The Rosary is one of the most flexible practices available to Catholics: One can recite it by oneself in formal or informal situations. Or one can join with others in praying this Marian prayer.
There is consolation in praying with others, but did you know that there is a special way of receiving the benefits of the Rosary even when one is not reciting it?
Fr. Dismas Sayre, OP, of the Rosary Center in Portland, Oregon, explained that members of a worldwide association known as the Confraternity of the Rosary have a “share in the prayer of countless thousands of members the world over, and this even after death.”
Fr. Sayre is a member of the Order of Preachers of the Western Province. The Rosary Confraternity has been entrusted to the direction and care of the Dominican Friars since its foundation, under an Apostolic Constitution written by Pope Leo XIII.
The confraternity is an international association of the faithful who make a commitment to pray the Rosary regularly.
“The Rosary Confraternity is a union of countless thousands of the faithful throughout the world who join their prayer with other members while they recite the decades of the Rosary and meditate on the mysteries,” Fr. Sayre said in a video.
A member of the Confraternity promises to pray the whole Rosary each week, including the intentions of all other members. “They in turn pray for him,” the Dominican priest said.
Other benefits of membership in the Confraternity include the special protection of the Mother of God; the intercession of the saints; and various plenary and partial indulgences.
Fr. Sayre quotes St. John Vianney as having said, “If anyone has the happiness of being in the Confraternity of the Rosary, he has in all corners of the world brothers and sisters who pray for him.”
For anyone who is particularly affected by the “divisiveness” in the world today – and even in the Church – or the “atomization” and loneliness that seems to have seeped into society, membership in the Confraternity of the Rosary can be a great consolation.
