Venerable Pauline Jaricot

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Yesterday I had lunch with Cardinal Barbarin from Lyon France.

We have a mutual friend, Venerable Pauline Jaricot, a young lay woman from Lyon who started a world-wide Rosary movement in the 1800s. We will get to that in a moment, but first, a miracle.

In May of 2012, a three-year old little girl named Mayline died after choking on her food. “Her heart stopped in my arms,” remembers Emmanuel, her father. Though paramedics were able to revive her, it was concluded she would at best live in a vegetative state. Sadly, her condition deteriorated, and the doctors advised the parents to end the artificial means that sustained her life. It was then that family and friends, along with Cardinal Barbarin began a novena to Pauline Jaricot. As soon as the novena was finished, a miraculous change occurred. Mayline’s neurological activity returned and by December she was released from the hospital in perfect condition.

After a thorough investigation it was determined Mayline’s miraculous healing was indeed brought about through the intercession of Pauline Jaricot which has paved the way for her to be beatified in Lyon on May, 22, 2022.

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Pauline Jaricot lived in France in the early 1800s, shortly after the French Revolution that violently persecuted the Catholic Faith and sought to establish a completely secular society which allowed no place for religion. Science and reason alone were accepted. Much like our culture today.

Many of her family and friends had little interest in religion or prayer and knew almost nothing about their faith.

Witnessing this, Pauline was inspired to see that the only antidote to radicular secularism and atheism was prayer. And it seemed to Pauline that the Rosary was the miraculous solution to the spiritual problem of her day. She realized only Mary and the Rosary could turn a radically secular society back to Jesus.

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The founding of the living rosary.

In 1826, Pauline started to form groups of fifteen people, with each member of the group committing to recite one decade of the rosary each day for one month, but on the condition that they think about the life of Jesus, not just saying the words. In that way, all fifteen mysteries were prayed each day by the group. Then, Pauline encouraged individuals and families to invite others to join them to make up the groups of fifteen, which she called the Living Rosary. And in ten years there were one million members in this living rosary. With no social media.

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Our Lady comes on a rescue mission asking us to pray the Rosary every day. However, we all have family and friends for whom this is too big of a leap, to go from no prayer to praying an entire Rosary every day. Yet we want to help them. So where do we begin? Let’s follow Pauline’s strategy.

I continue to pray the Rosary podcast daily. And to help others I Invite four people to pray one decade of the Rosary each day for one month. One decade takes less than four minutes. For instance, I invite four people. I take the first mystery, the Annunciation, someone else takes the Visitation, a third, the Nativity, the fourth prays the Presentation in the Temple, and the fifth person prays the Finding in the Temple. Though each prays their decade separately, together we have prayed one Rosary. What could not be done alone is accomplished by a Rosary Team.

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Pauline wrote, “The rosary groups should invite anyone, the good, the mediocre, and others who had nothing to offer but their good will. Fifteen pieces of coal, one is well lit, there are four or five that are half lit, and the rest not lit at all. Put the fifteen together and you have a blazing fire.”

Let us pray to the Holy Spirit to put four people on our heart. Then ask them if they will join you to pray one decade of the Rosary each day for one month. The purpose is to help one another by praying for the other four Rosary team members.

Make a group text chat and when you have prayed your decade each day, send a simple message. Done. Or finished.

This way we encourage one another to persevere, and this is the way to start a blazing fire.