The power of prayer: Why I believe in the holy rosary

In 2003, an abnormally high blood pressure landed me in a hospital. I felt I was having a stroke — my left arm was numb and heavy, my heart pounding heavily, my mind confused.

The attending doctor at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City said my timely arrival saved me from complications.

In 2007, my wife lost our would-be firstborn after she suffered a miscarriage. But it didn’t take long before she got pregnant again.

That same year, the Inquirer hired me full-time after I spent a long period as a freelance writer.

In all these instances, I believed a higher power was at work — transforming an otherwise bad, sad or less-than-ideal situation into a cause for celebration.

I’m referring to the power of prayer, particularly of the rosary.

In the tense moments when I was reeling from the symptoms of a stroke, before my dad and mom brought me to the hospital, I was slowly praying the rosary to calm my nerves.

Special intercession

Amid a period of depression that followed my wife’s miscarriage, I prayed the rosary daily in a novena, asking for special intercession for my wife to get pregnant again.

And in the months that preceded the Inquirer’s decision to hire me, I prayed the rosary.

I’ve heard people say that if you need or want something, so long as it’s a good thing and you work hard for it, you will get it.

But I’m also convinced that we need to connect spiritually to a force that will set in motion whatever is needed to realize a wish or a dream.

To Catholics, it’s called divine intervention, or simply an answered prayer.

Despite growing up in a household with a mother and a grandmother who were devotees of the rosary, somehow I didn’t care to pray, even if I knew the rosary by heart.

Those were the years when radio announcer Johnny de Leon would lead the praying of the Angelus at six in the evening.

Embarrassing

Even though I attended Catholic schools run by Maryknoll Sisters, Augustinian priests and La Salle Brothers, it seemed out of sync, or worse, embarrassing for me to have a prayerful life because the world of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll was too tempting.

From my teenage years through my 30s, I flitted from ephemeral relationships with women, experimented with mind-altering substances and plunged head-on into music, which became my main beat as an aspiring journalist.

Turning point

The turning point came in 2001. Jobless and feeling lost and empty, I answered a newspaper ad for “a scriptwriter in a religious TV program.”

I didn’t mind the religious part, I just needed a job.

As it turned out, the TV program was Fr. Patrick Peyton’s “Family Rosary Crusade” (FRC), which was then airing on three networks—ABS-CBN, PTV 4 and RPN 9.

Father Peyton was from Ireland. He entered the seminary in America and became known worldwide for enlisting celebrities to endorse on radio, the stage and television the power of the rosary as a family prayer. He popularized the phrase: “The family that prays together stays together.”

Faith

Before his death in 1992, Father Peyton opened an office in the Philippines and recruited prominent and religious society figures like Josefina Madrigal Bayot and Imelda Cojuangco into his organization as members of the board of trustees.

Fr. James Reuter, who had worked with Father Peyton in the United States, was given his own segment on TV.

The FRC staff led by its executive director then, Gennie Jota, prayed the rosary before lunchtime Monday to Friday. There were days when I would lead the prayer, which usually lasted 15 minutes.

I used to find it boring, even funny, especially when someone would doze off in the middle of the Joyful Mysteries.

Looking back, the best thing that praying the rosary has done to me was to strengthen my faith in God.

Though it’s described as a Marian prayer that seeks the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the rosary is really about recalling the life of Jesus — from his birth in the Joyful Mysteries, his passion and death in the Sorrowful Mysteries, to his Resurrection in the Glorious Mysteries. St. John Paul II added Christ’s miracles in the Luminous Mysteries.

What may seem boring in the repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary and Glory Be has a really wondrous, calming effect — that’s why it can put you to sleep — which benefits the health.

This is weird but true: Whenever I have a hard time finding a taxi to take me to work, I start praying the Apostles’ Creed. Lo and behold! A cab comes my way just before I could continue with the rosary’s mystery for the day.

By the way, I named my son Patrick — after Fr. Patrick Peyton, who is one step from being canonized a saint.