by Katie Patrick
From hot summer days to frigid winter ones, a particular homeless man comes into our office at Catholic Social Services. He wears baggy, worn-out clothes that haven’t been washed for weeks, likely what he’s slept in each night as well—sometimes under bridges and in doorways, never quite resting because it’s difficult to trust others for fear they might steal his blanket, or worse.
Our desk receptionist provides the man a breakfast burrito and a bottle of water. His eyes are hard to see amidst a mop of graying hair behind a pulled-up hoodie, but his voice is deep as he turns back to ask if we have any rosaries left.
We’re often blessed with rosary donations that seem to come at just the right time throughout the year. Word spreads, and over the years we have received a number of people, mostly homeless, coming to ask for a rosary.
After serving mothers who come in for diapers and additional resources, they see a few rosaries to the side of the front desk and they ask if it’s okay to take one. Families who shop our food market will leave and overhear another client asking about a rosary and then before walking out the door will also find their way to our receptionist and ask if she happens to have any left.
When I first started at CSS back in 2019, I couldn’t believe how often this would happen. Thankfully, we had then received a large donation of individually packed rosaries to distribute to our clients. Whenever we receive more rosaries, they are used to replenish the basket up front. Please remember this the next time you visit CSS or drop off donations at the St. Louise Gift & Thrift Store.
With October being the month of the Holy Rosary, I thought it would be a good time to share that story, as a reminder to all of us to pray the rosary as frequently as we can. For men in our community, a special opportunity to not only pray the rosary, but to pray the rosary together, is coming up on Saturday, Oct. 14, starting at 11 a.m. at the Newman Center in Lincoln.
My husband, Ryan, is organizing and calling men—young, old, single, fathers, religious, laity—to march from the Newman Center through downtown Lincoln to our state capitol, praying the rosary, with music, speakers, and brotherhood, seeking to reignite their faith and discuss and meditate on what it means to be a man, and specifically a Catholic man, with the Nebraska Men’s Rosary March.
From a woman’s perspective, these visible actions in our society are greatly needed. I hate to say it, but it seems that a growing number of women in our society are often telling men not to be men, and now society is suffering the consequences.
Too often, we read and experience in secular circles the confusion of sex and gender and the degradation of traditional masculinity. Families are breaking down. We see it frequently in the families we serve, and we see a lack of authentic leadership in America.
A young man, husband, father, or grandfather, as “traditionally” defined, is a protector, and as a protector embodies courage, strength, and leadership in the home and in society in matters of faith, physical safety, financial security, etc. These are good and necessary qualities of men, but from where I am—even in middle America—it’s as if society is instructing them differently. Admonishing them for being “too assertive” or “too stoic,” in a weird way calling men to be more feminine. Traditional masculine roles are now commonly referred to as “toxic,” though they have led our societies for millenia. It’s now, when men have stepped down—or been pushed?—from their traditional roles, that we see sudden and precipitous collapses in leadership and rampant societal degradation.
I recently read a column on this topic by fellow Register columnist Bob Sullivan. He differentiated the societal call for men to be “vulnerable” with a more accurate and true calling by God for men to be “honest”; being honest, not “vulnerable,” about fears, anxieties, and sharing emotions.
It’s not a weakness to be honest. And in this moment, it seems we also need to be honest with our men, and tell them to step back up, and to support them as they do so. We need men to assert their faith publicly, and I hope the Men’s Rosary March is just one opportunity for the men of this state to do so, as we turn back toward our most perfect example of masculinity—Jesus Christ.
In this Month of the Rosary, please pray for our society, and ask our Mother Mary for the protection of our clients and our activities. Thank you and may God bless you!
