St. Anthony of Padua Church - Rosary for Peace Candlelight Procession, 10/17/2015

It was another awesome evening of prayer and Marian Devotion at my beautiful parish of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Kailua (Oahu), Hawaii.  Our priest wanted to celebrate October - the Month of the Rosary - in a special way... so we did some quick planning and put together another one of our candlelight rosary processions with the popular "Living Mysteries" performed by a group of youngsters from our parochial school. 

  

Above: The First & Second Joyful

Mysteries enacted by our students

Below: The Third, Fourth, & Fifth

Mysteries

We weren't as organized as the previous processions, but still - it was a great exercise in Faith and the turnout was decent considering the lack of publicity... and the gloomy, rainy weather throughout the day.  In fact, thanks to Divine Providence, the weather cooperated and not a drop of rain fell during the procession.

Above: A short video of our parishioners

in procession behind Our Lady's statue

carried by Knights of Columbus

Below:  Parishioners praying at Rosary Mystery "Stations"

Our devotional event, after a shaky start, proceeded smoothly... as our prayer participants prayed and walked from one Mystery Station to another.  Designated Prayer Leaders lead us in the Rosary Prayer and in reading reflections based on the scenes of the lives of Jesus, Mary, and St. Joseph from the Joyful Mysteries.  The children performed their parts earnestly and we, the audience, enjoyed watching their reenactments of the biblical scenes.

A video showing flakes of escarchas

manifesting on the arm of my friend,

Donna, the primary procession organizer.

You can hear witnesses referring to the

escarchas as "Mary's dust".

Heaven, itself, must have been pleased with our parish's efforts, as "little signs" were manifested during tonight's event as with, again, the previous processions.  Escarchas were witnessed appearing on both arms of our primary event organizer - gold, green, and beautiful sky blue-colored flakes in various sizes.  There were so many of them, but I'm not surprised, given how hard my dear friend had worked to bring this event to completion despite a hectic schedule.

And speaking of "sky blue"... during the prayers at the final Mystery Station - The Finding of Jesus in the Temple - I walked several feet away to snap a few photos of the scene and was surprised to see multiple beams of sky blue-colored rays of light shoot down from the dark sky upon the praying crowd.  I was bewildered and dismissed it as my imagination until I got home and discovered that a couple of the photos actually captured the luminous blue rays! The only explanation I could think of was the light was a tangible sign of blessing descending on us; rays and signal graces of the Holy Rosary from the hands of Our Lady of Grace (picture those popular images of Mary with rays streaming from her hands)!

Mysterious rays of sky blue-colored

light can be seen coming down on the

crowd to the left, center, & right of

this photo.  Graces from Heaven? 

So you see... the Holy Rosary prayer is indeed a powerful channel of grace.  Escarchas; rays of unusual light - I don't need any of these to convince me... but how generous is our God in manifesting his loving presence with us in such a tangible and wondrous manner.  HE is good... and so is our beloved Heavenly Mother, the Mediatrix of all Grace!