Go Team Rosary, Go!

We recently had the honor of being visited by the Promoter of the International Rosary Teams^*, who are based in France, Fr. Louis-Marie Ariño-Durand, OP, and Christine Pettinari, the International Coordinator. The Rosary Teams, like our blessed Confraternity, is under the auspices of the Dominican Order, although not connected directly to us. Yet, like I always say, I am not jealous – if someone is promoting prayer of Our Lady’s Rosary, I am all for it!

But why have two Rosary groups under the Dominican Order? Isn’t the Confraternity enough in itself? Aren’t they redundant? The Rosary Confraternity is meant more for the faithful who are the more active faithful, whether they are able to regularly go to church, are home-bound, or isolated, in prison, what have you. They are already in the Church as best as they are able to be. The International Rosary Teams were founded in 1955 in France by Fr. Joseph Eyquem, OP, who foresaw the wave of secularization and modern push away from parish life. His desire was “to help people live as Christians,” with a particular focus on those who were more and more distant from Holy Mother Church. How to reach them? How to help them start to take their first steps back to God and Holy Mother Church?

This particular movement proposes to start in little steps – not with the whole Rosary, or a single set of Mysteries, but rather, one particular Mystery at a time. The movement invites its members both to daily individual prayer, and to a time of monthly meeting together, to help build community, which is a key constitutional building block of what makes us the Church. As the International Rosary Teams themselves say, “It is a real celebration of the faith with a time of welcome, of prayer to the Holy Spirit, of invocation to Mary, of reading of the Word of God followed by a reflection on this Word with a time of sharing, a prayer of praise and intercession and a sending on mission. Month after month, these meetings and exchanges allow the development of a path of faith and a fraternal life.” Before “accompaniment” was a buzzword in our Church, the Rosary Teams were already engaged with the world, inviting those outside the Church to engage with the Church as much as possible.

But isn’t this sabotaging true evangelization? One cannot just violently yank the lost sheep back into the fold, especially in these times. Yes, God will sometimes give a swift kick to that special lost and stubborn sheep, but we cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good, as the saying says. Every long journey begins with one step. Every step of the New Evangelization begins with one word, one invite, one hand outstretched in welcome. My own reversion began with one cute girl asking me to go to Church – and it obviously worked! This is not abandoning the Faith, or obfuscating our Faith. As Scripture says, “Although you should be teachers by this time, you need to have someone teach you again the basic elements of the utterances of God. You need milk, not solid food” (Heb 5:12). We cannot just curse the darkness, we must light the single candle, one by one.

Our previous Master of the Dominican Order, Fr. Bruno Cadoré, a Frenchman himself, and well-aware of the situation in France, endorsed this movement, saying, “To learn to know the Rosary Teams is to discover that there exists a simple and effective proposition faced with questions raised by the challenges of the new Evangelization. To encourage the Rosary Teams is to allow the laity to become actors of the Announcement of the Good News at the heart of the Church. The Rosary Teams are a gift of the Spirit for our times.”

Of course, one can fully be a member of the Rosary Confraternity and the International Rosary Teams, or remain a member of the Rosary Confraternity without affiliating with the Teams. This is simply another way we Dominicans offer using Our Lady’s Rosary to bring souls closer to Christ, not in competition, but in cooperation; with the lay faithful taking their active role in going to where the priest or religious cannot always go.

Daily Prayer in Action!

For more information, visit:

internationalrosaryteams.org/en/home/

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* - There are various local or national movements called “Rosary Team” or “Rosary Teams,” but are not affiliated with the Dominican Order, although they do good work in their own right. We are speaking of the International Rosary Teams, based in France.

The Rosary  is one of the most powerful devotions entrusted to us by Our Lady, and in these turbulent times, it remains a sure path to peace, conversion, and deeper love of Christ.
Pope Leo XIV

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Fr. Dismas Sayre, O.P.

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