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NOTRE DAME, Ind. (OSV News) — On Sept. 7, a crowd assembled outdoors on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, near the steps of Bond Hall.
In recent years on home football game weekends, the university’s marching band performs on these steps before heading to the stadium for the game. But on this sunny Sunday afternoon, the gathering had nothing to do with football.
Catholics from the South Bend area as well as students and university officials from three local Holy Cross institutions of higher learning, came together to pray the rosary.
They also came to celebrate the life and ministry of Father Patrick Peyton (1909-1992), a Holy Cross priest, a Notre Dame graduate and sainthood candidate named “Venerable” in 2017.
Seventy-five years earlier, Father Peyton had led a much larger outdoor rosary rally on this campus. On Sunday, Oct. 22, 1950, more than 22,000 people processed across campus into the football stadium for the rally. That day, according to the South Bend Tribune, Father Peyton, then 41, told the crowd: “We do not ask for family prayer to put a burden on men and women, but to bring happiness and peace to them.”
He told the stadium crowd that family prayer was the best way to strengthen home life.
For many years, Father Peyton had been urging families all around the world to pray together, and particularly, to pray the Rosary together. “The family that prays together stays together” became the saying closely connected to his ministry. And, in the late 1940s and even in 1950, he believed that many families around the world were still deeply wounded by the global trauma and destruction that followed World War II.
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
In recent years on home football game weekends, the university’s marching band performs on these steps before heading to the stadium for the game. But on this sunny Sunday afternoon, the gathering had nothing to do with football.
Catholics from the South Bend area as well as students and university officials from three local Holy Cross institutions of higher learning, came together to pray the rosary.
They also came to celebrate the life and ministry of Father Patrick Peyton (1909-1992), a Holy Cross priest, a Notre Dame graduate and sainthood candidate named “Venerable” in 2017.
Seventy-five years earlier, Father Peyton had led a much larger outdoor rosary rally on this campus. On Sunday, Oct. 22, 1950, more than 22,000 people processed across campus into the football stadium for the rally. That day, according to the South Bend Tribune, Father Peyton, then 41, told the crowd: “We do not ask for family prayer to put a burden on men and women, but to bring happiness and peace to them.”
He told the stadium crowd that family prayer was the best way to strengthen home life.
For many years, Father Peyton had been urging families all around the world to pray together, and particularly, to pray the Rosary together. “The family that prays together stays together” became the saying closely connected to his ministry. And, in the late 1940s and even in 1950, he believed that many families around the world were still deeply wounded by the global trauma and destruction that followed World War II.
‘Rosary Priest’
Continued below.
Notre Dame honors Fr. Peyton, 75 years after rosary rally
Notre Dame honors Fr. Patrick Peyton and the 75th anniversary of his historic rosary rally with prayer and celebration of his legacy.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
