Our Lady's Rosary Makers

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Our Lady's Rosary Makers is a non-profit apostolate in Louisville, Kentucky dedicated to spreading devotion to the Blessed Mother and the Rosary. Its 17,000 members, in the U.S. and other countries, make and distribute roughly 7 million cord and chain rosaries annually for missions around the world.

The organization traces its roots to Br. Sylvan Mattingly of Xaverian Brothers who in 1949 was inspired by the message of Our Lady of Fatima. Br. Sylvan started making Rosaries and formed a Rosary making club at St. Xavier High School which he originally named Our Lady of Fatima Rosary Making Club. Over the years this effort grew to be Our Lady’s Rosary Makers.

The core of Our Lady’s Rosary Makers operation is the bimonthly newsletter called Our Lady’s Messenger which reaches approximately twenty thousand people. The bulk of the newsletter is a section called Request for Rosaries. This section lists names and addresses of missionaries worldwide who are in need of Rosaries. The missionaries simply write to Our Lady’s Rosary Makers asking for their request to be published in the newsletter. The newsletter also includes news and feedback letters from missionaries. There are also requests for Rosaries from prison chaplains, hospitals chaplains, religious education instructors, etc. These missionaries are dispersed worldwide, some are in Washington DC while many others are in the most remote parts of Africa, India or Asia and of course, many are in South America.

The members of Our Lady’s Rosary Makers are mostly in the U.S. The make up and characteristics of the members are truly diverse. Some are working adults, some are blind or otherwise disabled people, some are elementary school students, while others may be in retirement homes. When members receive the bimonthly newsletter, they look through the names and addresses of the missionaries who have requested Rosaries. The members make Rosaries and send packages of Rosaries to these missionaries. There is no central control over this activity in Louisville. The members just select which missionaries they are inspired to send Rosaries to by reading the newsletter. The missionaries simply wait until packages of Rosaries arrives in the mail from various members.

Over the years, the members Our Lady’s Rosary Makers have distributed hundreds of millions of free rosaries to Catholic missions worldwide.

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