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Pray the Rosary with your Community

Personal, individual prayer is wonderful. But there is great power in praying in numbers. We always include prayer as a part of our Community gatherings. We challenge you and your Community (if you're not already doing it) to pray the "Rosary" on the 1st Thursday of every month (or even more often if you like). You can find the full schedule and locations on the Calendar.

Dedicate the Rosary to full Weekends, for couples and families who are struggling, and for couples who need that extra kick to decide to go on the Weekend. If your Community is interested but is not sure how to start this up, please contact the Webcouple, and they'll gladly find someone to come to your Community and walk you through it. They will also provide each couple with a Rosary prayer book that can be used for this special evening and many to follow. Below are suggested guidelines for praying the Rosary as a community.

Here are some suggested Guidelines for praying the Rosary as a Community.

†	Make this a family gathering by including your children.
†	Begin with a potluck at 6PM
†	Begin the Rosary at 7PM.
†	Use the "Rosary” prayer book provided by Marriage Encounter. We have found this to be child friendly.
†	Break each decade up by the number of families present. If you have 5 families each family would do 1 decade. If you have 10 families, each family would do a half-decade.
†	Keep the evening short and informal.
†	Gather in the home of community couples and move the location each month.

Remember, each item in the guideline is optional. This should be a comfortable, prayerful time that will also bond your community.

For a schedule of locations and times, please view the Calendar.

A Little History

In 1987, Rockford Diocese Worldwide Marriage Encounter was struggling to fill Weekends. At that time the Joliet Diocese had made a comeback and were filling all their Weekends. So, two couples, Lee & Jan Kremer and Steve & Sue Puscas went to visit Tom & Katie Watson from Joliet Diocese to see what they had done to bring back the dream in Joliet Diocese.

Tom & Katie shared many ideas of things they had done to excite couples about inviting to the Weekends, but then told Kremers and Puscas’ that the one thing that made the difference was that they started praying the Rosary each month for full Weekends. As many couples from Worldwide Marriage Encounter in the Diocese as they could gather would come together on a set day each month and prayed together. They said that is what changed things for Joliet Diocese. They then gave Kremers and Puscas’ a gift for Rockford Diocese Marriage Encounter – a red and yellow rosary.

Rockford Diocese WWME set a day of the first Thursday of each month for all couples in the Marriage Encounter communities to gather together to pray the Rosary for full Weekends. The first year the Rosary was held a Steve & Sue Puscas’ home in Aurora. After that, in order to include more people and more communities, the rosary has traveled around the Diocese each month. Seventeen years later the Rosary is still being prayed the first Thursday of each month.

In October of 1989 the Kremer’s took the Marriage Encounter rosary to Medjugorje with them. Upon returning from Medjugorje, they noticed that the link between the cross and the rosary had turned gold. This same link turned gold on the Joliet Diocese rosary that was taken to Medjugorje at a different time.