On a Sunday afternoon in 1950, Venerable Rev. Patrick Peyton prayed the rosary with 20,000 people in Notre Dame Stadium. Known as the “rosary priest,” Father Peyton graduated from seminary at Notre Dame in 1937 and founded the Holy Cross Family Ministries, a global ministry promoting family values through the example of Mary. He traveled across the world leading “Rosary Rallies” with thousands of Catholics in attendance, where he had preached to 28 million people in person at the time of his death — more than any other Catholic.
75 years later, hundreds of students, families and Holy Cross priests gathered in Bond Quad on Sunday for a “Rosary Rally” led by Holy Cross Family Ministries and Rev. Peter McCormick, the University’s assistant vice president for Campus Ministry in the Division of Student Affairs.
Meigs Turgeon, the special assistant to the president at Holy Cross Family Ministries, explained the significance of the rally and Peyton’s mission.
“We are celebrating the 75th anniversary of Father Patrick Payton’s Rosary Rally at the University of Notre Dame football stadium … We are continuing Fr. Peyton’s mission of promoting the Rosary and encouraging devotion to our Blessed Mother,” he said.
Holy Cross Family Ministries encouraged rally participants to pray for Fr. Peyton’s path to canonization.
“Fr. Peyton is currently venerable and the next step would be for him to become blessed and then the final step on the path to canonization is sainthood, so he’s two steps away. Right now, we’re trying to encourage people to pray for Fr. Peyton's intercession, if they have any kind of problems in their lives, to ask for his prayers. If a medical miracle is attributed to his intercession, then there’s a possibility that he could be recognized as a blessed,” Turgeon said.
Rev. McCormick opened the event by discussing the power of prayer, especially the intercession of Mary. He mentioned that, “Prayer has united and sustained this university since her founding in 1842 and prayer will unite and sustain this University for generations to come. As a family of Notre Dame, we have sought to embody Patrick Peyton's classic saying, ‘the family that prays together stays together.'"
After a prayer for Fr. Peyton’s intercession, McCormick introduced the keynote speaker, Alex Jones ‘15. Jones is the chief executive officer and founder of Hallow, a Catholic meditation app with audio-guided prayers, Bible stories and Christian music.
“[Hallow] is at 27 million downloads, so Father Patrick Payton still has me beat on the number of people … What’s crazy is that of the 100,000 prayers we have on the app, [the rosary] is still the most prayed,” Jones said.
At the beginning of his address, Jones reminded the audience not to overcomplicate their faith. Although he was always Catholic, Jones initially felt that his call to the faith was because of “the weird stuff,” like fasting, imaginative prayer and Carmelite spirituality.
However, it wasn’t until he started praying the Rosary daily that he understood the importance of the habitual parts of the Catholic faith.
“I started to fall in love with Our Lady with the Rosary. Falling in love with something truly good is not like dating. It’s not this rush of emotion and feeling, it’s more like starting to eat healthy or run or get in shape. It’s slow and it's monotonous and can be painful, but gradually a change starts to take place,” Jones said.
He situated his address in today’s political climate, where “thoughts and prayers” as a response to tragedy has divided religious Americans.
“We live in a world today, especially now, where there's a lot of talk about thoughts and prayers. There’s criticism, there's mockery and there’s hate. Of course, prayer must lead to action and a life or deeper love … But also prayer works. It is not a waste of time, it is not a self help tool [and] it is not something we say to make ourselves feel better. Prayer is real,” Jones said.
Following his remarks, attendees raised their rosaries in the air and prayed. Some attendees spread out across the quad, while others joined together to hear the Rosary.
Holy Cross Family Ministries president Fr. Fred Jenga, CSC, concluded the Rosary by asking for prayers for the ministry and Fr. Peyton’s mission. “The mission [Fr. Peyton] founded has never been needed as it is right now. Family life is in need of evangelization, and it is in need of help. The central mission of this organization is to simply be educators in prayer,” Jenga said.
Jenga reiterated Fr. Peyton’s message that families who pray together stay together. “That means that when we allow God to become an active part of our families, especially in family prayer, God changes the chemistry of that family and the life of an individual,” he said.
Charlotte McIlnay, a catholic outreach intern for the Center for Faith, Action and Ministry at Saint Mary’s College and her roommate, Jayda Millspaugh, are juniors who attended the event and spoke the fifth mystery.
"[The event] was a reinstitution of the love of Mary in my life as a leader I really need and it also reinforced within my heart the love of Our Father and Jesus through his mother. It was really great to be able to spend time with other Catholics in a great community,” Millspaugh said.
