Dear members and supporters of the Diocesan Rosary Congresses,

My name is Sherry Hittle. I am a member of Sacred Heart Parish, which is clustered with two other parishes under the title of St. Therese of Lisieux, in northwest Iowa. This past October was our first time sponsoring a Rosary Congress with my good friend and co-partner, Joan Godbersen.

I learned about the Rosary Congress from Joan. She approached me one day after Mass and asked if I would like to join her in helping host a Rosary Congress at our church. My immediate response to her was, “Yes.” I didn’t think about it, I just said yes. At the time, I was a little perplexed at my immediate answer because I didn’t even know what a Rosary Congress was. Without a doubt, it was the Holy Spirit giving me a final nudge to say yes after having received several nudges prior to that day. The Spirit had been leading me to do “something” to unite our parishes, but I didn’t know what that “something” was to be until Joan approached me. Even though I was unaware of what the Rosary Congress was all about, the Spirit knew this was what was to happen here and that “Yes” came out of my mouth before I could think. Joan’s face looked a little surprised at my answer but she didn’t ask me about my response until several days later, when I explained the nudgings I had been receiving.

So began our pursuit in hosting a Rosary Congress. We approached our priest to ask his permission and thoughts and he was not only supportive, but eager to help us with ideas and suggestions. Father was opened to all the activities suggested by the Rosary Congress’s guidelines. He had but one request….to hold it eight days instead of seven. He wanted it to run from Saturday to Saturday.

For many years, I have done the scheduling of Eucharistic Adoration that is held for eight hours, one day a month. It seemed like an insurmountable task to accomplish 24- hour adoration for eight days when I struggle with one day a month for eight hours. That’s when Joan and I realized that this was not our work. It was the work of the Blessed Mother. We surrendered it all to her and watched her take the reins and accomplish what we thought was impossible. It was amazing!

Activities were planned for five of the eight days/evening…. Speakers, Eucharistic Procession, Patriotic Rosary, a night for our religious education students with a speaker, and a Healing Service with Mass, anointings, prayer teams and confessions. The Healing Service brought our biggest attendance.

As the week progressed, it was easy to see and feel a spirit of joy and contentment. It was permeating among the people participating and flowing freely through the crowd.

Our goal was to bring unity to our three parishes and a deeper appreciation of the Eucharist with a stronger prayer life to our congregations. We believe all of that was accomplished. The overall participation was better than we anticipated, and the comments we heard at the closing were music to our ears with many positive responses.

Our diocesan paper gave wonderful coverage of our event. It is our hope that other parishes in our diocese will be encouraged to pick up this work and host a Rosary Congress in their parish after reading about it.

As we continue to undertake the work of our three parishes merging, I believe the fruits of the Rosary Congress are ripening. Committees are being formed from members of each parish. These committees have come together only once since our Rosary Congress but there was a good sense of camaraderie and willingness to work together with our mission statement and common goals.

Our priest is seeing some lapsed Catholics returning to the church, as well as seeing some lukewarm Catholics with some fervor since the Rosary Congress.

For our first Rosary Congress, we are pleased with how things went, and what we see for results, hoping that more fruits will continue.

We are grateful for Kristin and all the encouragement and guidance she brought to us, for the Holy Spirit bringing it to Joan’s attention to dive into this endeavor, and to Our Dear Blessed Mother for taking over and bringing this first Rosary Congress to fruition.