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The Worldwide Women’s Rosary is coming to the United Arab Emirates

November 22, 2022 Catholic News Agency 2
In the United Arab Emirates, a group of women will join other women from around the world on Dec. 8, 2022, to honor the Virgin Mary in the Worldwide Women’s Rosary. / Credit: Facebook page St.Joseph’s Cathedral Abu Dhabi AUH

CNA Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Women from all over the world will join together Dec. 8 for the public recitation of a rosary to Our Lady. In the United Arab Emirates, where only 7% of the population professes Christianity, women are participating in the initiative in a special way.

Martha and Darío are a Colombian married couple living in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. There they have developed an active faith life, and on Dec. 8 they will be part of a Catholic community that will join the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.

It was a job position for Darío that led him and his wife to move to the United Arab Emirates in 2008 and start their lives over, 8,000 miles from their native Colombia.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister news agency, Darío said that during their first few years of living there they attended the celebration of the Eucharist in English at St. Joseph Cathedral in Abu Dhabi. An announcement during Mass led them to meet a group of Spanish-speaking people who were attending Mass in Spanish.

Some time later, Martha was asked to be in charge of coordinating the Mass, and with the help of her husband, who had experience in the life of the Church in Colombia, she undertook the task, joined by one of her friends.

Darío approached the then pastor of the cathedral to offer his help. From that moment on, he began working as a coordinator for the Spanish-speaking community.

Thus “began the activities aimed at the formation of a community, of a Spanish-speaking Catholic Church, in the midst of a parish that has countless different languages and cultures congregated in the same place,” he recalled.

The tasks followed one another: community outreach, locating rooms for catechesis, preparation of the Mass and soon there were some 220 families from countries such as Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Panama, and Spain.

The Catholic faith in the United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi belongs to the South Vicariate of the United Arab Emirates, a country where the official and most widespread religion among its inhabitants is Islam, at 75% of the population, and approximately 7% professing Christianity.

“It’s common to think that in a place where the Catholic faith is not the main recognized faith, different kinds of difficulties may arise,” Darío acknowledged.

“Here, on the contrary, we constantly receive ‘friendly challenges’ to faithfully demonstrate our faith to others in love, in charity, in respect, in tolerance,” he said.

The official language of the vicariate is English, but at St. Joseph Cathedral, Mass is offered in Spanish once a month.

The same is true of the Arab, Filipino, Sri Lankan, and Indian communities (in their different language groups), as well as small German-, French-, and Italian-speaking communities.

As for education in the faith, unlike in Latin America, catechesis is not directed toward sacramental preparation, but during the 12 years of primary and secondary school, catechesis is given on weekends as an extracurricular activity.

In the Spanish-speaking community, there is also catechesis for families whose children will receive the sacraments in their country of origin. “At the same time, parents receive their faith formation,” Darío explained.

Their connection to the rosary

At Martha’s initiative, since they arrived in Abu Dhabi, she and her husband began to pray the Pilgrim Holy Rosary in the homes of different people. Later, it was transferred to the cathedral, where a group of women met once a week.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the practice had to be suspended, and it hasn’t been possible to restart it because normal activities in the country only resumed two weeks ago.

The news about the Worldwide Women’s Rosary came through Fanny Tagle, a Chilean who participates in coordinating the initiative and who was a classmate of Darío’s in a professional development course. And so Tagle conveyed the proposal to him.

Martha and Darío took the idea to the parish, where the priest decided to support it, proposing to offer the intentions of the rosaries that are said in the half hour before each Mass from Dec. 5–8 for the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.

In the entire country, which is about the size of the state of Maine, there are only nine Catholic parishes, which means that “people of different cultures and different countries flock to the eucharistic celebrations.” Darío estimates that every Sunday some 15,000 people attend Mass.

On liturgical solemnities such as the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, it’s not possible to hold any activity outside of Mass, and the rosary cannot be prayed in the church.

During the month of October, the Catholic community of the United Arab Emirates celebrates the devotion to the holy rosary. A heavily attended rosary service is held to close the month’s events, and this year it brought together close to 1,300 people. It was the first one to be led by the new bishop of the vicariate, Paolo Martinelli.

To join the global initiative Dec. 8, the couple is considering meeting in a house and livestreaming it from there on the Facebook page of the Spanish-speaking community of Abu Dhabi.

Representatives from Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, and the United States have already confirmed their participation in the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.

Also participating will be women from Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Uganda, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Pope Francis: the Immaculate Conception is ‘one of the wonders of the story of salvation’

December 8, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, Dec 8, 2020 / 06:20 am (CNA).- The Immaculate Conception is “one of the wonders of the story of salvation,” Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Tuesday.

Speaking from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square Dec. 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the pope encouraged Catholics to entrust themselves to Mary, seeking purity and holiness.

He said: “The uncontaminated beauty of our Mother is incomparable, but at the same time it attracts us. Let us entrust ourselves to her and say ‘no’ to sin and ‘yes’ to Grace once and for all.”

It is customary for the pope to lead the Angelus prayer not only on Sundays, but also on Marian solemnities. In his address, the pope reflected on the meaning of the Immaculate Conception. 

“Today’s liturgical feast celebrates one of the wonders of the story of salvation: the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Even she was saved by Christ, but in an extraordinary way, because God wanted that the mother of His Son not be touched by the misery of sin from the moment of her conception,” he said.

“And so, for the entire course of her earthly life, Mary was free from any stain of sin, she was the ‘full of grace’ (Luke 1:28), as the angel called her. She was favored by a singular action of the Holy Spirit so as to always remain in perfect relationship with her Son, Jesus. Rather, she was Jesus’s disciple: His Mother and disciple. But there was no sin in her.”

Citing the hymn that opens St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, the pope said that we too are created by God for the “fullness of holiness” granted to Mary from the beginning. 

“And what Mary had from the beginning will be ours in the end, after we have passed through the purifying ‘bath’ of God’s grace,” he said. 

“What opens the gates of paradise to us is God’s grace, received by us with faithfulness.” 

Yet even the most innocent person is marked by original sin, he said, and therefore must engage in a lifelong struggle against its consequences. Lest we be discouraged, we should remember that the thief who was crucified beside Jesus “is the first person we are sure entered paradise,” the pope noted.

He continued: “But be careful. It does not pay to be clever — to continually postpone a serious evaluation of one’s own life, taking advantage of the Lord’s patience. He is patient. He waits for us, He is always ready to give us grace. We may be able to deceive people, but not God; He knows our hearts better than we ourselves do.” 

“Let us take advantage of the present moment! This, yes, is the Christian sense of seizing the day. To not enjoy life in each passing moment — no, this is the worldly sense. But to seize today, to say ‘no’ to evil and ‘yes’ to God, to open oneself to His grace.”

The pope said that the “journey of conversion” begins with seeking God’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We must then seek to repair the harm we have done to others.

“And this, for us, is the path for becoming ‘holy and immaculate,’” he explained. 

After the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in the square below, which was wet following a rainy morning. He singled out an Italian group holding a banner proclaiming “L’Immacolata vincerà” (“The Immaculate will triumph”). The group, inspired by the spirituality of St. Maximilian Kolbe, has brought the banner to St. Peter’s Square for the Angelus since the 1990s. 

“They are great, they are always here!” the pope commented.

He continued: “As you know, this afternoon the traditional veneration of the Immaculate Conception in Piazza di Spagna will not take place, to avoid the risk of a crowd gathering, as disposed by the civil authorities, whom we need to obey.” 

“But this does not keep us from offering our Mother the flowers that she enjoys the most: prayer, penance, a heart open to grace.”

The pope recalled that that morning he had made a private visit to the statue of the Immaculate Conception in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna and then celebrated Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major.

“I wish everyone a happy feast day. And, please do not forget to pray for me,” he said.


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