First Saturday Parish Rosary at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 9/3/2016

Thank you, Lord! Today's monthly Rosary Prayer at St. Anthony of Padua Church was whole-heartedly dedicated to thanking HIM. The entire island chain has been on edge this week due to back-to-back hurricane watches. First, it was Hurricane Madeline... then it was Lester. Remarkably, both veered away from the islands - the first to the South, the other to the North - just a couple of days before potential hits, sparing us islanders from devastation.

       

A friend/co-parishioner privately venerates

the Rosa Mystica pilgrim statue prior to the

start of our prayer meeting.  She had been

particularly moved because shortly after

she walked into the chapel, red escarchas

appeared on her left hand.

In fact, Hurricane Lester, which had intensified to a Category 3 at one point, was predicted to come so close to Oahu, me and my co-facilitator of the Rosary Meeting discussed canceling this month's meeting out of concern for the dangers involved. We were both saddened about it because we had never once canceled a prayer meeting in the nearly 6 years, straight, that we've been leading it. But what do you know? - God was gracious and the storm veered away, resulting in the lifting of the hurricane watch this very morning. Again, thank you, Lord!

So the meeting went on as scheduled and it was beautiful to see many people turning out to pray the Rosary, despite the weather alerts and the somewhat gloomy skies earlier in the day. When I announced that the prayer was being offered specifically in thanksgiving to God for having spared us from the two storms, people in the Day Chapel nodded; we all agreed that we needed to give credit where credit was due.

     

A relic of Mother Teresa was displayed

in the Day Chapel during our prayer

meeting.  After the Rosary, many came

forward to pay their respect to

the future Saint.

It goes without saying that our meeting was extra-meaningful and people prayed with deeper fervor. The Saint we honored was the ever-popular Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who will officially be declared a Saint tomorrow in Rome... and the presence of a 2nd Class Relic from her habit was a source of excitement for our parishioners. It was evident that the people just love and revere her as the number of participants who stayed to venerate the relic after the prayer was more than normal.

Next month will be the 6th Anniversary of the First Saturday Rosary for Peace at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Kailua; another grace to be thankful to God for (I didn't think we would last this long). For those interested in praying with us for much-needed Peace in this troubled world, the October meeting will be held on 10/1, beginning at 4:25pm. All are welcome!