As we pray the fifth month of the 2026 Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage nine-month novena, Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., offers this month’s reflection on a question pilgrims often ask: why we pray the Rosary at all, and why we repeat the same prayers to a God who already knows our needs. God did not need Mary, and God does not need our novenas. We do. As contingent creatures, we are shaped by what we do again and again, and the Rosary repeatedly turns us toward the Lord through the one he chose as the mother of his Son.

Join us in praying the fifth month of the novena, and in preparing for the Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage on September 26, 2026, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.