keeping it going

"To make it fair, I let them decide by an anonymous voting process," the teacher said. "And all stated the same thing. They wanted to continue a decade a day! So, that's what we are doing."

Some sixth-grade students -- Jeb Buchanan, Shannon Bates, Jaclyn Foglia and Courtney Feiden -- were asked why they decided to continue to pray. Their responses included such reasons as:

* the recent tragic events at the World Trade Center;

* for the poor and sick kids around the world;

* so there will be no more war; and

* because of what's going on in Afghanistan, especially for the families that had to leave their country.

Venerable beads

Instead of picking up chalk, they reach up to a small corkboard panel hung nearby and take down one of many different colored sets of rosary beads hanging on pushpins in a neat row. Returning to their desk, they wait for Mrs. Cox to begin by making the Sign of the Cross.

Each day, the class covers one of the 15 Joyful, Sorrowful or Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. On a rotating basis, a student names that day's mystery and then leads the class in prayer.

Making their own

The rosaries will be multi-colored, with one decade representing each of the five continents of the world: green for Africa, red for the Americas, white for Europe, blue for the islands in the South Pacific, and yellow for Asia.

"Our organization's informal title is 'The Peace Rosary,' and we are the group that was strongly supported by Mother Teresa of India," said Mary Anne Abello of Loudonville, who is one of the many "Rosary crusaders" in the World Mission Rosary group. She explained that the group's purpose is to pray for world peace and conversion, and to supply hand-made rosaries throughout the world.

Once the rosaries are made, each student will keep one set; the other will be sent to children in Africa, so they, too, can recite the Rosary for world peace.

'Good thing'

All the students in her sixth-grade class are happy to be able to contribute a few minutes each day to prayer with the hope of making the world a better place in which to live.

According to 11-year-old Andrea Keane, praying the Rosary is also important for another, very simple reason: because "it is a good thing to do."

(11-29-01) [[In-content Ad]]