The Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide

Allison Gingras reviews the new companion book for the 2025 Ascension Press podcast with Father Mark-Mary Ames, CFR.

The Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide

By Father Mark-Mary Ames, CFR

Publisher: Ascension Press

When you hold the 386-page The Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide in your hands, you immediately realize how deep a dive into the Rosary you will be embarking over the next 365 days (or episodes, as I know this will take me much longer than a year to complete). As the Director of Digital Evangelization for Family Rosary USA, you can imagine how excited and, honestly, invested I am in the upcoming new podcast from Ascension with Father Mark-Mary Ames, CFR. 

Family Rosary is the ministry begun by Venerable Patrick Payton, known as the “Rosary priest,” and for the message that “The family that prays together stays together.” Our mission is to help families pray, especially the Rosary. I've discovered, as a wife, mother, and evangelist, that we cannot give what we do not have, especially to our families. Spending time in prayer and reflecting on and with the Rosary, I can attest, increases our faith and strengthens our relationship with Jesus through his Beloved Mother, who knew Him best and loved Him most! 

What you'll find in this book

As always, Ascension's resources are comprehensive, easy to follow, and well-produced. The Prayer Guide begins with Readings for the Journey, a Rosary in a Year plan, a prayer plan, the basic prayers of the Rosary, and an overview of the Mysteries (which I have been told on more than one occasion people find to be, quite frankly, a mystery!) 

The Rosary will be explored in six phases; included within, you will learn more about the Litanies, Biblical Foundations of this precious devotion, Finding Focus, Building up to the Decades, and [our favorite here at Family Rosary], Praying Together. In this case, however, the praying together will be those listening to and following the podcast. Although it rarely takes more than 20 minutes to recite an entire Rosary, many people are intimidated by the endeavor when they gaze upon the 50+ beads of a rosary. 

Building a prayer life, a little at a time

When it comes to building a prayer life, especially one including the Rosary, I often tell the story of adopting my daughter, Faith, at three years old. I bought her preschool toys based on her age, yet her limited play experiences led her to abandon play because she didn’t have the foundation to draw from. As an early child educator, I quickly discovered that what I needed to do was go back to the beginning. I bought infant toys and introduced those, then next moved to toddler toys, and finally, after she'd built up her skills, I reintroduced the preschool toys. To my delight, she knew exactly what to do with them, and not so ironically, she did all of this in about a year, exactly the time we will be spending learning more about the Rosary and building up our devotion to this powerful prayer. 

Throughout this Prayer Guide, I was delighted to uncover saint quotes, reflections to read, lots of Scripture (my favorite), and sections on encountering the mysteries through sacred art. Visio Divina, “divine seeing,” like Lectio Divina, “divine reading,” involves looking at art through the lens of faith — questioning and reflecting on what you see. The Prayer Guide includes wonderful reflection questions and thoughts to help those who are new (or even not so new) to this way of entering into prayer.  

At Family Rosary, we have begun something very similar: Praying with Images, which includes images from all four Mysteries of the Rosary with reflections. Our first series offered reflections from twenty inspiring contributors; for Advent, we created Praying through Images with Stained Glass which includes Father Peyton Rosary reflections. 

We can't wait to journey with Father Mark-Mary Ames, CFR, as well as Ascension Press and all those who will surely be listening and praying along. Father Peyton understood the power of prayer and the importance of giving Mother Mary space in our hearts to allow her to guide us to her Son and to find a devotion in which the entire family can come together to pray — the Rosary fits this need very well!   

Since the Rosary is our jam, Family Rosary has begun collecting Rosary stories; we hope you will share yours. Also, please stay tuned for more information on the launch of Family Rosary's new podcast, Through the Mysteries, on January 9, a conversational pondering at ways we can integrate the lessons of the Rosary (and prayer) into our (and our family’s) everyday ordinary lives! 

Is this a book you'd like to read? Share your thoughts with the Catholic Mom community! You'll find the comment box below the author's bio and list of recommended articles.

Copyright 2024 Allison Gingras
Images: Canva