Pray, Preach, Live the Rosary!

 Yesterday we had the joy of meeting Fr. Louis-Marie Ario-Durand, OP. Fr. Durand is the international promoter for the Rosary for the Order of Preachers. He is a member of the Province of Toulouse. Toulouse, he informed us is not in France!

Accompanying Fr. Louis-Marie was Fr. Bruno Shah, OP who is close to our monastery. Fr. Louis-Marie wanted to come to the monastery first because, "St. Dominic started with the nuns," and of course, our own monastery is named after our Lady of the Rosary and devoted to the recitation of the Rosary.

Fr. Louis-Marie surprised us all with many cards and postcards of photos he has taken which he feels illustrates aspects of the Rosary and our Lady's love for us and powerful intercession. He gave us each a pile telling us, "you don't keep these; you pass them on to others!"

The visit of our brothers was too, too short, as they had to be back in New York City. We sent them home with lots of homemade chocolate chip cookies, a DVD of our own Rosary video and information about our monastery and of course, soap!

Fr. Louis-Marie has started a website to promote the rosary called Rosarium In meeting with the regional rosary promoters he hopes to expand the English pages of this site.

The visit of our brother certainly encouraged all of us to continue to pray, preach and live the Rosary with renewed zeal and love for our Blessed Mother. It was also noted that Father's visit was on the feast of Bl. Agnes of Langeac, who is mentioned in St. Louis-Marie de Monfort's Secret of Mary and who was so devoted to our Lady and the Holy Rosary.