A holy day has dawned upon us. Come, you nations, and adore the Lord. For today a great light has come upon the earth. John 10:27
We wish a Happy Christmas to all bishops, priests, friends, benefactors, volunteers and the Worldpriest team.
We also wish you a Happy New Year as 2019 approaches – a year which will mark the tenth anniversary of the Worldpriest Annual Global Rosary Relay for the sanctification of priests taking place on 26 June and the twenty-fifth anniversary of Marion Mulhall’s vocation to promote the priesthood at any price on 15 January 1994, which lead to the birth of the Worldpriest Global Apostolate as we know it today.
Founder Worldpriest
Any time of year, especially during the holidays, the most precious gift you can give the young or the old; the rich or the poor; the near or the faraway; is your prayer.
We all have family and friends that are struggling. Give them the gift of prayer for Christmas. For those family members that have so much materially, they too will benefit from your gift of prayer. And now you have the opportunity to pray for your family as part of a large prayer community (guild).
A very special global Guild has been established in honor of Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., (1909 – 1992) who was the worldwide Church’s advocate for family prayer, especially the Rosary. Father Peyton is a candidate for sainthood and it is hoped one day he will be revered as the “Saint for Family Prayer.” Together Guild members pray for their own personal intentions and for the advancement of Father Peyton’s cause for sainthood.
Last year on December 18, Pope Francis promulgated the decree recognizing the heroic virtues and sanctity of life of Father Peyton, recognizing him as Venerable by the Roman Catholic Church, the second of the four stages to sainthood.
“England, great cause have you to be glad … for in you is built a mansion to the honour of the Heavenly Empress and of her most glorious salutation, the first of her joys, when Gabriel said at Nazareth “Ave”.” (Pynson Ballad 1496)
The Pynson Ballad tells us that Richeldis de Faverches in 1061, wanting to do some great work for Our Lady, was transported in a dream to Nazareth, where Our Lady told her to measure the Holy House of the Annunciation and build one similar to it in Walsingham.
It was this Saxon Holy House that brought countless pilgrims from England and abroad on pilgrimage to Walsingham. It is known that an Augustinian Priory was built beside the Holy House in 1153, the Canons of which were to care for the Shrine and its pilgrims until the Reformation.
The fame of the Shrine was enriched by many visits from King Henry III (1207-1272) and from then on, every English Monarch visited the Shrine at least once in their reign, the last being Henry VIII, who came on pilgrimage in to give thanks for the birth of a son (1511) – this child soon died, and it was providing a Tudor heir to the throne that was to be the cause of the Reformation here in England.
In 1537 The Canons of Walsingham Priory were one of the first Monastic houses to sign the Act of Supremacy, the document which estranged Henry VIII from the Pope, and in effect, created the ‘Church of England’ with the English Monarch as its Head, rather than The Pope.
This is Marion Mulhall the Founder of the Worldpriest Global Apostolate making a personal appeal to all readers, wherever you may be located.
Worldpriest needs urgent financial support to continue supporting priests in a spiritual and pastoral way and to expand the Worldpriest Annual Global Rosary Relay for the sanctification of priests now in its 10th anniversary year following an inspiration from Our Lady of ‘twenty countries twenty mysteries’.
On the eight of June this year 12 to 14 million people joined in prayer as one family from every corner of the earth, with 700 million Hail Marys being prayed.
On the 28 June 2019 Annual Global Rosary Relay day our goal is to pray a billion Hail Marys as a gift to Our Lady in thanksgiving for all priests.
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Marion Mulhall recalls 7 October 2018, when she was guest speaker at Our Lady of Good Help National Shrine At Green Bay Wisconsin – the only approved apparition shrine in the USA.
It was the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and I felt so blessed to be there on my first visit. Corrie Campbell, Communications Director at the shrine, along with the shrine Rector Father Broussard and the shrine team had planned my visit so perfectly. I felt at home immediately, even though I had travelled all the way from Ireland. From my first meeting with Corrie at the airport in Green Bay, every aspect of my visit unfolded perfectly.
As we drove from my hotel to the shrine on the Sunday I was pleasantly surprised to be in such a remote place, with cornfields as far as the eye could see, an orderly landscape with scattered farm buildings and trees turning to their magnificent autumn colours in the early morning sunshine.
When we finally turned into the shrine grounds, the church first caught my attention. I felt an immediate sense of elation being in this sacred prayer-filled place where Our Lady appeared to Adele Brise on 9 October 1859. Our Lady said she was ‘the Queen of Heaven’ and asked Adele to ‘gather the children in the wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation’. Adele did this with great vigour and enthusiasm for very many years, gathering a community about her to aid her mission.
The story of Knock began on Thursday evening of 21 August 1879, when the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist appeared at the south gable of the Parish Church at Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. Beside them and a little to their left was an altar with a cross and the figure of a lamb, around which angels hovered.
There were fifteen official witnesses to the apparition – young and old – who watched and prayed for two hours in the pouring rain. The witnesses were ordinary people from the village of Knock and the surrounding hinterland.
Two Commissions of Enquiry, in 1879 and 1936, accepted their testimony as trustworthy and satisfactory. Today, Knock ranks among the world’s major Marian Shrines. Pilgrims come here seeking peace and prayer and to enjoy the beautiful landscaped gardens, meandering pathways and the wonderful sense of peace and calm.
Knock Shrine has a unique history and a number of beautiful churches as well as a rich offering of services and facilities, including an award-winning museum, a prayer centre, youth ministry, counselling centre, a contemporary café and excellent bookshop with a wide range of spiritual and religious books and resources. There are five chapels at Knock, where ceremonies take place daily. The iconic Knock Basilica houses the Apparition Mosaic, a magnificent piece of artwork representing the Apparition of 1879. The beautiful stations of the cross recently installed in the basilica are the work Westport-based artist Ger Sweeney, using oil on linen.
Marion Mulhall, founder of the Worldpriest global aspostolate and the Annual Global Rosary Relay for the Sanctification of Priests, will travel from Ireland to be the guest speaker on 7 October, at the national novena at the shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, Green Bay, in the northern US state of Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan.
The day will begin with a Mass at 11am for the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary at the shrine, which is the only approved apparition National Shrine to Our Lady within the United States.
At 12 noon there will be a family lunch at which Marion will speak, telling her personal story behind the founding of the Worldpriest apostolate, which is now recognised in eighty countries around the world through the Annual Rosary Relay of Priests. This prayer event, which touches the lives of millions around the world every year continues to grow, and will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2019.
Above image L to R: Niall M.Kennedy Chairman Worldpriest, His Eminence Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon. Burma, Marion Mulhall Founder of Worldpriest, and His Eminence Oswald Cardinal Gracias of Bombay India at the WMOF Dublin 2018.
Worldpriest participated fully at the World Meeting of Families, which took place on 21-26 August, at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS). In a specially set up studio within the RDS the Worldpriest team –with full media accreditation – filmed a series of interviews with high profile participants at this joyful and uplifting event. These high quality videos will be placed on the Worldpriest website over coming weeks. People included in these productions are His Eminence Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay, India, Archbishop Michael Neary, who is episcopal adviser to Worldpriest and Fr Leo Patalinghug who uses his gift as a celebrity chef to carry out his ministry.
This hugely successful event in Dublin gave the Worldpriest team a perfect opportunity to meet priests from all over the world. Many were already familiar with our apostolate and there was great praise for the continued progress of the Worldpriest Global Rosary Relay for the Sanctification of Priests, which they believed was needed more than ever uniting a world in prayer. ‘A world at prayer is a world at peace’ – Venerable Patrick Peyton.
All expressed their gratitude for the work of our apostolate and commented on the quality of our website. The Rosary Thursday initiative and the Daily Priest Prayer Friend feature both drew special praise from a number of priests. There was also great interest expressed in the content, quality and creativity of our promotional material. Many made suggestions for new web content and new prayer locations were also identified through these discussions.
This extremely well planned event provided many opportunities for Catholics, especially families, to strengthen their faith. The opening mass, celebrated by Cardinal Gracias of Bombay, was also concelebrated by cardinals, bishops and priests from all over the world.
Of course the most outstanding feature of this great event was the arrival of His Holiness Pope Francis in Ireland, the first visit by a pope to Irish soil in forty years. He paid a scheduled visit to Ireland’s National Marian Shrine at Knock in County Mayo as part of his visit.
Ireland is fortunate in that she still possesses a number of ancient wooden sculptures, including several of Our Lady and a few of the Irish saints. The oldest of these figures is the twelfth century Madonna and Child from Kilcorban, Co. Galway. The figure venerated in the Carmelite church today under the title of “Our Lady of Dublin” has been compared in style to some of the early sixteenth-century sculptures in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster, and is probably of this period. It is a life size figure in oak, showing Our Lady holding her Child. Originally brightly painted, the figure had been later whitewashed over, unfortunately, the removal of the whitewash in 1914 also took off the ancient polychrome surface as well. The extended arm of the Child is a modern restoration.
Moslem troops, led by Tarik Ibn Zayid, successfully captured this peninsula (known at the time as Calpe) in AD 710. In honour of his achievement, Calpe was renamed ‘Gibel Tarik’, from where we get the name ‘Gibraltar’: the Mountain of Tarik. In keeping with their practices, and in thanksgiving to Allah, the Moslem troops built a fortress and constructed a mosque with a minaret at the southernmost part of Gibraltar, located just across from the North African coast. Once consolidated here, they marched into mainland Europe, conquering most of the Iberian Peninsula.