The Traveling Mary

Dave and Mercedes Rizzo deepen their devotion to the Rosary by hosting a statue of Mary in their home.

The month of May is often associated with our Blessed Mother, Mary. There are several reasons for this. Mother’s Day falls in May. Mary is Mother of God, and Mother of the Church. One way that Mary has been honored in May is by May crownings. Another important way to honor Mary is to pray the Rosary together as a family.

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We Took Mary into Our Home

Our parish has a program where you can host a large and beautiful statue of Mary in your home for a week. You are encouraged to pray the Rosary each day for your personal intentions and for the intentions of others. Even though we had not been frequent reciters of the Rosary, we decided to give it a try in the hopes of drawing closer to Mary, and through her, closer to her Son.

So we took our rosary beads out of the box we kept them in at home and dusted them off. The statue provided by our parish came in a hard protective case on wheels. When we opened the case, we had to remove the soft padding and place the crown on Mary’s head. We placed Mary on our table along with fresh flowers and a candle to make it a fitting place for her to stand. Her very presence in our home emitted a peace that was hard to describe, but which we deeply felt. This should not have surprised us, as Mary is known to bring tranquility to troubled hearts.

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The two of us, along with our daughter Danielle, began to make a list of prayer intentions to bring to Mary. Many of these at the top of the list were our own. We began to add intentions for other people. Within a day or two, we heard that one of the intentions for a friend of a friend, someone we didn’t even know, was already having a positive response. That provided motivation and clarity that we should have been praying the Rosary more than we had been praying it.

We Began to Grow in Faith and Devotion

Our daughter Danielle has autism and is non-verbal. At first, she sat at the table alongside us. Her autism makes it hard for her to attend to and follow complicated prayers, but she sat quietly looking at Mary while we recited each prayer. As the week progressed, Danielle began to finger the beads with very little assistance from us. She enjoyed this and seemed quite reverent as she prayed.

Likewise, we were growing in our fondness for the Rosary and in our faith. We became reacquainted with the Mysteries of the Rosary, and they became more real to us as we moved through the week. In a way, praying the Rosary felt like we were speaking directly to Mary and that she was listening to us. Even though Danielle can’t communicate her thoughts easily, we know she felt this too.

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It was a great week. We experienced familiar prayers like the Hail Mary in a deeper way. The words “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee” are beautiful. They are words of both praise and petition carried on across generations, learned from parents and grandparents. We are thankful to the Blessed Mother for the gift of the Rosary, and to our parish for the wonderful Mary statue home visit.

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