Before the beatification Mass for Fulton Sheen begins on Sept. 24, everyone attending the morning program at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis will receive a free “World Missions Rosary” — designed by Bishop Sheen himself. Thousands of faithful will then pray a Rosary with this rosary.

That prayerful moment will harken back to 1951, when Sheen introduced this distinctive, multicolored, eye-catching rosary to remind the faithful to pray to Our Lady, Queen of Apostles, for the success of the Church’s missionary efforts around the world.

“Seventy-five years ago this year, Fulton J. Sheen, in his second year as the national director of The Pontifical Mission Societies, started to ask, ‘How can I get people praying for the missions?’ He knew Americans’ great love for Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, and their great love for the Holy Rosary,” today’s national director, Msgr. Roger Landry, told the Register.

What a start to beatification day this will be for the more than 75,000 people expected to come to St. Louis and Peoria, Illinois, to celebrate Sheen’s beatification. Msgr. Landy explained to listeners when he appeared on Conversations with Consequences on EWTN Radio that the Diocese of Peoria “absolutely wanted” to have this Rosary prayed to prepare for the beatification Mass of Fulton J. Sheen, “right before everybody processes on in, so that we can unite ourselves around Mary and pray for the Church throughout the world.”

But the challenge of providing 75,000 World Mission Rosaries for free was, and remains, daunting. Because the supply of this unique-looking rosary is limited and the cost to meet those numbers is prohibitive, The Pontifical Mission Societies began asking nuns, groups and individuals to make these rosaries for Sheen’s beatification.

And people are responding. “The women religious across the U.S. have been incredibly generous in committing each to make 1,000 rosaries,” Msgr. Landry said of the many convents now participating. He told the Register, “When we’ve opened it up to laypeople, rosary makers throughout the country have taken up the charge; then also families. I got an email … from a mom of an 8-year-old girl who, in preparation for her confirmation, is going to be making 250 rosary beads herself. So you’re seeing a little bit of the groundswell.”

This groundswell began with Dominican Sister Jude Andrew Link of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, at their convent in Peoria. Sister Jude Andrew is director of programing and planning for the Diocese of Peoria’s morning event “Celebrate Sheen” leading up to the beatification, with speakers talking about Sheen, all pointing to Christ.

“We all knew we wanted to pray the World Mission Rosary that Fulton Sheen designed,” Sister Jude Andrew told the Register. “The World Mission Rosaries are common in the Diocese of Peoria because of the devotion to Sheen.” She herself has one and said she “knew about it from my childhood.”

The inspired rosary-making idea came to her as she was walking across the parking lot after morning Mass. She pulled her World Mission Rosary out of her pocket and told the sister with her, “I want 70,000 of these because I want everyone at the beatification to have it,” she said. “I knew that Msgr. Landry was also thinking about that. But very few people make these.”

In her convent, a sister told her she “could make a thousand by September. And that’s when it dawned on me that religious women all over the country know how to make these rosaries. If we could get in contact with convents of sisters and nuns across the country, we could easily get 70,000 rosaries.”

Sister Jude Andrew shared the idea with Msgr. Landry. “We invited religious houses all across the country ... over 40 convents of sisters and nuns,” she said. “The response has been overwhelming. The warmth and the generosity of the sisters, and especially the cloistered nuns, has just been beautiful and amazing.”

They also expanded the call, inviting Rosary guilds and individual laymen and women making rosaries on their own to join the effort.

Behind the Beads

Msgr. Landry explained on EWTN Radio why and how these rosaries are distinctly different: Bishop Sheen made each decade a different color to represent a different continent of the world where missionaries bring the Good News of Jesus.

The beads of the first decade or mystery are all green, for specific forests and grasslands. “When we pray the first, we remember the missions in Africa,” Msgr. Landry explained. The second bead is “blue for Oceania and all the Pacific Islands.” The third mystery’s beads are white “because the Pope is in white and the Pope is in Europe. We pray for the continued and deeper evangelization in Europe, especially today in an age in which so many are growing up bathed in secularism,” Msgr. Landry said. The fourth set of beads are red “for America — North, Central, and South — that has given back to God so many martyrs as missionaries came to try to evangelize the Indigenous and often preached by their blood.” The fifth decade is yellow for Asia, representing the morning sun in the East.

Worldwide Recognition

“The World Mission Rosary is huge internationally,” Msgr. Landry told the Register. “When I travel to the mission countries, everyone who holds rosary beads holds World Mission Rosaries.” He pointed out that at the end of Pope Leo’s Africa trip in April, in the Central African Republic, the Pope and a group of African children launched into the heavens a World Mission Rosary-inspired creation made using helium balloons in the five colors, along with a cross-shaped balloon.

“It was so moving to me because that’s precisely what the Rosary is meant to do — take our prayer to heaven,” Msgr. Landry said.

The World Mission Rosary really took off 75 years ago in mission countries. Msgr. Landry said although he “personally did not know of the World Mission Rosary until I became a successor a couple of years ago, there is a buzz when I talk about the need to pray to the Queen of the Apostles for missions in these various continents, represented by the colors of the beads. And I have been seeing people take that charge in praying to the Harvest Master for laborers for his harvest through Our Lady's intercession. So, it’s growing slowly in the States.”

Sister Jude Andrew said that Sheen devotees in the U.S. should remember that this World Mission Rosary includes Americans. “The World Mission Rosary is a real gift that Fulton Sheen gave to us to be reminded of the spiritual bonds of unity uniting all of us in Christ under the Church, our mother.”

Excitement and Participation Grows

Many active sisters have been involved in this project, “but the cloisters in particular have just jumped on the opportunity,” Sister Jude Andrew said. “Their response has been so warm and so gracious.”

Among them are the Poor Clare nuns of Maria Regina Mater Monastery in Kokomo, Indiana. When Mother Chiara “first read the letter from Msgr. Landry with the request to make 1,000 rosaries, my first reaction was, ‘That’s such a neat idea, but we’re a small community of only 12 nuns. We could never accomplish that by September!’” she recalled in a written statement shared with the Register. Yet “everyone was excited and eager to help,” she added, continuing, “The next morning one of the sisters called Our Lady’s Rosaries Makers to inquire about obtaining a kit.”

Our Lady’s Rosary Makers (OLRM) has club members who make and ship rosaries to the missions, and they also sell all the necessary materials to anyone wanting to make rosaries as gifts.

Mother Chiara shared a providential surprise: “Providentially, we had our first rosary-making night on the memorial of our Lady of Fatima, May 13, which seemed an appropriate day to begin. It wasn’t until we were near the end of the project that we realized just how providential that date was. We were reminiscing about Venerable Sheen’s visit to our monastery back in 1977, and we realized his visit was actually on May 13, exactly 49 years earlier!”

Sister Mary Guadalupe of the School Sisters of Christ the King in Lincoln, Nebraska, finds these rosaries “a great evangelization tool.” She explained that she brings them wherever she goes. “It’s been a great conversation starter when people ask what I’m doing, and I’m able to explain the World Mission Rosary and about Fulton Sheen’s beatification.”

The response from the convents making thousands of these rosaries prompted Msgr. Landry to enthusiastically applaud their efforts. “I am so grateful to the women religious of the country for their willingness to help out with this project,” he told the Register. “They really are the mothers of us all in praying particularly to Our Lady.”

Hometown Saint

Even teens are making World Mission Rosaries. Students from Peoria Notre Dame High School decided to participate as a summer service project.

“Bishop Sheen’s canonization provided a great chance to get involved with a hometown saint,” said Lillian Chaddock, a 15-year-old sophomore. “Because of Bishop Sheen, the world will learn about the vibrant Catholic community in Peoria. By making these rosaries, it makes me feel as if I am part of something much bigger than myself.”

Senior Cora Heinz, 17, has “enjoyed working on this project because it has allowed me to be a part of something greater than myself and to serve the community,” she told the Register. “I think it is inspiring to see how many lives Archbishop Fulton Sheen has touched, even though he came from the small city of Peoria. I’m grateful that this project can contribute to his beatification and help carry on his legacy.”

Making the Rosaries

By the third week of June, several thousand World Mission Rosaries were pledged, with many more needed. All projected 75,000-plus donated rosaries will be blessed and then handed out for prayer before the beatification Mass, with hopes everyone will continue to pray it. Any extra rosaries will be sent to the missions.

Msgr. Landry is confident and optimistic about this sacramental endeavor. As he told the Register, “I have every expectation that after the beatification and the focus on Sheen, many more will want to pray as Archbishop Sheen prayed and to imitate his love for Our Lady.”

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Those wanting to help make World Mission Rosaries can find the necessary details, on easily getting the inexpensive supplies (Our Lady's Rosary Makers), directions to make them and where to send them, on the official site — Help Make 75,000 Rosaries | Fulton Sheen Beatification. Anybody who wants to be reimbursed after sending the rosaries can ask The Pontifical Mission Societies for assistance.