Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., has issued the following message regarding the Month of the Rosary:
“As the Catholic Church concludes its commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the six appearances of the Blessed Mother to three young children in Fatima, Portugal, our attention is drawn to her Rosary. This familiar prayer invoking Mary’s intercession invites us to meditate upon the mysteries of the life of her Divine Son, Jesús. Through its twenty decades, Mary leads us to him. The month of October, which includes the October 7 feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, is especially set aside and dedicated to this wonderful prayer. In Mary’s apparitions to the children — Lucia Santos and her cousins St. Jacinta and St. Francisco Marto — she asked the children to pray the rosary every day and to invite the whole world to do the same. As Bishop, I encourage all Catholics of the Diocese to make this powerful devotion part of your daily prayer, especially during this month.”
On Oct. 8, Bishop extended his episcopal blessing to 200 couples celebrating 1, 25, 50 or more years of marriage during a Mass in St. Aloysius, Jackson. In his homily, Bishop O’Connell told the men and women gathered, “Today, in the Diocese of Trenton, we lift up the sacrament of marriage and see it as a vineyard created by God, given to two tenants to produce good fruit. Your marriage is such a vineyard, given by God, blessed by the Church 1, 25, 50 years or more, which gift and blessing made you its tenants. You have been good and faithful tenants of this gift, this vineyard and, as you look back, you see the good fruit you have born — the fruit that is two lives become one in a love that has endured.”
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herefor the photo galleryfrom the Bishop’s Anniversary Blessings gathering.