[I have received a lot of feedback from Canadian readers over a couple of my recent
Of Canons & Culture
Onward Mary’s Soldiers
Pete Vere
I decided to break from writing about Canadian politics in this month’s column. After all, there is only so much I can write about the ongoing homosexual persecution of Christianity in my country. In a nutshell, the situation is worse than it was last month. Certain friends of the fairer gender tell me that reflecting upon Canada’s moral decline is the closest thing I as a male conservative will experience to the pains of childbirth.
Yet all analogies break down at a certain point, and this comes after a long and arduous labour. There is simply no joy to Canada’s birth as a homosexual nation. Rather than welcome new life into loving families, the culture of death advances its agenda of abortion, homosexuality, pornography and other vile perversions. (Oops...committing this last sentence to paper is technically a felony in Canada.) Our clergy will likely find themselves jailed within the next two to three years for teaching the catechism. As my friend Raymond likes to say, “It’s payback for contraception and the Winnipeg Statement; the chickens are coming home to roost.” At the same time, because of contraception, our young people are not.
Not too long ago, I found myself down in Alabama with Dr. Charles Rice. As the discussion turned to Canada’s culture war, Dr. Rice offered the following insight: “You cannot win the political war until you win the culture war.” This got me thinking about one of Dom Gerard Calvet’s challenges in Tomorrow Christendom.
“Jesus has his disciples,” the abbot writes, “and Satan, his agents. The empire of darkness recruits its workers, and puts to use gigantic technical means. And what about us, Lord? Shouldn’t we do everything in our power to place at Your service all the resources available to us on this poor earth that You visited?”
These resources, of course, begin with prayer. The more I ponder the words of Dr. Rice and Dom Gerard, the more my hand finds its way to my pocket. This is where I keep my rosary. It is very special to me as it was a gift from my buddy Greg Willits who knotted it from blue twine. Greg is the founder of RosaryArmy.com – a Catholic apostolate that teaches people how to knot rosaries.
As Greg shared with me in a recent discussion, “All of us who founded RosaryArmy.com are practising Catholics. We all try our best to remain faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church, the Holy Father, and the Magisterium. We also welcome Christians of other denominations to learn about the power of the Rosary and it's core essence as a meditation on the life of Jesus Christ.”
The members of RosaryArmy.com knot and give away over a thousand rosaries each month. They use a nylon twine that is strong, flexible, and water-proof. It is a perfect fit with my Northern Ontario lifestyle. My rosary must fit in my pocket, tough the rugged Canadian wilderness and the cold Canadian winter, and survive the curiosity of young children. Greg’s rosaries meet all of these conditions. I also find them more aesthetically pleasing – to both the eye and the touch – than rosaries strung together from plastic beads. Not that there is anything wrong with plastic rosaries.
I asked Greg why the RosaryArmy.com knots and distributes their twine rosaries for free when the same rosary often retails for ten-to-fifteen bucks. “Our goal is to get people to pray the Rosary,” Greg replied. “Plastic bead Rosaries are easy to find and are frequently given away in parishes, but there's something unique about a knotted Rosary that draws people to it and makes people want to pray it. To us, that makes giving them away even more important. If the price of a nice Rosary is keeping you from praying it, then we want to remove that obstacle by giving you a nice rosary.”
Receiving a twine rosary is nice, but making them is much more fun. Hundreds of Catholics have downloaded instructions for knotting twine rosaries from RosaryArmy.com’s website. The instructions are free and easy to follow. They make a wonderful project for homeschoolers, Catholic youth groups, and the parish rosary society. You can even order a DVD in which Greg shows you how to knot each decade of the rosary.
No special twine is needed; you can simply purchase from most craft stores. A ten dollar spool yields an average of twenty-five rosaries. Given the state of North American culture, this is not a bad investment. For only through the intercession of Our Lady, Queen of All Virtue, can we undue the damage wrought by sexual vice.
For more information on Rosary Army, please visit RosaryArmy.com
I have been buying the twine from rosarytwine.com (800)338-9860 as they have neat little grab bags of twine - enough twine for one rosary (with extras to make a one decade rosary too) in a little plastic baggie. I buy crucifixes from them in bulk, too. I usually have one or two lengths of the twine with me at any given time and will knot away while waiting, sitting with laboring moms, sitting in the adoration chapel etc. I recently bought a whole spool of ends and bits from rosarytwine.com but the precut bits are much easier to use as the ends are already sealed.