#TweetingMom: A Virtual Celebration of the Rosary

Image credit: Kropekk, Pixabay

Wednesday, October 7, 2015, the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary,

YOU are Invited to PRAY together with thousands of others…on SOCIAL MEDIA?!

Pope Francis made his trip to America to call each of us to become people of MERCY. Let’s respond by preparing our hearts for the Year of Mercy in a NEW way. I invite you to be part of a day of prayer devoted to Blessed Virgin Mary, the MODEL of Mercy, in a surprising place: Twitter and Social Media.  This virtual prayer event is called…#TweetingMOM.

It happens on Wednesday, October 7, 2015, the the feast of the Holy Rosary. #TweetingMOM stands for: “Tweeting Mary Our Mother”. Starting at 5AM (Eastern), it is 20 Hours of Rosary inspired prayer. You can post at any time during each hour in a prayer that somehow relates to a mystery of the Rosary, for ONE DAY, we will turn Social Media into a place of PRAYER. This is especially a call to all Catholics who blog, teach, text, speak, write, surf, instagram or snapchat!  Let’s huddle up electronically with our Blessed Mother and invite everyone to pray with us for our nation, our families, our church and the world.

Please invite everyone in your social media world to join us!

I challenge us, for one day, to make the dominant thread on social media to be Rosary inspired prayer, instead of personal statuses and self promotion. Many of us already have a general spiritual vibe to what we post but let’s take it up a notch. Let’s pray on our posts. And not just prayer requests or intentions. Real prayer. Talking to the big Guy with and through His MOM about becoming more merciful. On 10-7-15, let our posts be NOT…“all about ME.”  Instead, let’s make it “all about HER” guiding us to live lives of mercy that are “all about HIM!”  Try to devote tweets/posts to prayer at least during one hour. Perhaps for the whole day. Post once or multiple times, whatever your time or availability allows.

The #TweetingMOM event enables us to use social media to pray together with our followers! Starting at 5AM (Eastern) we will offer 20 “holy” hours to honor our Blessed Mother and her Son, Jesus, turning Facebook, Twitter and more into a gigantic virtual church where we can ALL pray together  powering up to stand strong for the future of our families, our nation and our world. Holy Mother Mary is our Warrior Queen, with all the grace and power of God at her disposal, if we only ask her. If thousands of us ask her in the public social media spaces, what a witness that will be. “Retweets”, “likes” and “favorites” will make this a “cloud of witnesses” style of of prayer in the cloud that continues to breathe all day in the often otherwise spiritually dark cyber world.

This day could change the way we use social media. Instead of just talking about what is going on… we can actually involve God in the conversation! And as we pray “out loud” we can teach others HOW to pray!

October 7, 2015, is the day that commemorates the victory of the rosary in the Battle of Lepanto, in which the prayer of the rosary is credited for saving western Christian civilization from annihilation. Perhaps we can use a little blue bird to bring our blessed mother’s blue mantle virtually across America in hundreds and thousands of BLUE highlighted hashtags…imploring her protection on the modern electronic battlefield where the enemy does so much damage. Let’s channel our excitement from our time with Pope Francis and prepare spiritually for The Year of Mercy.

Suggested Hashtags for the day:   #Tweeting MOM   and   #MercyRenewUS   and #MariaOraProNobis

If you are a prominent social media voice, you’ll see below that I’m inviting you to bring your followers along and inspire us in a focused way, if you like, during a certain themed hour. Most of you folks I don’t know personally, so if anybody reading this does know the folks with a large platform…invite them! (I’m sending email invites but I might get filtered as “spam”.) If you are a Catholic social media “pied piper” who I haven’t friended or followed yet, please pick an hour or join in or pray with us any time all day too. There is room in this pew for EVERYONE!

Chime in at any time within the hourly THEMES:

The Five Mysteries of Joy

5AM/east            The Annunciation                                 @TrueDevotiontoM and @Mater_Media

6AM                     The Visitation                                                    @MattSwaim

7AM                     The Nativity                                                        @LilaGraceRose

8AM                     The Presentation                                               @HumanLifeIntnl

9AM                     The Finding in the Temple                              @TheresaTomeo

The Five Mysteries of Light

10AM/east           Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan                          @ CardinalDolan

11AM                    Jesus’ at the Wedding of Cana                         @CatholicVote

12PM                    Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom              @LifeTeen

1 PM                      Jesus’ Transfiguration                                      @NCRegister

2PM                       Jesus’ Institution of the Eucharist                 @DrScottHahn

The Five Mysteries of Sorrow

3PM /east            Jesus’ Agony in the Garden                              @PatrickMadrid

4PM                       Jesus’ Scourging at the Pillar                           @FrLarryRichards

5PM                       Jesus’ Crowning of Thorns                               @RaymondArroyo

6PM                       Jesus’ Carrying of the Cross                 @NunBlogger and @SrHelenaBurns

7PM                       Jesus’ Crucifixion                                                 @Pontifex (Pope Francis)

The Five Mysteries of Glory

8PM/east              Jesus’ Resurrection                                 @FatherMikeSchmitz and @MyEasterBunny

9PM                       Jesus’ Ascension                                                   @MovietoMovement

10PM                     The Descent of the Holy Spirit                          @ChrisStefanick

11PM                      Assumption of Mary into Heaven                      @LisaHendey

12 Midnight          Mary Crowned Queen of Heaven and earth    @KofC

Ideas/Examples of posts:

A portion of any of the rosary prayers. The Hail Mary and the Our Father are easily split between 2 tweets.  Posting while you pray a rosary of Hail Marys, Our Fathers and Glory Bes might be really cool.  Post a Bible verse that relates to the mystery for that hour. Copy and paste art that relates to that mystery.  A prayer quote from a saint, based on the mystery might inspire someone else.  Post a “selfie” photo with your favorite image or statue of Mary or a picture of an image of Jesus and/or in the moment of that mystery. (You get the idea…) #MariaOraProNobis!

I’d be honored to pray with you.

Copyright 2015 Cathy Gilmore

Image credit: Kropekk, Pixabay