Family that prays together

Those of us who were teenagers in 1945 well remember the events associated with the end of World War II but in Ireland we also celebrated the beginning of Fr Peyton's family rosary mission.

Father Patrick Peyton from County Mayo, in the west of Ireland, had been ordained a priest for just four years and was working in the US. As the war in Europe was drawing to a close, this unknown, young priest, true to his heritage, overcame impossible difficulties and persuaded the broadcasting company to give him free air-time on the radio to have a family say the rosary for unity in family life and for world peace.

The programme was scheduled to go out at 10.30 a.m. on Sunday, May 13, Mother's Day, and was dedicated to Mary the Mother of God. A few days earlier (on May 8) Germany had surrendered and US President Harry Truman had declared May 13 to be a national day of thanksgiving.

The radio company had grudgingly given this slot because they thought that few people would be listening to the radio at this time of the morning anyway.

Fr Patrick asked Mr and Mrs Thomas Sullivan and their daughter, Genevieve, from Waterloo, Iona, to lead the rosary on the programme. The Sullivans had won the nation's sympathy when they lost their five sons during a World War II naval battle in the Pacific Ocean.

I well remember seeing this film in the late 1940s, at the Savoy cinema in Limerick, where there wasn't a dry eye to be found in the audience.

During the preparations for the broadcast, one of the Irish workers at the station jokingly remarked: "So you have the Sullivans we hear. Sure isn't it a wonder you don't get Bing himself as well".

With his receptive mind, Fr Patrick grasped the idea with alacrity and, picking up the phone, told the operators to put him through to Bing Crosby in Hollywood. In less than an hour, Bing, who was filming The Bells of St Mary's at the time, returned the call of the priest whom he didn't know.

When you put God first, He'll put you first. And how! Bing listened to the priest's invitation. "Will you do a favour for The Blessed Virgin Mary?", he asked. "You have me," said Bing and he would also speak on the programme live from Hollywood.

Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York was also lined up to give a talk, and President Truman recorded a special message to be broadcast. The famous choir of the Blessed Sacrament Church in New York agreed to take care of the singing. The project had taken on a life of its own.

The broadcast went right across the country, being picked up and transmitted by more than 300 local stations. It turned into a programme of major national significance. Many newspapers had reviews of it and several radio critics hailed it as the best of the programmes celebrating the victory of Europe.

It opened the airwaves to Fr Patrick Peyton and was the start of his great mission of bringing Christ to people and bringing people to Christ and his Holy Mother, through the rosary.

In these times of increasing marriage disruption in Malta and where popular methods to try to heal the cracks are abortive, why not try saying the rosary, even just one decade for starters?

And stand by for the results!

The message made famous by Fr Peyton is now more relevant than ever: The family that prays together stays together.