October is Catholic Mission Month
Last Sunday was World Mission Sunday. For one hundred years, people in parish and Catholic education communities across Australia and around the world have joined together in prayer and generosity to ensure the Church can carry on the message of God’s love to those who need it most.
Watch Pope Leo XIV's message for Catholic Mission Sunday 2026.
October is also the month of "The Rosary"
For many of us with a long history of participation in the rituals and ways of the Catholic tradition will have strong feelings about and affection for “The Rosary.” The Rosary is a scripture based devotional prayer incorporating a specific set of repetitive prayers including “The Hail Mary” and “The Our Father.”
The Rosary and the life of Mary the mother of Jesus are deeply inter-connected. While the Rosary centres on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, Mary serves as the guide and model through whom believers view those events. In Catholic theology, Mary is not worshipped: rather the Rosary asks for her intercession Catholic Tradition views praying the Rosary as walking through Christ’s life alongside Mary, seeing his life through her eyes.
Sr Joan Chittister suggests that in this time of social fragility and global unrest we can turn to Mary and her experience in the first Joyful Mystery of the Rosary- The Annunciation and gain the kind of courage it takes to follow the call of God in our lives. Chittister speaks of Mary’s experience of being a young woman who knew that if she listened to the unconventional call of God to accept an unexpected, unexplained child, she stood to lose it all-her honour in the community, her future security, her marriage. The neighbours would talk about her. No man would marry her. However, Mary who was bought up meditating on the Psalms, took the step for us that can give us the courage to take the step for others. She trusted that God’s will was more important to be followed than her own.
May we too be inspired by the courage, compassion and selflessness of Mary and make choices in our lives that reflect more honourably our preparedness to follow God’s will.
Source: In Pursuit of Peace: Praying the Rosary through the Psalms by Joan Chittister