SALISBURY — Students of Sacred Heart in Salisbury brought in flowers and created a huge bouquet for the Blessed Mother Oct 23 during the school’s annual Living Rosary.
“Remember every Hail Mary you pray is like giving Mary a flower and look how many flowers we gave her today with just this one rosary,” said Father John Eckert, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish.
The living rosary is prayed outside, with each person symbolizing a prayer bead. Father Matthew Dimock, Father Eckert, and three altar servers represented the first five beads, while students and faculty formed a large circle of Hail Marys, Our Fathers and Glory Be’s.
A statue of the Queen of Heaven sat perched on a table in the middle. After each Hail Mary, two students, an upperclassman mentor and their younger mentee, carefully placed their flowers in the vases surrounding the statue. Soon hundreds of daffodils, daisies, roses, sunflowers and carnations surrounded Mary.
For the Dolphins, it also was a day to appreciate their clergy that started with an All School Mass. Afterward, the children presented the three priests with T-shirts inspired by the house system made popular in the Harry Potter series, but with a Catholic twist.
“They all have houses—House of Fatima, House of Knocks, House of Lourdes, and House of Guadalupe. Since I’m not in a house, they made me a shirt with all four represented,” Father Eckert said.
Father Eckert said he is fortunate to be assigned to a parish with a school. The children are so uplifting, and when he is feeling down, they always know how to make him smile, he said.
Thanks to all the high-fives and songs they share with their clergy, the students can’t help but smile, too.
— Lisa Geraci, Catholic News Herald
