2023 Pilgrimage Highlights

The following rendition of “Salve Regina” was sung at the 2023 Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage.

Latin:

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
ad te clamamus
exsules filii Evae,
ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.

Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.

English:

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

Turn then, most gracious advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

Pray for us O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

At the 2023 Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage, Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P., Promoter General of the Rosary, encouraged every single one of us to say yes to praying the Rosary regularly and enroll in the Rosary Confraternity. If you have not done so yet, consider joining thousands of faithful in reciting 15 decades of the Rosary weekly to praise and honor the Blessed Virgin Mary and to receive her patronage.

Fr. Lawrence shared at the Pilgrimage, “I believe that the revival of the Rosary Confraternity and an increase in its number is very much at the heart of Mary’s blueprint for the renewal of the walls of our countries, of our homes, and of our hearts. Through the Rosary and together as a confraternity, we daily implore our Lord and God to send tremendous graces for the conversion of souls and for a deeper union of charity in our hearts with him.”

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When you take on something like hosting a national pilgrimage for the first time, you can’t really know what the end result will be. But you pray, and you trust, and you hope that your efforts bear the intended fruit. 

So, on the Vigil of the Rosary Sunday, the Dominican Friars decided to invite Catholics from all over the country to join us on pilgrimage—to pray the Rosary, to preach about the Rosary and Our Lady, to hear your confessions, to adore the Lord in Adoration, and to worship him at Holy Mass. 

Over three thousand people flocked to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, to pray with us and with Our Lady. 

For those of you who came on pilgrimage, you can watch this recap of some of what was captured that day. And for those of you who were not able to make it, this video may inspire you to plan to join us for the next Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage—scheduled for September 27, 2025. 

Until then, pick up your Rosary. Eyes on Christ. Pray God to send the Spirit of Truth to lead us all into truth.

The Rosary has a way of ensnaring us. But what we come to discover is that in being ensnared, we are saved. Fr. Gregory Pine teaches us that the Rosary asks of us a kind of contemplative stance—because we’re actually “heaven-dwellers” here on earth—we’re all called to be contemplatives. And we can do this by contemplating the saving mysteries of Christ. The mysteries we pray in the Rosary accompany us in this life, ultimately saving us! At his annunciation, Christ is saving. At his visitation, Christ is saving. At his nativity, Christ is saving. At his presentation, Christ is saving. All the way down the line, Christ is saving. And we contemplate these mysteries in union with Mary, the one who enjoys the most intimate union with her Son. She helps us to see joy, to see light, to see sorrow, and to see glory.