Dear members and supporters of the Eucharistic Rosary Congresses,

I first heard about the Rosary Congress from my mom, who had been involved in the beginnings of the movement in the USA years ago, and was starting it up again in 2017. As I was living near Baltimore, MD at the time, it was my privilege to help start up the revived Rosary Congress in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, my beloved home for many years, and the birthplace of American Catholicism.

A lot has happened in six years, in the whole Church, and in the world. But the call of God remains the same. I won’t disguise that things seem darker than they did then. It reminds me, though, of something a friend said to me on one of the darkest days of my own life: “Go to Mary. She will make the crosses sweet.” It is just like St. Louis de Montfort wrote:

…that good Mother, all full of grace and of the unction of the Holy Spirit, prepares her servants’ crosses with so much maternal sweetness and pure love as to make them gladly acceptable, no matter how bitter they may be in themselves… (True Devotion, #154).

God works all of His most beautiful and powerful deeds through Mary, the vessel and co-operator of the Incarnation. The challenges in the Church are surely insurmountable by human means. Therefore, it is more important than ever that we turn to Our Mother, simple, humble and pure, and powerful with Jesus. Let us go to Jesus through Mary, as the servants at wedding-feast at Cana did. What peace Jesus Himself seemingly withheld from the wedding guests was, at the voice of Mary, given freely and lovingly. Of course, this is what He wanted all along: that we go to Him through Her, so that she would become our Mother too.

Think of what the wedding feast at Cana means! At Mary’s tender word the Word of God obeyed, and granted all the guests of the wedding feast His first miracle. And not only a miracle, but the inauguration of His public ministry… which would end in His sacrificial Passion, Death and Resurrection. All this, He did at the word of Mary.

To her Mother’s heart even one devoutly recited Hail Mary is immensely powerful - I think of the miracle of a woman’s life saved by just one, which was in the news this year - imagine what it would do if we gathered for a week at the Rosary Congress and stormed Heaven with cries of love to Our Lady! Hail Mary! Hail Mary! Hail Mary!

This is why the Rosary Congress is so worthwhile. My take is this. If we want to know the Eucharistic Jesus, it is all the more important that we get to know the Mother of the Eucharist. Moreover, the Eucharist is “the sacrament and source of the Church's unity,” and “a symbol of her unity and of the charity with which he [the Lord] wanted all Christians to be closely united” (cf.  St. John Paul II, Audience 8 November 2000; Council of Trent, Decr. de SS. Eucharistia, introd. and ch. 2).

By attending a Rosary Congress and pouring out our love to Mary, we are doing the best thing we can to motivate Eucharistic Revival, as the Bishops of the USA have asked. And in going to the Eucharistic Jesus through Mary, we are also doing the best thing we can to restore unity in the Church, which is so sadly divided even over the Eucharist Itself.

O sacrament of devotion! O sign of unity! O bond of charity! (St. Augustine, Comm. in Joannis Evangelium 26, 13).

Let us hear the voice of Our Mother at Cana, that beautiful image of Marian and Eucharistic Communion, and obey her.

“Do whatever He tells you (John 2:5).”

Ad Jesum Per Mariam,

Gregory J. Downs,

sinner and son of Our Lady.