Archbishop Fulton Sheen was the Director of the Society for the spreading of the Faith from 1950 to 1966. In February 1951 during a radio programme ‘The Catholic Hour’ Archbishop Fulton inaugurated a World Mission Rosary. He said,’We must pray, not for ourselves, but for the world. So I have created the World Mission Rosary. Each decade is of a different colour to represent one of the five continents. Praying using these special Rosary beads would help the Pope and his Society for the spreading of Faith by giving him practical support, as well as prayers, for the poor missionary countries of the world’.
Each decade makes us think of the continent where the church continues the mission by evangelization:
GREEN for the forests and grasslands of Africa.
BLUE for the ocean surrounding the Islands of the Pacific.
WHITE for Europe, the home of the Pope, the Head of the Catholic Church.
RED for the faith that brought missionaries to America.
YELLOW the morning light of the East, for Asia.
Pope Benedict XV1 urges everyone to include the Rosary in our prayers so as to receive from the Lord those graces that the Church and humanity especially need.
All those who would like to obtain Missionary Rosary Beads are kindly asked to contact the Missions Office at 7, Merchants’ Street, Valletta or to download a Mission Rosary Order Form.
Let’s pray for the Missions to Our Lady by offering a decade to each of the FIVE CONTINENTS of the world.
AFRICA
Where the Church is still young and vocations are many, but where there are great sufferings, mostly from Aids, hunger,racialism and also persecution.
AMERICA
Continent with a major contrast between the northern and southern countries. In Latin America the Church is alive but there is a lot of suffering from lack of social justice and major differences in the nations.
EUROPE
Countries with Christian traditions, that have a history of Christian life and who gave the Church many great Saints but lack the practice of faith. So the Pope speaks about the need of a new evangelisation. Many countries, where in past years missionaries were sent to, now need to be reevangelised.
OCEANIA
In Australia and NewZealand the church faces similar problems like in the western secular world. The hundreds of islands in the Ocean create problems because of long distances between them and the so many cultures and different languages. From a population of 29million, only 8million are Catholics.
ASIA
Where the population is enormous and is ever growing but where the Catholics are a small flock, sometimes consisting only of 3 or 4 per cent. So an effort is being made so that nations of different religions meet between them; in practice Catholics in many countries are very badly treated. China is one of the countries with difficult problems. The Pope desires us to give special attention to this continent.
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