A TIME TO PRAY

Rosary Rally to be held at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church

Father Patrick Peyton, a Holy Cross priest, who popularized the adage "The family that prays together stays together," is seen during the 1960s. (CNS photo/Family Theater Productions) (Courtesy photo of Handout)

Most Catholics have heard the phrase, “The family that prays together stays together.”

This famous phrase was coined by Father Patrick Peyton, who started his rosary ministry right here in the Diocese of Albany, and was a champion of praying the rosary as the world was plunged into war in the 1940s. All these years later, Holy Cross Family Ministries, which was founded by Father Peyton, is bringing that message back to the Capital Region. On May 30, “Reigniting the Flame in Albany: A Rosary Rally for Peace,” in the spirit of Father Patrick Peyton, will take place at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Albany (33 Walter St.) from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

“The reason we are coming is his mission was to help families pray and help people embrace the rosary as a devotion, especially in family life,” said Craig Dyke, Director of Programs & Mission Outreach – Family Rosary USA. “He had a few sayings — ‘The family that prays together stays together’ — he also said, ‘A world at prayer is a world at peace.’ Father Peyton started right there in Albany, so we want to celebrate that and we want to celebrate his mission to help families and help individuals pray and stop putting their reliance in human beings because that doesn’t work. 

“We put our reliance in the providence of God and we come together and pray, in his presence through our Blessed Mother, the rosary. … We hope we inspire families to pray, especially the rosary. There is a value in the rosary that many people put to ancient times, but there is still tremendous value to those who meditate on the life of Christ through the rosary and what it can do for family life and one’s personal life.”

Holy Cross Family Ministries will hold four rosary rallies this year. Last year, they held a rally at Notre Dame that Dyke said drew about 1,000 people. It is a far cry from when Father Peyton held a rally there in 1950 that drew over 50,000 people. 

“Public expression of prayer in the 1950s was expected,” Dyke noted. “Culturally, as a nation, there was a lot more openness to Christianity. Of course, there has been division, but people embraced that I’m Catholic and, not just I’m Catholic, but I go to Mass at this parish. There was something about the faith that was not to be ashamed of. … It was very cultural that most people would go to a service or a Mass.”

Over the last seven decades, many factors — some obvious, fewer Catholics attending Mass, an ever-creeping secular society — have contributed to why people aren’t praying the rosary.

“I also think it’s not just the waning numbers of people who attend Mass and belong to a parish, but what’s distracting them from prayer, from religion, from spending time with God and spending time with each other as a family?” Dyke said. “We are so busy. OK, I will say ‘Families, set aside 20 minutes to pray the rosary every night,’ and people will say ‘No way, we don’t have time to do that.’

“I’ll lower the bar a little bit. I say pray one decade of the rosary and I will time it. That took us 3 1/2 minutes. Can you spend 3 1/2 praying? Ok, you can’t. Pray one ‘Hail Mary’ and pray that really well.”

Praying the rosary, Dyke added, “is a call for people to make a sacrifice and prioritize their faith.”

“We know that it takes a lot for people to do it because there’s soccer games and chores at the house that are not getting done and there’s the distractions of social media. We are so divided with our time. We are trying to motivate people,” he added.  “The rosary reminds us that in every life circumstance when we pray the rosary we realize that whatever I am going through, Jesus Christ, through the incarnation, has gone through this same thing, too. It is a meditation on the life of Jesus.”