Who would think an Englishman from New York will have a life-long romance with the Holy Rosary?

During Pat’s early years, his father unfailingly led the family rosary nightly. And Pat, the sixth of nine siblings from a poor family in Ireland, was spiritually nourished. And he grew to have a priestly vocation. His family was united in difficult times.

His trial came when, as a theology student, he fell gravely ill of tuberculosis that extended for a year. His doctors told him “Try praying. All that we have tried is not working.”

 

And a fellow Irishman, Fr. Cornelius Haggerty, CSC gave him a real challenge. “MARY IS ALIVE RIGHT HERE AND NOW, Pat,” he said. “She is a 100 ‘per-center,’ if you only believe it! You know how dedicated the Irish are to the Rosary. PRAY IT YOURSELF, believing that MARY IS ALIVE AND ABLE TO GIVE YOU 100 PERCENT OF WHAT YOU ASK.”

 

Pat engaged deeply in prayer more than ever. And THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENED. After a novena of rosaries, Pat declared himself cured. The doctors needed persuading and gave him tests that would prove him right. There was no more trace of the dreaded tuberculosis. Determined that if he was ordained a priest, he would dedicate his priesthood to the work of the one who saved his life: the Blessed Mary.

And so the story goes. He founded the Holy Cross Family Ministries. He brought millions closer to the Lord Jesus by way of the family rosary. His popular byline is: “the family that prays together stays together.”

 

His initial goal was to get 5 million people in the USA to recite the rosary. He ended talking to 28 million people in person around the globe in huge Rosary rallies, called Family Rosary Crusades.

 

In the Philippines alone, he drew 2 million to his 1985 rally. In hindsight, it may have led to the PEACEFUL resolution to the then rising political crisis in the Philippines.

 

Fr. Patrick Peyton, known as the Rosary Priest, was called the Servant of God Patrick Peyton, in his canonization bid.