(American Life League) — In many of the Church-approved Marian apparitions, Mary appears holding the rosary, imploring people to pray it — for their families, for peace, and for the salvation of the world. This isn’t a request that she makes lightly, as she knows that by saying the rosary we become closer to her Son, we journey with Him through His life, and we can unite our suffering to His as we grow in understanding of His love for us.
Catholic author, entrepreneur, and homeschooling mom Shannon Wendt understands this journey, as she has lived it herself. Hers is a story of family, of successes, of sorrow, of questioning God’s love for her, and of ultimately being drawn back to God by a faithful, loving, and compassionate mother who wants us always to look to her Son.
Mary’s gentle call
Shannon and her husband are expecting their ninth child in the spring. They have also lost eight children to miscarriage, three of whom were miscarried during an 11-month time span, each more medically complex. She explained that the pain she felt caused her to feel angry at God, to walk away from her friendship with Him, and to want to only go through the motions of being Catholic. She said that she wanted to do all the “right things” so that she could one day see her lost children again, but she was so hurt, angry, and heartbroken that she did these things without a true devotion to God.
Shannon explained that she went about a year and a half with this mindset, but the foundation that her family had created when she was young and the practices of her early adulthood left the door to her heart open, and this was all Mary needed to tug at her in her motherly way.
Shannon began to feel this tug to pray the rosary. At the same time, she began to receive what she calls “signal graces” — signs that Mary was leading her to the rosary. For instance, out of the blue, one of her sons handed her confirmation rosary to her; it was a rosary she thought had been lost. Then one day she found a rosary prayer card in her locked car. And friends who weren’t even Catholic gave her rosaries.
Despite these signs, Shannon remained dubious and said that though she felt this pull, she talked to the Lord and tried to explain all the reasons — from interruptions to broken rosaries to no time — why she couldn’t pray the rosary. But then God planted an idea in her heart. Shannon already had an Etsy store, and within a week of what she called her “snarky” prayer to God about being unable to pray the rosary, she had an idea for a rosary bracelet with a moveable charm that could mark the place where she stopped praying. So she began to create these wearable bracelets that served as reminders to pray, and she began to pray the rosary, at first just one Hail Mary at a time, understanding that her prayers did not have to be perfect. She renamed her company Chews Life — because they also create silicone teething rosaries for babies and because John chapter 6 calls us to literally chew or gnaw on the body of Christ — and she now focuses on creating Catholic items.
Shannon then began to meet other women who had experienced similar losses or who grieved in other ways but who suffered with peace, grace, and joy, and she longed for that. So she created the Way of the Rosary community — an online community of women who can walk with each other through life and support each other through good times and bad. Shannon began to write content for the group, and after a year, she wanted to compile her writings into a book. After some tweaking, some pondering, and lots of prayer, her new book was born.
The Way of the Rosary
Shannon explained, “We need to understand in a very practical way what it means to have a relationship with Our Lady, why it’s so important, why almost every single saint has talked about a relationship with Our Lady and almost all of the modern saints have had a devotion to the rosary.”
Her new book, The Way of the Rosary, helps us understand and deepen that relationship as we accompany Jesus along the path to Calvary, experience the joys and sorrows of His mother, witness His miracles, and understand the connections between the Old and New Testaments and the rosary. This was truly a book born out of a mother’s pain but forged by the deep and abiding love of a spiritual mother.
The rosary reminds us that even when we don’t understand why bad things happen to good people, Mary is there with outstretched arms walking with us, telling us that she has experienced so many of the same emotions and situations that we have experienced. And when we take time to pray the rosary and to reflect on the mysteries, we see that immense love from both Mary and Jesus.
As Shannon wrote in the book, “(The rosary) is powerful enough to change the way you pray. And when you begin to change the way you pray the rosary, your life will change.” But it’s not just our own lives that will change. She continued, “Changing the way you pray changes your life. When your life is transformed by this prayer, you become part of this army that will change the world.”
Changing the world is what God calls us to do. And that is our job as pro-life people, for we know that our task is to evangelize to others, to protect the lives of the innocent and vulnerable, and to understand the role of a mother and how our relationship with Mary teaches women to embrace motherhood and protect those who cannot protect themselves.
Shannon explained, “Mary helps us understand the power of prayer as intercessors,” especially for moms and babies. She continued, “When we live our life praying in the quiet moments, we begin to have those opportunities to be the hands and feet of Christ.”
Each day, we have the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Christ to our families, to our friends, and to our wider communities. But it must all start with a strong prayer life and a desire to understand our mother’s love and our Father’s heart. Only when we do that can we weather the storms of life, knowing that we are never alone and that God will never abandon us.
Susan Ciancio is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and has worked as a writer and editor since 2003; more than 16 of those years have been in the pro-life sector. Currently, she is the editor of American Life League’s Celebrate Life Magazine — the nation’s premier Catholic pro-life magazine. She is also the director and executive editor of ALL’s Culture of Life Studies Program — a pre-K-12 Catholic pro-life education organization.
