By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-08 21:26:07 | Updated at 2025-01-09 11:58:22
14 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Fox News Digital recently interviewed Father Mark-Mary Ames, Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR,) of the “Rosary in a Year” podcast, which topped Apple’s podcast charts for the first three days of the New Year.
Fox reported that Fr. Ames, who is the director of communications and the director of CFR’s Priestly Studies, said during an interview with the outlet that the podcast really belongs to God, and called the Rosary “the great remedy for our time.”
“There’s something particular that God wants to do through Mary that also continues now. So, it’s interesting that even Mary’s the one who continues to come,” he said. “I think the number one thing is [that] there seems to be some sort of special grace given by God to the Rosary where he wants to do some special work. And the rosary is the thing that unlocks it. It opens the door to grace.”
He also described the Rosary as “a perfect human prayer,” developed over hundreds of years, and accessible to people of all different ages.
Fr. Ames added that the Rosary is “good for our humanity” because so many people “are all over the place,” making it hard to focus and concentrate. He continued by saying the ability to focus for an extended time is somewhat like the foundation of prayer.
“It’s going to be really hard to hear God, to come to God, if you can’t pay attention at all,” he said. “And so I think there’s a part of praying the rosary, which is like physical therapy for the soul. The content works the concentration muscle within. It’s really atrophied.”
Fr. Ames also shared his vocation story with the outlet. He was raised in a wealthy California family, describing himself as a “country club kid.” He said Mother Teresa inspired him to give up what he had and instead serve others.
“I heard that there’s a group of Franciscans in New York who are hardcore and sleep on the ground,” he said. “And I looked them up, and I read our constitutions — which are what we say we’re about — and I’m like, ‘if that’s true, that’s everything I’m looking for.’ So I was a very, very normal kid, on a normal path. And then God just sort of made this happen.”
Fr. Ames said he was made to give his life to the poorest of the poor and that the deepest experience of his life is what God has done in generosity, noting that there’s nothing he has sacrificed that God hasn’t “repaid a hundred-fold.”
He added, “It’s in new and deeper ways.”
