• Members of all faiths are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Christian members of the Star Valley community are invited to join in a World-Wide Rosary Rally Saturday, October 12 at noon on the lawn of the Freedom Fireworks barn in Thayne at 223 Main Street. Folks of all religions are welcome to join in this massive prayer event.

Participants are encouraged to bring a camp chair, but personal rosary beads are not necessary. Parking is available across the street from the barn.

According to local organizer, Jenny Desrocher, who spoke with SVI Media last week about the event, AmericaNeedsFatima.org has organized the event annually for several years, and participation is growing quickly. The goal is for the Rosary prayer, which is considered by Catholics as the most powerful prayer format available to the world, to be prayed during each hour within a 24 hour period, by congregations in hundreds of locations throughout the world.

“It’s not just the Catholics that pray the Rosary, but also the Protestants and the Evangelical Christians,” Desrocher explained. “It’s a very powerful prayer. There are 15 promises from Mary for people who recite the Rosary, as well as powerful and spiritual benefits that come. Anybody can pray the Rosary and get the benefits that Mary promises.” The traditional prayer, as spoken today, is over 600 years old and follows a distinct sequence of recitations. Participants use the rosary beads to help them keep track of where they are in the sequence, as the prayer involves many parts.

Among other things, the complete Rosary sequence contains an Apostles Creed, an Our Father, Hail Mary’s, a Gloria, and five Mysteries, which center on the lives of Jesus and Mary as set forth in the four Gospels. Meditation also plays an important role in the sequence of the Rosary. “We are going to do the Hail Mary 50 times.” Desrocher feels that it should take approximately 20 minutes “to say a proper rosary. It takes discipline.”

The Rosary has been a hallmark of the Catholic devotional life for millions of people. Roots of the Rosary go back 3,000 years to the Psalms that are “attributed to King David in Hebrew scripture of the Old Testament.” Early Christian monks who fled together to escape the distraction of the world, to seek God and pursue holiness, prayed the Psalms in sets of 50.

“It is said that a family that prays together, stays together, and I believe that’s true,” Desrocher said. She expressed sorrow that the “United States are no longer united,” and that our world is in turmoil and chaos.

“Can you imagine what we could get done if everybody in government actually got along and was united? It would just be amazing! And what do we do when we need something? We pray,” Desrocher said. “I believe that God has plans and I believe in His plan, and to show that, I pray. Regardless of their religion, I think everybody believes in the power of prayer.”

She encourages praying folks of all faiths to join in this event with the heartfelt needs of our world in mind.