The 54-day effort will kick off on the Solemnity of the Assumption.
BY JOSEPH PRONECHEN
Millions of Americans witness how, in the wake of the 2015 Obergefell
decision that legalized same-sex “marriage,” congressional and state
legislation, executive actions and court rulings conflict increasingly with
God’s laws on marriage and family values. Since the enshrinement of Roe v.
Wade into law in 1973 and the enactment of subsequent state laws to allow
for assisted suicide, unborn children and the elderly and weak are under
attack like no other time in U.S. history.
And now, an acrimonious presidential campaign has exacerbated the
differences among Americans, leaving many with seemingly nowhere to turn.
A Wisconsin priest offers an answer.
“I call this our Nineveh moment,” said Father Richard Heilman, assessing
the situation in our nation in reference to the story of Jonah’s warning
to a wayward people.
Father Heilman is spearheading a major spiritual initiative to turn the tide
and heal the country — the “Novena for Our Nation.”
The “54-Day Rosary Novena” will begin on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the
Assumption. The faithful are asked to pray daily for the nation to return to
holiness, through the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on Oct. 7.
Knowing that Father Heilman, a priest of the Diocese of Madison, had
experience with 54-day Rosary novenas through social media and that he
recently launched the national Holy League, a group — including Father
Stephen Imbarrato of Priests for Life — approached him to head this
nationwide prayer campaign.
“They thought: ‘What better time than now, in this election year, the
terrorism going on and the condition of this world and our nation, to do
this,’” explained Father Heilman.
“All the signs are there,” said Father Imbarrato. “We have an immoral
and corrupt government that is becoming more and more tyrannical. The fact
of the matter is: We need a conversion of our culture, but, more
specifically, of our elected officials or leadership. This 54-day novena and
the Rosary Rally [on Oct. 7] is all part of the effort we need to end
preborn child killing and attacks on marriage and the family.”
Father Heilman, pastor of St. Mary’s of Pine Bluff Church in Cross Plains,
looks to biblical models like Nineveh. “I feel we’re in the same place
we were at that time,” he explained. “I think of the story of Sodom and
Gomorrah, too. Prior to that, Abraham was making a deal with God — what if
there are 50 just people, 40, 20, 10? Can a remnant appeal to God?”
Plenty of Precedents
In 1571, St. Pius V called on besieged Christian Europe to pray the Rosary.
The well-known victory at the Battle of Lepanto was spurred on by faithful
believers.
As the Rosary is credited with saving European Christian civilization then,
so can this Novena for Our Nation rescue the United States today, Father
Heilman said: “This novena is specifically for our nation and to pray for
freedom and faith in America.”
Father Heilman discovered if the novena started on the Assumption, it
“miraculously landed on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary — exactly 54
days from point to point.” Not coincidentally, the feast of Our Lady of
the Rosary commemorates the Oct. 7 victory at Lepanto 445 years ago.
Father Heilman says now, amid all of the turmoil in modern America,
“it’s a time when we have to fall to our knees and say, ‘God, you take
care of this.’”
54 Days
A traditional novena lasts nine days. But this 54-day prayer puts six
novenas together for a singular purpose. In 1884 (the year Pope Leo XIII
wrote the Prayer to St. Michael), the Blessed Virgin Mary purportedly
appeared in Italy to a young girl named Fortuna Agrelli, gave her the 54-day
Rosary novena for herself and told her to pass it along to others. The girl
had three different incurable diseases. Her doctors said cures were
hopeless, but the Agrelli family turned to Our Lady as Queen of the Most
Holy Rosary. In one of Fortuna’s reported apparitions, Mary told her,
“Whoever desires to obtain favors from me should make three novenas of the
prayers of the Rosary and three novenas in thanksgiving” — thus the 54
days.
The girl obeyed and was fully healed. This novena and her healing impressed
Leo XIII, who wrote 17 encyclicals on the Rosary.
The 54-day devotion consists of five decades of the Rosary prayed daily for
27 days in petition; immediately thereafter, five decades are prayed daily
for 27 days in thanksgiving, whether or not the request has been granted
yet. (See the explanation for the simple rotation of the mysteries for this
novena.)
“God has demonstrated in many ways that this is a prayer he truly delights
in,” Father Heilman said. “First, we’re coming to him through Our
Lady. … He has given us this great gift of our Blessed Mother and given us
a very humble way to pray.”
“It’s such a simple prayer,” he added, “and such a wonderful act of
obedience to say that prayer and reflect at the same time on all the
wonderful ways God has come to us through the mysteries of the Rosary.
We’re calling upon our Blessed Mother, and she delights when we come to
her.”
Seeking Mary’s Aid
Cardinal Raymond Burke, patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta,
officially endorses the Novena for Our Nation.
“There is no doubt that our beloved nation is in one of the worst crises
which it has ever experienced, a profound moral crisis, which generates
division on all levels and results in an ever-greater more pervasive
violence and killing,” Cardinal Burke wrote at the novena website.
“For Roman Catholics, who have always been known for their faith-filled
patriotism, the first response to this crisis is fervent prayer and, in
particular, prayer through the intercession of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary,
Mary Immaculate, who is also the patroness of our nation.”
“Let us now turn to the powerful prayer of the holy Rosary, asking Mary
Immaculate to intercede with Our Lord to bring healing to our nation and to
inspire in her citizens the holiness of life which alone can transform our
nation,” he said.
Deacon Dave Profitt, who prays a daily Rosary, will be joining the novena
because “the Rosary is one of the great tools we have available to us for
our prayer life. It helps remind us and center us to what it means to live a
life in Christ.”
The director of the St. Anne Retreat Center in Melbourne, Ky., sees another
benefit to this novena: “It’s a great way to remind ourselves what
we’re called to be, particularly in this country today, with the
divisiveness and rhetoric out there.”
Those praying the novena may add daily “training in holiness” to their
prayers by meditating on reflections from Scripture, the saints and the
Catechism about the theological and cardinal virtues, gifts and fruits of
the Holy Spirit via the book 54 Day Basic Training in Holiness. Reflections
will also appear on the novena website.
D.C. Rosary Rally
The Rosary novena will be capped off on Oct. 7 with a special “Rosary
Rally” in Union Square in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, to call
on the Lord for our nation’s spiritual restoration. The faithful across
the country are encouraged to have a Rosary Rally in their areas, too — in
a parish church, at a government facility or in front of a Planned
Parenthood business, for example.
As Father Heilman said, “We should prefer not to go through suffering, but
to do what the people of Nineveh did — repent and see a reparation for
where we’re at right now.”
Joseph Pronechen is a Register staff writer.
SIGN UP
What: Rosary “Novena for Our Nation”
When: Aug. 15 to Oct. 7
More Info: Pray-ers may sign up on the website or via Facebook to show
support, but there is no obligation to register to be part of the Novena for
Our Nation. The important thing is to pray.
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