Host of new 'The Rosary in a Year' podcast hopes people 'fall in love' with the prayer

(OSV News) -- A new podcast about the rosary promises to deepen listeners' love of the Marian devotion and draw them closer to Jesus and his mother, Mary, in the new year.

"I hope people fall in love," Father Mark-Mary Ames, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, the host of "The Rosary in a Year" podcast, said during a virtual press conference Oct. 28. "I hope our listeners and those who make this journey with us ... fall in love with the rosary because they experience it as ... a privileged door for encounter with Our Lord and Our Lady."

The free podcast by Ascension, a Catholic multimedia network, begins Jan. 1, 2025, and continues through the year with a new episode released daily. Listeners can tune in on platforms including the Ascension App, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, for the episodes that run 10 to 15 minutes long. Each one will feature guidance and instruction, a prayer prompt and prayers of the rosary.

Father Mark-Mary, director of communications and director of priestly studies for the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said he hopes the podcast meets people where they are, from those who pray the rosary regularly to those who are beginners.

"I believe that our journey for 'The Rosary in a Year' is going to be learning how to -- and actually being accompanied in -- praying with the truths of our faith," he said during the virtual event.

The podcast will walk with listeners through six phases of deepening prayer by starting small and gradually growing over time. It promises to help people of faith learn how to build a daily prayer habit, form relationships with Jesus and Mary, discover the biblical foundations of the rosary, realize Mary's influence in one's own life and meditate with sacred art, the writings of the saints and Scripture.

Listeners can follow along with the podcast by signing up online for a free prayer plan at Ascension's website, ascensionpress.com. Other related resources are available there too, including "The Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide," a free parish kit and a package of 50 "How to Pray a Better Rosary" booklets. Ascension also offers rosaries inspired by the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and their devotion to their patroness, Our Lady of Guadalupe. A new "The Rosary in a Year" YouTube channel will provide video content.

The podcast is the fourth of Ascension's popular "In a Year" podcasts, following "The Bible in a Year," its sister podcast in Spanish, "La Biblia en un Año," and "The Catechism in a Year."

Father Mike Schmitz, host of "The Bible in a Year" and "The Catechism in a Year" podcasts, will appear on bonus episodes with Father Mark-Mary.

This latest podcast comes after Father Mark-Mary did a video for Ascension in 2021 about learning to pray the rosary in a year. He has spoken about the rosary for Ascension before, including in a 2019 pray-along rosary video that went viral with more than 5 million views.

At the virtual press conference, Father Mark-Mary revealed that he struggled with the rosary as a teenager and hoped that this podcast serves as the resource he wishes he had as a young man. Pointing to St. John Paul's II apostolic letter on the rosary, which kicked off the "Year of the Rosary" from October 2002 to October 2003, he shared how the rosary has impacted him personally.

At the end of the year, in October 2003, Father Mark-Mary was in his first semester of college and had stopped attending Mass for the first time, he said in response to a question by OSV News. Then, out of nowhere, he found himself speaking with a young woman at a dorm party who identified as an atheist.

"I said like, 'How can you not believe?'" he remembered. "I started to defend the faith and all of a sudden like all of the lights went on. It's like, I believe and it needs to affect my whole life."

"The timing of it -- it just can't be coincidental," he said of the event, adding that he believes that the grace of his own conversion came from all of the prayers said during the rosary year.

Today, he said, he prays the rosary every day and wears a rosary as a part of his habit.

For those who want a preview of Father Mark-Mary's podcast, a bonus introduction episode is available.

"In a difficult world and a difficult time where it's so easy for us to turn our attention towards everything going wrong, brothers and sisters, here is the response," Father Mark-Mary says toward the end of that episode. "Let's go to the Lord, let's pray, let's focus on him, let's focus on the great mysteries of our salvation, let's turn back to Our Lady, let's remember that we have a mother who loves us, who is also powerful, who is queen of heaven and earth."