‘Mary is just getting started!’ Ottawa Rosary Bowl draws 800

OTTAWA (CCN)—Up to 800 people gathered on the Feast of the Queenship of Mary for Canada’s first Rosary Bowl, which organizers hope provides a model for future events.

“I think it’s a really important, historic thing that’s taken place,” said Dennis Girard, co-founder of the event with his wife Angelina of the Marian Devotional Movement.

“Mary is just getting started!” Girard said. “Now we have a template. Our Lady is going to leverage Rosary Bowls.”

The Rosary Bowl took place inside TD Place’s stadium that hosts the Ottawa Red Blacks CFL team at Lansdowne Park, the location of the 1947 Marian Congress.

At the Rosary Bowl, Ottawa’s archbishop was joined at the Rosary Bowl by Bishop Pierre Tremblay of Trois-Rivieres and rector of the National Marian Shrine at Notre-Dame-Du-Cap, site of the miraculous ice bridge or Rosary Bridge of 1879 that allowed stones to be brought across the St. Lawrence River to build the shrine. It is also the site of the “miracle of the eyes” of 1888 when the statue of Our Lady of the Cape was observed by three witnesses to open her eyes and her face take on a human appearance for a period of about 15 minutes.

Also present were Bishop Christian Riesbeck, Auxiliary Bishop of Ottawa and Bishop Guy Desrochers, Auxiliary Bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall. The recitation of the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary were led by bishops, by sisters of the Queenship of Mary and by young students from Corpus Christi Catholic School Rosary Club.

“We envision multiple Rosary Bowls where families come together to pray with their shepherds, drawing attention to Our Lady of the Cape, Queen of the Holy Rosary, and the promotion of her Confraternity of the Rosary in order to connect her children throughout the world in an unending chain of prayer.”

“Stay tuned for more,” Girard said. “My heart is bursting with anticipation on Mary’s next steps. She is so driving the bus!”

Girard told the crowd that “Right here in 1947, the soon to be Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent knelt in the presence of hundreds of thousands and prayed the prayer penned by Venerable Pope Pius XII, consecrating the Dominion of Canada to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Two years ago on July 1, the 150th anniversary of Confederation, Archbishop Terrence Prendergast and bishops across the country Canada reconsecrated Canada to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

“I was pleased with the way the event unfolded and am happy that so many wanted to give expression to their faith by attending,” Archbishop Prendergast said of the Rosary Bowl.

Present at the event was a statue of Our Lady of the Cape, a replica of the pilgrim statue that was processed from Notre-Dame-Du-Cap in Trois-Rivières to about 350 parishes and institutions on its way to Lansdowne Park in 1947. The actual pilgrim statue has been permanently installed in Ottawa’s Blessed Sacrament Parish, the parish closest to the site of the Congress.

“I was always under the expectation that this was not going to be a huge event,” said John Pacheco who was joined by his wife and four daughters at the Rosary Bowl. “The whole premise behind this was … to establish almost a beachhead, a foundation to build for the future.”

“What we’re doing is pleading with heaven to open up some doors for us,” he said. “Insofar as that’s concerned, it was mission accomplished.”

Pacheco said he hopes the movement will grow not only in Canada but across North America.

The Rosary Bowl was part of a five-day “pilgrim experience” the Girards organized that included a stop at St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal and Notre-Dame-Du-Cap.