The month of the Rosary

Photo by Alex Jeffries
October marks the month of the Rosary in the Catholic Church. To find out more about the rosary, I visited Father Jerome Cudden at the Newman Center on campus.

Q: What is the significance of the rosary?

A: It is a way to meditate on faith. There are three mysteries the rosary is dedicated to: joyful, such as praying for humility, obedience, and good will; sorrowful, where one prays for their sins, purity, perseverance; and glorious, praying for faith and hope.

Q: Where is it predominantly used? Throughout holidays? In church?

A: There's public and private devotion. While some people prefer to pray in their homes in private, others meet in public to pray the rosary. In a way, it is a public meeting but in private.

Q: What do most people rely on the rosary for?

A: It offers help to most. Such as praying to the different saints, such as Saint Anthony for finding lost things.

Q: Do other sects of the Catholic faith (Spanish/Irish) refer to the rosary more often?

A: It depends on the time period. I grew up Irish catholic and we used the rosary everyday. A lot of the newer generations, like today's John Paul II's generation is bigger on the rosary.

Q: What is the rosary made out of?

A: Most are made of wood. Others are plastic, some people string pieces of rope together, and there some very fancy ones created with jewels.

Q: When using the rosary, is one praying to God, Mary, the Saints?

A: It is a prayer to an intersession of Saints in the Catholic faith.

Q: Is it sacrilegious to wear rosaries or hang them on rear-view mirrors?

A: No, in the old days, priests would actually carry swords with them. Today, I carry the rosary by my left side as a symbolic way of carrying a sword--without using violence.

Locusts a reason to celebrate?

Tomorrow marks the Festival of Our Lady of Mercy (La festa de merced). In 1687, a plague of locusts were driven out of Barcelona, Spain by the Virgin of Mercy. To this day, the Festival of Our Lady of Mercy stands as one of the biggest and loudest festivals in Spain where hundreds of artists and performers play at venues around the city. The museums in Barcelona are also free on this day. Tucson has no planned events as it is recovering from Mexican Independence Day celebrations and is planning ahead for October, the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary.

Mexico's Independence Day

Rather than give the history of Mexico's Independence Day, I re-discovered one of my favorite Mexican dishes at the Independence Day festival at Kennedy Park in Tucson. This would probably go better on a food blog, but this stuff was pretty good so I figured I'd share.

What that is is posole, a dish popularized by Native Americans, Mexicans, and Europeans. It is especially popular around Christmas in New Mexico, typically eaten on Christmas Eve to celebrate life's blessings. But they served it here at the festival and it was a surprising treat. Posole is a stew made with hominy, a type of puffed corn, pork, chicken, or vegetarian subsitute, garlic, and depending on the region, red or green chiles. Red chiles are popular in Southern New Mexico while Northern New Mexico favors green chiles.

The rest of the festival included live music and dancing and an appreciation for Mexico's independence from Spain for the past 197 years.

From politics to holidays

Clarification: I decided to change my blog topic to holidays celebrated in Mexico so that way I will be able to have a bit more to report on with ongoing celebrations in Mexico rather than the elections held at one time.

This Thursday, Mexico commemorates the Young Heroes of Chapultepec. En español, Aniversario de la muerte de los Niños Heroes. Stemming from the Mexican-American War that began in 1846, Mexico remembers five students of the military school in Chapultepec who gave their lives to defend their country. They included Juan de la Barrera, Juan Escutia, Agustín Melgar, Fernando Montes de Oca, Francisco Márquez y Vicente Suárez.

To honor these students who gave their lives, a monument was placed in the forests of Chapultepec in Mexico City and each year, the president holds a civic ceremony and passes a list of honor to the cadets.

Atop is a photo of the monument in Chapultepec. Each statue representing the individuals commemorated in the battle.


The story can be found in Spanish here.

The resurrection of McCain?

Despite a lack of efforts to raise funds for his campaign, (supporting the war in Iraq being a major factor), Senator McCain spoke at Stanford recently stating that securing the border will be his No. 1 priority once elected president.