May, the Month of Mary

May is the month of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and an opportunity to renew our own devotion to the Mother of God by praying the Rosary.

The following true story is a beautiful inspiration for reaching for our rosaries.

The Story Of Mother Teresa's Rosary

(Excerpt from Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly)

Jim Castle was tired when he boarded his plane in Cincinnati, Ohio, that night in 1981.  The 45-year-old management consultant had put on a week-long series of business meetings and seminars, and now he sank gratefully into his seat ready for the flight home to Kansas City, Kansas.

As more passengers entered, the place hummed with conversation, mixed with the sound of bags being stowed.  Then, suddenly, people fell silent.  The quiet moved slowly up the aisle like an invisible wake behind a boat.  Jim craned his head to see what was happening, and his mouth dropped open.

Walking up the aisle were two nuns clad in simple white habits bordered in blue.  He recognized the familiar face of one at once, the wrinkled skin, and the eyes warmly intent.  This was a face he’d seen in newscasts and on the cover of TIME.  The two nuns halted, and Jim realized that his seat companion was going to be Mother Teresa!

As the last few passengers settled in, Mother Teresa and her companion pulled out rosaries.  Each decade of the beads was a different color, Jim noticed.  The decades represented various areas of the world, Mother Teresa told him later, and added, “I pray for the poor and dying on each continent.”

The airplane taxied to the runway, and the two women began to pray, their voices a low murmur.  Though Jim considered himself not a very religious Catholic who went to church mostly out of habit, inexplicably he found himself joining in.  By the time they murmured the final prayer, the plane had reached cruising altitude.

Mother Teresa turned toward him.  For the first time in his life, Jim understood what people meant when they spoke of a person possessing an “aura”.  As she gazed at him, a sense of peace filled him; he could no more see it than he could see the wind, but he felt it, just as surely as he felt a warm summer breeze.  

“Young man,” she inquired, “Do you say the rosary often?”

“No, not really,” he admitted.

She took his hand, while her eyes probed his.

Then she smiled, “Well, you will now.”

And she dropped her rosary into his palm.