The Rosary Family

What is the secret to a happy, holy family?

I asked David Williams' 13th child, Joe, that question, and he didn't even pause before he answered.

“Daily rosary,” he replied.

Just the rosary? There has to be more than that, I thought. So I addressed the same question to the father.

What's the key? “Daily rosary,” he said. “That's been a source of blessings for us. I had beautiful pictures of every mystery of the rosary and I showed them to my kids, one by one, according to the decade we were praying. That helped us so much to understand Christ's mercy, appreciate his sacrifice for our redemption and love him with all our heart.”

They're not alone. Pope John Paul II thinks daily rosary is the key to the whole Christian family.

“The rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer,” writes the Pope in his 2002 apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (The Rosary of the Virgin Mary). “In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium.”

Born in 1930 in a non-practicing Protestant family, David Yoe Williams searched for the meaning of life as a teenager. “Who is God?” he asked his friends. He was unsatisfied by their answers, but he was intrigued by the mystical beauty of the Mass and the charity of his Catholic girlfriend's father. He attended Georgetown University to study the Catholic faith.

They had his answer, and he was baptized at 21.

Two years later, on June 27, 1953, David married Charlotte Cleary at St. James Church in Highwood, Ill.

Twenty-five years later, the family included 15 children. Now, 50 years later, the family includes 66 grandchildren.

The Williams celebrated their golden anniversary this summer at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pa.

“Our parents wanted to celebrate it with a family retreat,” explained Spencer, the Williams' fourth-oldest child, himself a father of 12.

“They wanted first to praise and thank God for all his benefits. We had daily Mass and rosary, talks and confession. Of course, we also had time to relax, play and share meals together.”

Do the Williams feel blessed after 50 years of marriage? “God has been so good to us,” Charlotte Williams said. “All our children and grandchildren are fervent practicing Catholics. What else can we wish?”

One of their children, Peter, is a priest in Vermont; 10 others are married. Their grandchildren are between 1 and 21 years old.

Most of the Williams' grandchildren only see each other once a year at the family reunion but enjoy each other's company like lifelong friends.

“Our family is very united,” said Patty, the 10th of the Williams' children and a mother of eight, “because we share the same faith and family values.”

You can tell. I saw the kids praying fervently, listening to the talks attentively and playing soccer chaotically — with no injury, no insult, no bad word.

A Family Devotion

But the rosary is not only a devotion for individuals. It is, as the Pope calls it, “a prayer of and for the family.”

The Williams know it by experience.

“We never gave up saying the rosary together and sharing dinner together,” said Chris, the Williams' ninth child, who is now the father of five young kids. “I think that's the main reason why we didn't become too worldly in the difficult times of our high school age.”

In fact, John Paul believes the rosary can help parents fulfill their mission. He writes: “It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this prayer the growth and development of children.”

David and Charlotte Williams did that with a curious family tradition. “Since we had 15 children,” David Williams said, “we decided to assign one decade of the rosary to every child — according to the order in which each was born.

“Thus, Charlotte, our oldest child, was assigned ‘the Annunciation'; Kathy, our second oldest, ‘the Visitation'; David, our third, ‘the Birth of Christ'; and so on. When we pray the rosary at a family reunion, each one of my sons and daughters, with their respective families, is in charge of leading the decade of his or her assigned mystery.”

Living the Mysteries

To the traditional joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries the Pope added the luminous mysteries last year. All 20 mark the rhythm of human life — the events that make up our lives as individuals and families. Like the Holy Family of Nazareth, every family finds joy and light and glory. Sorrow, too.

Paul, the Williams' 14th child, was born with Down syndrome.

“When I learned that Paul had Down syndrome,” David Williams remembered, “my first reaction was to ask God why he allowed such a tragedy. Immediately, I heard his voice telling me, ‘Because I love you.' Since then, I always understood that Paul's disease was a sign of God's predilection for us.”

Soon the Williams would receive another sign of God's predilection.

Therese, their last child, was born healthy but as a baby suffered spinal meningitis that almost brought her to the tomb.

Little Therese spent two years at the hospital and then went home with full-time medical care. She has always lived in a wheelchair, with legs and arms paralyzed.

“My husband and I take care of Paul and Therese,” Charlotte Williams said. “It was so good for them to be born one after the other. God knew what he was doing. They are our greatest joys.”

Paul and Therese's siblings agree. “They're the source of God's blessings to us,” said Mary, mother of eight boys.

“That's true,” her sister Margaret quickly added. “They brought us all closer to God and to one another, especially our oldest brother and sisters who were already in college by the time they were born.”

For Liz, another sister, Paul and Therese are “our loving cross. If you see our family pictures, you will always find them at the center.”

The experience of centuries shows that the rosary is particularly effective in fostering a family's unity. “The family that prays together stays together,” the Pope likes to repeat, quoting Father Patrick Peyton's famous maxim.

“We are happy to celebrate our golden anniversary in the Year of the Rosary,” David Williams said. “Fifty years after beginning the family, we are all here together with Mary.”

There was another striking coincidence in their weekend celebration. The Williams' golden anniversary this year fell on Friday, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart, followed by the feasts of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Perfect. Praying the rosary means, precisely, contemplating the Heart of Jesus with the heart of Mary in and with the apostolic Church.

Peter's successor made himself present in the commemoration with a papal blessing sent from Rome for David and Charlotte Williams.

It was an apostolic blessing that summed up the Williams' lifelong blessings obtained through the rosary.

The second generation understands the secret.

“We pray the rosary daily as a family at home,” said Joe, 33, who with his wife, Raeanna, has four children and is expecting a fifth in November. “It worked with my parents' family. It'll work with ours.

“Sometimes, my little children complain and don't want to say the rosary. I know the best way to motivate them. ‘Do you want to keep enjoying a happy and united family with loads of brothers and sisters and cousins?' I ask them. ‘Oh, yeah,' they say. ‘There's one way,' I tell them. ‘Let's pray the rosary.'”

Legionary Father Alfonso Aguilar recently moved to Rome and can be reached at [email protected].