Before the beatification Mass for Fulton Sheen begins on Sept. 24, everyone attending the morning program at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis will receive a free “World Missions Rosary” — designed by Bishop Sheen himself. Thousands of faithful will then pray a Rosary with this rosary.
That prayerful moment will harken back to 1951, when Sheen introduced this distinctive, multicolored, eye-catching rosary to remind the faithful to pray to Our Lady, Queen of Apostles, for the success of the Church’s missionary efforts around the world.
“Seventy-five years ago this year, Fulton J. Sheen, in his second year as the national director of The Pontifical Mission Societies, started to ask, ‘How can I get people praying for the missions?’ He knew Americans’ great love for Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, and their great love for the Holy Rosary,” today’s national director, Msgr. Roger Landry, told the Register.
What a start to beatification day this will be for the more than 75,000 people expected to come to St. Louis and Peoria, Illinois, to celebrate Sheen’s beatification. Msgr. Landy explained to listeners when he appeared on Conversations with Consequences on EWTN Radio that the Diocese of Peoria
