Friends of the Rosary,

Today, August 21, is the Memorial Day of Pope Pius X, an intrepid defender of the purity of the Christian doctrine, and also the anniversary of Our Lady of Knock.

The Holy Virgin appeared on August 21, 1879, with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, a Lamb and cross on an altar in a parish church of the village of Knock, in County Mayo, in Ireland.

Fifteen people witnessed the Blessed Virgin Mary standing in the middle, clothed in white garments, wearing a brilliant crown, with a golden rose over her forehead (A golden rose is often the symbol of this Marian apparition).

Her hands were raised as if in prayer. All knew that it was Mary, the Mother of Jesus and Queen of Angels and Saints.

On the right of Our Lady stood St. Joseph, his head inclined toward her. On her left stood St. John the Evangelist, dressed as a bishop.

To the left of St. John stood an altar that had a lamb and a cross surrounded by angels.

The vision lasted about two hours. People who were not at the apparition site reported that they saw a bright light illuminating the area around the church.

Many of the sick were healed upon visiting the church at Knock.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
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• ⁠August 21, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Friends of the Rosary,

Every August 20, we honor St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), abbot, theologian, poet, orator, and writer, and Doctor of the Church, who perfected the monastic rule that would become the model for 163 monasteries of the Cistercian reform.

St. Bernard was an apostle of the Crusades, reconciler of kings, leader of peoples, and counselor of popes. He studied grammar, poetry, literature, rhetoric, dialectics, Scripture, and theology.

He also held a profound devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, continually seeking her intercession and seeing her as our Mediatrix and as the Star of the Sea who guides us through the darkness of life. The prayer of the Memorare is attributed to him.

He wrote De Consideratione, and many of his sermons are excerpted in the Breviary.

Notably, his treatise “On Loving God” articulated the reasons we should love God to an immeasurable degree. In all of his works, Abbot Bernard sought to teach to draw our hearts to conversion and love. He regularly emphasized the personal nature of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, our call to mystical union with Him, the need for humility, the benefits of asceticism, and the central role that the Blessed Virgin Mary must play in our lives.

He was a theologian, contemplative, and mystic whose central goals were to love God and to draw others into that same love.

Many miracles were attributed to him. He had the charism of spiritual discernment and was able to read the inner thoughts and intentions of people.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
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Friends of the Rosary,

Today, August 19, we remember the fourth apparition in Fatima. The three child saints were arrested by the Administrator on August 13th, and our Lady's plans were delayed slightly.

On Sunday, the 19th of 1917, the Holy Virgin appeared to the visionaries in the woods of Valinhos.

"Come again to the Cova da Iria on the thirteenth of next month, my child, and continue to say the Rosary every day. In the last month, I will perform a miracle so that all may believe."

Lucia asked, "What are we to do with the offerings of money that people leave at the Cova da Iria?"

"I want you to have two ardors [litters to carry statues] made, for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. I want you and Jacinta to carry one of them with two other girls. You will both dress in white. And then I want Francisco, with three boys helping him, to carry the other one. The boys, too, will be dressed in white. What is left over will help towards the construction of a chapel that is to be built here."

Lúcia then asked for the cure of some sick people.

"Some I will cure during the year."

Looking sadly at them, she said:

Pray, pray very much. Make sacrifices for sinners. Many souls go to hell because no one is willing to help them with a sacrifice.

Having said that, she departed as she had on the other occasions.

We pray one more day today's Holy Rosary from East Hampton, NY.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play

• ⁠August 19, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Friends of the Rosary,
In today’s reading (Matthew 19:16-22), Christ Jesus encourages us, through the words to the rich young man, to be perfect and cultivate a treasure in heaven by avoiding any attachment to material possessions.

He says, “If you wish to be perfect, go,
sell what you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”

God, pure love, means a life in friendship with him, of self-forgetting love. This should bring us to cut out of our lives certain things that impede love.

Bishop Barron writes, “The spiritual life, at the highest pitch, is about giving your life away, and this is why his many possessions are a problem.”

“And at this point the young man tragically balks.”

Christ Jesus is the fulfillment, the infinite good and love that the soul wants.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play

• August 18, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Friends of the Rosary,

Today, the twentieth Sunday in ordinary time, St. Paul, in this letter to the Hebrews (Heb 12:1-4), invites us to get rid of every sin and burden that keeps us away from the race of holiness and set our eyes fixed on Jesus, “the leader and perfecter of faith”, considering “how he endured such opposition from sinners.”

Meanwhile, in the main reading of the Gospel (Luke 12:49-53), Christ Jesus reveals that He came to bring the fire of faith, setting the “earth on fire.”

Our true family is always in Christ — we are followers of Christ by our baptism, loving and appreciating what He did for us.

A household that does not share the truth of the Gospel will be divided. Its apparent concord is broken. Peace doesn’t reign in there.

Family members who are faithful form domestic churches, where faith is lived and nurtured, mirroring the larger Church.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play

• August 17, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Friends of the Rosary,

The feast days of Mary mark the mysteries of her life and her part in the work of redemption.

Yesterday, we observed her glorious Assumption. This event means God's crowning of Mary as she ended her earthly life and entered eternity.

But the central mystery of her life and person is her divine motherhood, celebrated both at Christmas and a week later (January 1) on the feast of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

The Immaculate Conception (December 8) marks the preparation for that motherhood, so that she had the fullness of grace from the first moment of her existence, untouched by sin.

The Assumption completes God's work in her since it was not fitting that the flesh that had given life to God himself should ever undergo decay or corruption.

The feast turns our eyes to eternity, where we will follow when our earthly life is over.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play

Friends of the Rosary,

Today, August 15, toward the end of the summer season, the Church of Christ celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when the faithful proclaim that she was taken up, body and soul, into heaven.

It’s a Holy Day of Obligation and the oldest feast day of Our Lady.

Its origin is in the early days of Jerusalem, when one of the memories about the Blessed Mother centered around the “Tomb of Mary,” close to Mount Zion, where she was buried, and the early Christian community had lived. It’s the spot where Mary’s “falling asleep.”

Mary expired in the presence of the apostles, and when her tomb was opened later, it was found empty, and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into the heavenly home.

Therefore, from the beginning, there were no relics of Mary to be venerated. That location also soon became a place of pilgrimage, and the “Memory of Mary” was being celebrated. Today, the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition of Mary stands on the spot.

In the seventh century, this feast began to be celebrated in Rome under the title of the “Falling Asleep” (“Dormitio”) of the Mother of God.

Later, it was to become our feast of the Assumption.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption, a truth revealed by God, with these words: “The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven.”

The Assumption looks to eternity and gives us hope that we, too, will follow Our Lady when our life is ended.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play

• August 15, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Friends of the Rosary,

Today, August 14, is the Memorial of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (1894-1941), a Polish Franciscan, friar, priest, and martyr of Auschwitz, who founded a movement of Marian consecration called Militia of the Immaculata, With his preaching and writing, he undertook an intense apostolic mission in Europe and Asia.

Imprisoned in Auschwitz during the Second World War, he offered himself in exchange for a young father of a large family who was to be executed, Francis Gajowniczek.

When the captors couldn’t kill him from starvation in the concentration camp, they ended his life with a lethal injection on August 14, 1941.

In 1927, he established an evangelization center near Warsaw called Niepokalanow, the "City of the Immaculata." By 1939, the City had expanded from eighteen friars to an incredible 650, making it the largest Catholic religious house in the world.

To better "win the world for the Immaculata," the friars utilized modern printing and administrative techniques, enabling countless catechetical and devotional works, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 230,000, and a monthly magazine with a circulation of over one million.

Maximilian started a shortwave radio station and planned to build a motion picture studio—he was a true "apostle of the mass media." He established a City of the Immaculata in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1930, and envisioned missionary centers worldwide.

Maximilian was a ground-breaking theologian. His insights into the Immaculate Conception anticipated the Marian theology of the Second Vatican Council and further developed the Church's understanding of Mary as "Mediatrix" of all the graces of the Trinity, and as "Advocate" for God's people.

Pope St. John Paul II canonized him in 1982 and proclaimed him a "martyr of charity" and "Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century." Francis Gajowniczek was in attendance.

He is a patron of journalists, families, prisoners, the pro-life movement, and the chemically addicted.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

• ⁠August 14, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Friends of the Rosary,

How are we investing the treasure of our lives?

Pope Leo XIV invited the faithful this Sunday to share not only material goods and possessions, but also our time, affection, presence, and empathy.

Pope Leo XIV encouraged the faithful to share not only material goods but time, presence, and empathy.

Quoting Jesus’ words, “Sell what you own and give alms”, the Holy Father urged Christians not to cling to the gifts they have received from God, but to use them generously for the good of others, especially those most in need.

”Each person, he continued, is a unique, priceless good in God’s plan – a living, beating capital that must be cultivated and invested, otherwise it dries up and loses its value.”

The works of mercy are the most fruitful bank. Even the smallest gesture, the Pope said, can have infinite value, as in the Gospel’s image of the poor widow who, with two small coins, becomes “the richest person in the world”.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play

• ⁠August 13, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Friends of the Rosary,

St. Clare (1194-1253), the sister of St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday, made poverty the basis of her life, as taught by St. Francis.

Clare desired to be an imitator of the poverty of Christ.

Scripture shows how precious poverty is.

Christ was poor. He had no house wherein to be born, no house wherein to die, no deathbed.

He said, “The foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matt. 3:20).

We Christians can be moderate and frugal, and with the intercession of St. Clare, find the way to the spirit of Christian poverty.

Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!

+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York

Enhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:
Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play

• August 12, 2025, Today’s Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET