DOES THE FAMILY THAT PRAYS TOGETHER STAY TOGETHER?

FATHER PATRICK PEYTON

Can we walk together the Road to Emmaus?

My mother was always devoted to the rosary. But her fervor increased dramatically in 1950 when  we had to leave our  second floor tenement on Englewood Avenue and move to a single family house that we rented on York Avenue. The house was built right up against the railroad tracks and there was no fence. My mother feared letting my sisters play in that yard. 
 It was during that time of despair that she must have  either gone to a  mission or heard a fervent sermon about the need to say the daily rosary. She began talking about Father Peyton and the message he brought from Ireland that "The family that prays together stays together."

One day I came home from Saint Teresa's School, and she had the  sewing machine out and was making something with blue satin and white lace.  Then she came into my bedroom and began hammering  two support brackets into the wall.  The brackets  would support a square board. She covered the board in blue satin and she then began tacking a short skirt on the three sides of the board. The skirt was blue with a white lace overlay. Then she took our statue of the Virgin Mary, and she placed it on the  new altar. She also placed a votive candle in a glass holder in front of the   statue. 

When Anna came home from work, she suggested that my mother should also place a square of cardboard covered in satin behind the statue and then weave artificial flowers in an arch like shape. We all worked happily on that project for a couple of days. Then my mother announced that we would all kneel each night and say the rosary. My mother believed that only Mary could save us from the dangers of York Avenue. And that is what we did for the next year until we got out of there.

In my constant  open question--What Saints have come to Pawtucket or Rhode Island, I decided to  see what had happened to Father Patrick Peyton from Ireland. And behold  he has been named VENERABLE and that is a step to beatification.
Here is a prayer to Father Peyton:

Prayer for a Favor through Peyton

God, our Father,

your wisdom is displayed in all creation

and the power of your grace is revealed

in the lives of holy people

who inspire us to trust you more fully

and to serve others more generously.

In a unique way,

you blessed the life and work of your servant

Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C.,

and made him a fervent apostle of Mary,

Queen of the Holy Rosary and Mother of us all.

Through his intercession,

we ask for this favor…

Please grant it, if it is for your honor and glory,

through Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

Then I learned that the Venerable Father Peyton is buried very close to the BUCKET.

Grave of Rev. Patrick Peyton, recently named “Venerable” by Pope Francis, has become place of pilgrimage for Catholics and their rosary beads.

EASTON – When Rev. Patrick Peyton visited Stonehill College in 1966, it was at the height of his worldwide prayer rallies that drew hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of people.

Peyton, known as the “Rosary Priest,” was acclaimed for his motto that “the family that prays together stays together.”

His visit to Stonehill was just a quiet one, though – he was stopping by to visit the Congregation of Holy Cross school, the same order as his alma mater of Notre Dame. Willy Raymond was in the seminary at the time, and remembers Peyton getting a haircut from fellow priest Hugh Cleary.

“It was right over there,” Raymond said Friday, pointing from his office over to the Holy Cross Center. “And Hugh said, ‘I should probably save those hair clippings.’”

It might have been a good idea.
Peyton, now buried at Stonehill, is one step closer to sainthood.The Vatican announced that Peyton was declared “Venerable” by Pope Francis, completing the second step in a four-step process to canonization.
Two miracles occurring at the intercession of Peyton will need to be verified for Peyton to be named a saint.
Raymond, the president of Holy Cross Family Ministries based at Stonehill, said he believes Peyton is worthy of sainthood, and that they have “several possible miracles” to present.
“We’re hoping and praying he’ll be canonized and recognized as a saint for family prayer,” Raymond said.
Father Peyton’s grave at Stonehill’s Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers Cemetery, located near the Route 138 entrance, has become a place of pilgrimage for Catholics since his death in 1992. This week, just like every week, it was adorned in rosary beads placed there by visitors.
The beads were Peyton’s calling card in life.
He began saying the rosary prayer on a radio station in Albany, then made the jump to national radio, when in 1945 he prayed the rosary with Bing Crosby. He later moved to Hollywood in 1947, and gathered up celebrities like Bob Hope, Loretta Young and Maureen O’Hara for prayer programs on television.
Peyton became known for two phrases: “The family that  prays together stays together” and “A world at prayer is a world at peace.”Beginning in 1948, he began his Rosary Crusades, leading massive prayer rallies across the globe. In 1961, he led a gathering of an estimated 500,000 people in San Francisco. Numbers are estimated in the millions in rallies in Sao Paulo, Brazil (1.5 million) and the Phillipines (two million).

Peyton died in 1992, and his body was brought to Easton to be buried in a Congregation of Holy Cross cemetery.

Holy Cross Family Ministries, based in Easton, continues the work of Peyton’s Family Rosary USA and Family Theater Productions. Their current facility at Stonehill was built in 2000, and has a statue of Peyton holding a set of rosary beads outside their Father Peyton Center.

They send out about one million complementary sets of rosary beads each year, according to external relations director Susan Wallace.

Peyton’s recognition as venerable puts him in select company: about 16 American have received the distinction. Another eight have been beatified (the next step in the canonization process), and 14 have been declared saints.

Peyton was born in 1909 in Ireland, and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1928.

He reportedly suffered from advanced tuberculosis in the late 1930s, but miraculously recovered through prayer, according to Holy Cross Family Ministries.

Peyton died in California in 1992 at the age of 83.

So his grave is only a few miles and less than an hour's drive away.  I have decided  that visiting his grave will be my  POST-EASTER Pilgrimage.  I will go there to pray for  better health and for the grace to endure with a  happier spirit the limited life that I now have. 

THE ROAD TO EASTON WILL BE  MY ROAD TO EMMAUS.