Several times, I’d post free roses for the members of my local “Flash Gives” community. With instructions to, “Take the Roses. Leave the Buckets,” folks would scoop up the flowers so fast, resulting in some happy neighbors, and a few sad ones. Since tired roses have little life left, I don’t feel badly for the people who don’t receive. But I avoid the guilt of tossing roses!

On this occasion, the roses are still quite beautiful, with lots of life left in them. I ask Heaven what to do.

“Make a Decade Rosary and send it to Kelley in Texas.”

There used to be a time when my heart wasn’t quiet enough to hear an answer from heaven. Another blog post, perhaps. This answer is fast and clear.

She’s my very first online customer, from two years ago, and I know she’ll appreciate the gift. (You can read her story here). Plus, I’m thinking about the health and well-being of her family, self-employed in a “non-essential” profession, with two high-school aged daughters sheltering at home.

I get busy, prayerfully create it, box and label it, and drop it off at the local FedEx store 15 minutes before the truck departs. She’ll receive it in the morning, and call me so excited! I know it!

But she doesn’t. Texas time is two hours later than Washington time. It’s afternoon there. I’m going to text her!

I wrote:

“Hi Kelley, I sent you a little something. Did you get it?”

When she calls back, I hear shouts and screaming.

“Julia, you won’t believe this, but our daughters just finished a nine-day Novena to St. Therese! They’ve been asking me, ‘Mom, how will she send us a rose, since we’ve been in quarantine?'”

This Novena is supposed to come with an answer — a sign of roses on the ninth day. This is the package they open on arrival:

Heaven’s timing is perfect. I’m delighted for my dear customer and her family. Their prayers, and faithfulness, are noticed by God, and the dear little saint, Therese, got her chance to deliver.

I imagine her running to her sainted parents, Louis and Zelie Martin, and gleefully boasting, in her good-humored, melodic voice,

“Mama and Papa, look what I have done today! I sent a red rose rosary to some 16 year-old twin sisters in America!”

The family draped the rosary upon an antique crucifix, encircling the image of Jesus in fresh beautiful, red roses. Like this:

Kelley wrote about the experience for this Catholic Women’s Blog, “Mighty is Her Call. I will insert the link when it’s posted, so you can see the story from her eyes.

For anyone who wants to make a Novena to the Little Flower, here is the prayer:

O Little Therese of the Child Jesus
Please pick for me a rose
from the heavenly garden
and send it to me
as a message of love.

O Little Flower of Jesus,
ask God to grant the favors
I now place with confidence
in you hands
( mention your special prayer request here )

St. Therese, help me to always believe
as you did, in God’s great love for me,
so that I may imitate your “Little Way” each day. 
Amen.

Thank you St. Therese, for doing your thing, and being altogether darling in the way you share God’s love with the world.

Learn more about St. Therese at this website.

The post Flowers from Heaven appeared first on Fresh Rosary | Funeral Memorial Tribute Rosaries.

I’m habitual about turning off the phone before Mass, but on this late Monday morning, it isn’t Mass that brings me to our parish — it’s Lent. As a career florist, I help beautify the sanctuary for Lent, Easter, and Christmas. Ash Wednesday is two days away, and I’m flying to Nebraska early in the morning to visit my daughter and toddler granddaughter.

“Hello, this is Julia.”

As I sneak into the Sacristy to take the call, a woman with a sweetly lyrical, tentative voice, asks —

“Hello, is this the number to call about ordering a fresh flower rosary?”

Instantly I have a dozen questions for the stranger on my phone. “How did you find me? What were the search words? Do you like the website? Did you internet stalk me for any amount of time? Are you willing to be a guinea pig by using the web form for your order?”

I hold back all questions but the first.

“I Googled ‘fresh flower rosary Dallas,’ and you came up on the first page.” She tells me that she wanted to make a fresh rosary herself, and entertained the idea with enough worry that her husband says, “I bet somebody already makes them. Do a web search.

“You’re the only one that makes rosaries with real roses, and not the ones made from dried petals. And I need a real rose rosary for my niece, Gracie Ann’s, funeral. She’s just a very special little girl, and would have turned two at the end of this month!”

Oh, dear Lord. Our granddaughter will be two in June.

Instantly I realize there is a staggering amount of pain in this woman’s family, but two days before Valentine’s Day — yes, Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s fell on the same day last year (neat trick, God!) — I need to immediately wrap up the church decor and run to the local floral wholesaler to get roses, or I can’t help at all!

I ask her name and the basic details of the service and say,

“Yes, Kelley, I don’t even know if I can get the roses at this time, but I’m saying ‘yes,’ and we’ll see what happens, if doors open, or if there’s any resistance. I will call you back and let you know.”

Pink is preferred for Gracie Ann’s rosary, but Kelley says it’s OK if it’s not pink.

“I’m really open to whatever God provides,” she says. “I’ll be praying for the right roses…”

I zoom to the floral supply house and my rep, Kim, finds three bunches of a lovely ombre’ pink rose called “Sweetness,” exactly the amount needed, not on the sales floor, but hiding in a box in a back cooler. It seems the local shops are done with their Valentine’s buys, and here these roses wait, with no suitors or love interests.

She also lets me have them for the normal price, not the market-driven-elevated-Valentine’s Day price.

The first hurdle crossed, I bring the roses home to hydrate. This isn’t meant to be a work day. I’ve loose ends to tie before travel, but the roses need a good long drink to make it through Friday’s scheduled Mass of Christian Burial, following their long trip to Texas.

Next up is an evening field trip for our local healing prayer ministry. It’s about an hour’s drive to the revival-style prophetic prayer meeting — yes, Catholics do that — which gives me time to update Kelley on the progress of her order, and to hear stories of Gracie Ann.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of this story — I don’t know if it’s two parts, or three parts, or more, but I promise it will be good!!

The post Gracie Ann: The story of our first online rosary order – Part 1 appeared first on Fresh Rosary | Funeral Memorial Tribute Rosaries.

-Julia

Volumes are written on the Rosary. Surely as I type this blog post, somewhere a brilliant writer is composing a heartfelt story, a compelling exhortation, a historical compilation. All I can do is offer my musings and some of my rosary stories, and hope you’ll find me sincere and believable.

Let’s begin by saying I was born and baptized into a Catholic family, with a legacy of devotion that spans centuries, originating in Ireland. My maternal grandmother prayed the rosary so consistently that she wore the edges off of her beads.

When did I become aware of the Rosary? I remember handling mom’s bejeweled rosary with childlike awe, enchanted by its shiny, faceted beads, textural metal crucifix, and image of Mother Mary resembling a bracelet charm. Getting into mom’s jewelry always elicited a stern, “hands off,” but not if I wanted to hold her rosary. Why she never rebuffed me and removed it from my tiny fists baffled me. Much later I realized that mother wanted me to form a relationship with the Rosary, and more than materially.

I think of the rosary in three realms:

The rosary is physical. It’s an arrangement of beads, chain, and a crucifix, with a centerpiece medal most often depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some people think the rosary is jewelry, like I did as a little girl. When ordering rosaries in bulk to include in our FreshRosary.com shipments, I found them listed online as “Rosary Necklace.” My overseas supplier emails me offerings of other types of jewelry – chokers here, bracelets there — amusing, but not enticing. I don’t sell jewelry. I do, however, promote the rosary!

People pray it with their hands, hearts, minds, and voices. They read rosary meditations from books. They kneel in churches, sit in living rooms, walk with a rosary in their pockets, pray while driving, pray at hospital bedsides. Even without beads, a rosary can be prayed on the fingers. Ten fingers equal a decade. Its physical nature, and repetitive prayers, have led some to believe that the rosary is rote, mindless, meaningless, vain. But “misunderstood,” is more like it.

The rosary is mystical. While dying on the cross, “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’” (John 19:26). With this action, Jesus gave His mother to all of humanity, because Jesus loves all of us.

Every time I pray a “Hail Mary,” I am literally asking Jesus’ mother – MY mother! – to pray for me, “now and at the hour of our (my) death.” With a 5-decade rosary, I’m asking her 53 times to remind God of my needs, present and future. What mother would deny her child this favor if they asked her 53 times? Imagine the fruitfulness of asking that many times, every day.

Asking the Heavenly Lady to pray for me, now and at the hour of my death, has pulled me into some unexpected encounters that make no earthly sense.

On a flight to California, I sat next to a little old lady whose plaid wool blazer reeked of mothballs. “Bless her heart, and give me patience for this flight,” I selfishly prayed. She got out her rosary and began to finger it silently. For the entire time she prayed, about 45 minutes, I could not smell mothballs, but was overwhelmed by the scent of the most heavenly roses. So much so that I asked a flight attendant, and even another passenger, “Do you smell roses?” Quizzical looks and head shakes were their answer.

The rose scent didn’t mask the odor of mothballs, but completely replaced it. My seat mate zipped her rosary back into its pouch, and the strong odor of mothballs returned, as instantly the glorious rose scent vanished. I tried to ask her about it, but English wasn’t her native tongue, and she didn’t savvy my question. Still, I know Our Lady was with her in prayer. The fragrance of roses has been associated with apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, and is taken as a comforting sign of her mystical presence.

At a Catholic women’s retreat many years ago, our group of about 50 had reverently prayed the rosary together in a makeshift chapel. At its conclusion I left the room with my friend, Cindy. As we stood in the retreat center hallway near a window, she held her rosary up to the light, and we watched with surprise as the silver rosary turned metallic gold, like paint were slowly pouring down its length all the way to, and including, the crucifix. I whispered, “Cindy, are you seeing this?” and she affirmed. It was over 20 years ago, and we both remember the event clearly. We saw it together. It really happened.

The account of my brother’s holy death is here. We’d just finished praying the rosary at his bedside, and witnessed the physical signs of his soul leaving his body. I’m certain he could see us surrounding him in prayer as he passed on to the next life.

I could tell many more stories of answered prayer occurring almost immediately after the conclusion of praying the rosary: A hopeful and positive report from medical staff. An unexpected reprieve from an IRS tax lien. Good news where there had previously been worry or despair. Ask around. If you have friends or family who pray the rosary, I bet they have stories, too.

The rosary is timeless. The rosary has a storied past, a vibrant present, and a prophetic future. The history of the rosary can be found online and in books like The Rosary Collector’s Guide, but I believe that it transcends time, because the rosary is more than a physical object. Rather, it accompanies people on their life journeys.

Praying the rosary regularly is akin to developing a trusted relationship with the Mother of Jesus, who said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) Then as one servant to another, at the wedding feast at Cana (John 2:5), she says, “do whatever He (Jesus) tells you,” Mary is all about serving God, and urging us to do likewise, and she leads by example. Having a relationship with her enhances my relationship with Jesus. It makes me want to love and serve him in a more growing and fruitful way.

I like to think of the Rosary as a celestial lasso connecting all of humanity in a circle of love, guided by Christ’s Mother, who wants only to assist her Son by encouraging us into loving service and obedience to God.

Now with our recent FreshRosary.com effort, I’m seeing and hearing many new stories of beloved souls, whose love for Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, is well known among friends and family, because the rosary became much more for them than a pretty piece of jewelry. It became a prayer lifeline, accompanying them on their journey to the afterlife.

I hope to share more of these stories with you in future blog posts. In the meantime, has the Rosary touched your life, or brought Heaven closer to you in a discernible way? I’d love to hear about it!

The post The Rosary: A physical, mystical, timeless treasure appeared first on Fresh Rosary | Funeral Memorial Tribute Rosaries.