Don't Try to Tell Me the Rosary Is Nothing but Bead Rattling

Yesterday was a great day...in our home, the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary always is.

My wife and I married at the age of thirty-six, assuming that conceiving might prove a challenge, and our assumption proved quite correct. When the DIY approach proved ineffective, my wife’s ob-gyn helped us out with some Catholic-kosher treatment that led to a lovely moment when my wife handed me a greeting card with a positive pregnancy test inside.

No, that wasn’t one of Hallmark’s innovations. It was just a drugstore test slipped into a blank card in which she had written a nice note. Although, I can just see a “Positive Pregnancy Test” card coming along someday, if Hallmark could only find a way to make it happen without doing you-know-what on the card.

That’s as much of the story as my wife knew at the time. Unbeknownst to her, I had been going to a church near my office every day at lunchtime to pray the Rosary, asking Our Lady to intercede for us in our desire to conceive.

As our due date (the Feast of St. Matthew) came and went, my wife kept checking the calendar, wondering what feast day Baby would be born on (we went old-school and opted not to “find out” Baby’s sex). Feast day after feast day after feast day went by and we were on the verge of inducement when my wife finally went into labor.

Our son debuted several hours later to much rejoicing. So distracted were we, that my wife completely forgot about checking the calendar until a few days later.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, we soon discovered that our son’s birthday, October 7, is the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary. It was then that I told my wife about my lunchtime Rosaries.

We have no doubt our son being born on Blessed Mother’s feast day was Her Son’s way of letting us know Our Lady’s intercession was heard.