Click here to listen to WQPH 89.3

Catholic Radio serving Shirley-Fitchburg MA and the world.

Inbox: how do I pray a penitent Rosary?

September 29, 2020

We’re coming up on the one year anniversary since Sister Agnes Sasagawa received a new message from her guardian angel on October 6th, 2019, and there is a renewed interest and questions about the story.

WQPH continues to stand by the authenticity of the message as being from Sister Agnes.

A reader writes us:

How do I pray for the Penitential Rosary? Please it’s very important to get this message out. Thank you. 

J.P.

Thank you for your inquiry, J.P.

Some of the confusion stems from the English translation of the Japanese text that was provided to us by the message’s courier, who speaks both Japanese and English.

Some suggested that it referred to an obscure form of the Rosary initiated by Maria Concepcion Zuniga Lopez, foundress of an order of the Franciscan Minims of the Perpetual Help of Mary, in 1970. In our scramble to make sense of the message, WQPH relayed this idea.

But the English form of the message is translated, not literal, so it is unlikely that the phrase “penitent rosary” is intended to mean a specific form of the Rosary, rather that the intention when praying the Rosary is one of penance for the forgiveness of the sins of all of mankind.

With regards to forms of prayer, it is worth going back to the original Akita messages, especially the second one, in which Sister Agnes received clarifying questions from her bishop.

Bishop Ito asked Sister Agnes to pose the questions to Our Lady should she appear again:

1. Does our Lord wish the existence of our institute?
2. Is its present form suitable?
3. Is a group of contemplatives necessary in a secular institute?

Bishop Ito

Our Lady responded to his questions in the second apparition:

Even in a secular institute prayer is necessary. Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together. Without attaching too much attention to the form be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master.’

Our Lady of Akita’s second message

Particularly the phrase, without attaching too much attention to the form, is helpful for us in this matter also.

There are many forms and devotions associated with the Rosary, and some souls have particular dispositions toward particular forms, finding them more efficacious. God likes variety!

It is important for WQPH to refrain here from making recommendations about how to pray and from vouching for the authenticity of one form of prayer or another–which is well beyond our purview–and leave these matters for the reader’s discernment.

We are reminded of two of St. Paul’s exhortations on faith and authenticity:

[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:7

Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good.

1 Thessalonians 5:21-22