Children of the world unite in prayer for peace
One million rosaries of hope
October is the month of the rosary and Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) again invited parishes, schools, and families to take part in the worldwide initiative “One Million Children Praying the Rosary,” which will be held Oct. 18. As Saint Padre Pio once said, “When one million children pray the rosary, the world will change.”
The purpose of the campaign is to pray worldwide for unity and peace. In light of recent events, the focus of this year’s edition will be on peace in the Holy Land.
On the ACN website alone, more than 500 000 children living in more than 90 countries across the world have signed up to participate in the event. Children have joined from Australia (more than 12,000), the Philippines (more than 90,000), India (more than 14,000), Slovakia (more than 86,000), the United Kingdom (more than 46,000), Sierra Leone (2000), Canada (3400) and Argentina (more than 8000), among others.
In Portugal, children will pray the rosary at the Chapel of the Apparitions, in Fatima. This will be broadcast live on the internet, radio, and television. In Poland, some 70,000 children are planning to pray the rosary. Families, parishes and more than 270 schools and kindergartens will be participating in the initiative, and many children will gather for a communal prayer at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, in Zakopane, Poland.
In Brazil, a live television broadcast of children praying the rosary will air on two channels and about 1000 children will gather to pray at the Cathedral of Maringá, in southern Brazil. Four days prior, more than 50 residents of a children’s home that has received support from ACN will form a “human rosary” around the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
In Germany, Radio Horeb will broadcast an international rosary. The hour of prayer will feature children’s groups from Kibeho, in Rwanda; São Paulo, Brazil; Beit-Habbak, Lebanon; Fatima, Portugal and Munich, Germany.
Even in countries where Christians face tremendous challenges, such as Nicaragua, Nigeria, Qatar, Iran, Pakistan and Vietnam, children have declared their intention to take part in the rosary campaign by signing up on the website.
Angels are at the center of this year’s campaign, which is why the children will learn about the passage from the Bible in which an angel appears to Saint Joseph in a dream and warns him to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus.
The children’s rosary campaign was initiated in 2005 in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. While a number of children were praying, several of the people present recalled that Saint Padre Pio once said about the power of children praying the rosary. Since then, the prayer campaign has spread to all continents of the world and the number of participants has increased every year. Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed his approval of the “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” initiative and encourages children to take part.
ACN has prepared a free prayer leaflet for parishes, children’s groups and families, which contains instructions on how to pray the rosary, child-friendly meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosary and a Prayer of Consecration to Mary for children. There are also posters for the prayer campaign. The materials are available in 18 languages. They can be found at https://acninternational.org/children-of-the-world-united-in-prayer-for-peace/
—Sina Hartert
