12,642,900 DECADES PER DAY

This being the appropriate month in which to speak often about these things, The Eye Witness would wish to encourage all of our dear and patient readers to consider looking into this most helpful and desperately needed initiative.  We are referring to The Universal Living Rosary Association, which is the present day continuation of the grand idea of Pauline Jaricot, a young girl who wanted in her own time to save France.

She was not a Joan of Arc; that was not her special mission, as it was St Joan's.  Hers was of a more contemplative nature.  She wanted to save France from itself.  Her target was initially licentiousness and her methods produced results.  Simply put, she asked fifteen friends to each say one decade of the entire fifteen-decade rosary each day, meditating upon that one mystery.  With this every day meditation on that one decade she hoped, with the help of the tiniest of donations, to continue on with the additional goal of fostering the reading and writing of good, solid books.  Though she was not ultimately successful in her great plan, her torch has been taken up by Mrs Patti Melvin of, of all places, Dickinson, Texas.  The results of this re-emergence of Pauline Jaricot's plan have been quite remarkable.

Says Mrs. Melvin:

"The Living Rosary Association was Pauline’s inspired plan to save the Church in France and encourage everyone to learn their faith through Catholic books. The association began its devotion of distributing fifteen decades of the Rosary to fifteen persons in several parishes on Dec. 8, 1826. The association was formally approved by Pope Gregory XVI and accorded canonical status on Jan. 27, 1832."

12,642,900 people are reciting one single dedicated decade of the rosary, in honor of St Philomena and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary....in almost every part of the world.

No living enemy, no fiend from the pit, can stop anyone from saying that one decade per day.  That, frankly, is what intrigues this writer about it.  No matter what degeneracy is flung at us, no matter what the enemies of Christ have up their lily-white sleeves, this is the kind of prayer and this is the kind of action that makes even demons tremble.  Hyperbole?  Not really.  Exorcists will tell you plainly what happens when these creatures hear the Holy Name spoken to them.

Pauline Jaricot created this movement to fight licentiousness.  Since we have enough of that going around at the present time her plan would seem to be the right one just now.  She wanted to save France, too.  Certainly there are many countries now that need saving so,again, her plan is solid, and Mrs Melvin is doing yeoman duty in seeing to its worldwide revival.  To add your name and receive your decade to embark on this holy initiative will cost you nothing. 

The news today is that yet another high-ranking Church official, the rather strange Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, spokesman for the Apostolic See, has signalled that two people, other than a sacramentally married husband and wife, might be suitable parents for a child.  [One does begin to wonder what that "SJ" stands for.  I could think of a few words.]  When confronted with such monumental obtuseness on the part of Churchmen, we can pick up the weapon Pauline Jaricot reminded us that we have in our pockets, and use it.  Our little decade, said each day, is fully capable of fighting the devils in Hell and the ones on earth, and is even capable of fighting the stupidities of Vatican press spokesmen.

Write to Mrs Melvin for your decade.  It is a noble and necessary endeavor.