On October 7th we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and what better way to celebrate than by taking a prayerful trip to the church dedicated to her in Langford?
“We had been planning to hold a procession,” says Roland Wauthy, Chair of the Parish Pastoral Council for Our Lady of the Rosary. Then he adds optimistically that although this had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, “next year we hope to have a Corpus Christi procession and another procession for Our Lady in the month of May.”
“It has been a difficult time for many families, in more ways than one. We used to have community fellowship, different suppers, (including Oktoberfest) our Moms and Tots group, the Catholic Women’s League, the Knights of Columbus, etc. Everything has stopped.” Roland explains, but everything did not stop for long. Roland, together with the Pastor, Fr. Dean Henderson and Cynthia Santos, the Parish Secretary (pictured above), were able to phone all the parishioners. They asked how people were doing and if they needed prayers.
Prayers are very important to Our Lady of the Rosary Parish. They have an active prayer group who offer intercessory prayers and prayers for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for both the Parish and the Diocese. Roland says, “It is important as Catholics to receive the sacraments, but fellowship is really important too. Our people call in asking for prayers and we send it out to our groups.”
The fellowship experienced at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish is driven a lot by the demographics. Cynthia said that because Langford is the fastest growing community on the island, more and more young families are joining the parish. “We are doing more baptisms and less funerals,” she laughs.
“It personally touches me to see so many young families, with two, four, even six children,” says Roland. I love families even if they may be a distraction at times. So be it. It builds up the Body of Christ. Our children are the future of our Church,” Roland grinned. He has six. Roland has his eyes on the future. When the restrictions are lifted, “We will phone people to personally invite them back into the fold.”
Fr. Dean has a very open way of welcoming everyone to Our Lady of the Rosary Parish. In addition to a sign announcing that the church is open, Cynthia explains, “Our pastor would put an eye-catching sign outside the church that would say something about faith and God in a not so serious way. We could see people smile, laugh and take pictures. At one point during Fr. Dean’s vacation, we did not put the sign out. Someone came to the office and asked what happened to our sign?”
What message would they like to share with the rest of the diocese? Roland says that "the Bishop’s Appeal, the Horizon of Hope, is very good. Hope is a virtue. We are expecting greater graces in our parish once this is over. We cannot accept the status quo. This is teaching us a lesson that we can move on and do greater things for the glory of God. The best thing about our parish is the interconnection of the people of God. We are here to build each other up on the way to heaven.”
