October – The Month of the Rosary

WelCom October 2022

Whiringa-ā-nuku – Te Marama o te Rōhario

Traditionally, the Catholic Church dedicates each month of the year to a certain devotion. The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary. October includes the liturgical feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated on 7 October.

St John Paul II called the Rosary his favourite prayer, ‘in which we meditate with Mary upon the mysteries which she as a Mother meditated on in her heart (Lk 2:19).’

The Rosary as a work and memory of love

Fr James Lyons

A teacher loved the Rosary. She wanted to make this devotion more obvious and better understood.

The parish church stood on a large piece of ground. Why not create a Rosary Garden in one corner? The parish said, ‘Go ahead!’

But, very sadly, the teacher became seriously ill and died before the garden was even started. Now it thrives in her memory.

The Rosary Garden was the dream of Angela Moeke, a teacher and Director of Religious Studies at St Patrick’s School in Tongariro Parish, Taupo.

After her untimely death in 2021, the school and parish combined to create the garden as a memorial, while providing a visual feast honouring the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The garden is made with used car tyres, painted blue, one for each of the 53 ‘Hail Marys’ and each proudly displaying a red rose bush. The ‘Our Father’, in between each Decade features a tall-stemmed white rose.

Blessed on 1 October last year, the Ms Moeke Memorial Garden has attracted great interest and is regularly visited by school classes and parishioners.

Alison Carroll, Faith Formation Coordinator for Tongariro Parish says the joint project by school and parish shows ‘our respect for and love of Angela, a highly valued teacher, parishioner, friend and colleague’.

‘It was a beautiful setting for our RCIA [Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults] candidates to learn about the Rosary and pray it together for the first time’, she said.

Close by, the parish has recently built and blessed a columbarium for the interment of ashes, making the garden ‘a prayerful companion’ to the memory of loved ones.

School pupils find the site a helpful aid to prayer. Jack, aged 10, loves class prayer time there: ‘It gives me peaceful vibes.’

Parish priest, Msgr Trevor Murray, encouraged the project with a ‘hands on’ involvement, laying out the site and helping the children plant the roses. He says the impact on both parish and school has been ‘enormous’.

‘Parishioners spend time there after Mass and school classes make regular visits. As a priest, I’m very heartened to see this growing understanding and appreciation of the Rosary. We have a beautiful setting for a beautiful prayer.’

The photographs with this article display the unique and dignified nature of the memorial. Hopefully, they also encourage readers visiting Taupo to pray there.

Traditionally, the Rosary comprises five decades (ten Hail Mary prayers) each separated by the Our Father (The Lord’s Prayer). Each decade invites meditation on a ‘Mystery’ relating to the life of Jesus.

There are the Mysteries of Joy, Light, Sorrow and Glory. The Joyful Mysteries follow the birth and infancy of Jesus and are prayed on Monday and Saturday. The Mysteries of Light bring us into the ministry of Jesus (Thursday). The Sorrowful Mysteries highlight the passion and death of Jesus (Tuesday and Friday); the Resurrection and the culmination of Mary’s life are the Glorious Mysteries (Wednesday and Sunday).

A parishioner of Wellington’s Sacred Heart Cathedral Parish, Dr Michael Humble, recently suggested a further set of meditations, naming them the Mysteries of Hope [see below].