Pilgrim Queen of the Family

Our Homeschool group formed a group of 10 families who welcome The Pilgrim Queen of the Family Shrine, Our Lady of Guadalupe, for three days each month, into our homes.  The fruit of having the Shrine  in our home is that our family is united with other families in the prayer of the Holy Rosary through the Pilgrim Queen of the Family.  It also promotes the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

We will soon be beginning our third year participating in the "traveling shrine" of the Pilgrim Queen.  When we first began to welcome the shrine into our home, we added the family rosary to our night-time prayers.  Our family prayer-time with the shrine in our home has been very powerful for us.  It has lead our family to praying the rosary together daily, which had been a hope and prayer of mine for a long time.  As a result  of Our Lady's prayers, generosity, and grace, our family prayer-life has increased both in meaning and depth. 

The Pilgrim Queen

The purpose of the Pilgrim Queen is to "promote Family praying of the Holy Rosary for the Church, the Pope, the family and vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life."

Methodology

Pilgrim Queen of the Family is an image of Our Lady Guadalupe that monthly visits ten families, staying three days in each home. During her stay, the family prays together the Holy Rosary.

"Family that prays together stays together." (John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae)

This apostolate requires two types of members: Guardian and families affiliated with Pilgrim Queen of the Family.

Guardian
A person who makes the commitment and has the honor of ensuring that Pilgrim Queen of the Family does pilgrimages from home-to-home to promote the prayer of the Holy Rosary. He/she 
invites nine other families (friends, neighbors or relatives) to receive Mary in their home for three days, each month.

Affiliated Family
Family who receive and welcome Our Lady of Guadalupe in their home each month for three days and commit themselves to pray the Holy Rosary together as a family, to pray for vocations, the Pope, the family and the Church. The affiliated family will try to form its own group, so that more and more families are visited by Our Blessed Mother and become united in a single prayer.

Pledge to Mary

As an Affiliated Family with Pilgrim Queen of the Family We commit ourselves to:

1.   Pray the Holy Rosary together as a family
2.   Invite other families to pray the Holy Rosary
3.   Love the Pope and collaborate with the bishop and parish priests
4.   Welcome life
5.   Promote vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life
6.   Give testimony of Christian love: “Look how they love each other”

Our experience with having the Shrine come into our home each month has been very powerful.  We begin to anticipate Her arrival before she is delivered to our home by an affiliated family and always receive her joyfully!  The 3 days always go very quickly, and thus, we are grateful for our time with her.

I encourage families, church, homeschool, and mother's groups to consider inviting The Pilgrim Queen into your homes.  Our family has enjoyed the peace, love, and abundant grace that flow from this time together in prayer.

Click here to learn about becoming an affiliate or guardian family.

The process

Brining the Pilgrim Queen into our home was very straightforward and can be for you as well
1.  Your group will identify a guardian role, or you simply register as a guardian, and invite ten families to join you.
2.  Obtain the shrine here for a small fee per family.
3.  Set a rotation schedule that is most logical based on where the families live.
4. When your group's shrine arrives, your first rotation can commence!

For more information about devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the countless miracles that surround her apparations to St. Juan Diego, click here.

If you arw already participating as an affiliate or guardian, please feel free to share your experience, and how this devotion has changed your family prayer-time.



A Quiver Full of Love

Psalm 127:3-5

"[Children] are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."

My beautiful sister Annie Ballalatak, and her amazing husband have been blessed with a quiver full of love; 8 beautiful and healthy children ranging from 2 up to 16 years old.  They have endured loss and have some children in heaven as well.

Annie is a great writer, with wit as well as depth.  She shared her Christmas Poem with me this year and it made me both laugh, and cry. 

Annie agreed to share part of her poem in celebration of life.  Here goes:

"In light of my sister, Kristen’s, joyful news of her seventh healthy baby being born this week, I received some pressure from my peeps to share an excerpt from my 2012 Christmas Poem (that was never sent because I ran out of time and it never got out of ‘draft’ mode!).
 
It dawned on me one night when I was putting Jesse (our youngest, 2-yr old) to bed that he gets at minimum nine ‘night-night kisses’ every night before going to bed and how some people might think that the youngest of eight children gets the shaft when it comes to the love and attention department.

This along with a chat I had with my mom over the holidays where she was telling me how much grief she gets and how she so often has to defend her daughters’ large families to friends and family prompted me to add this last section to my poem.   The context of this usually very silly poem is a conversation between Tom (my husband) and me as we grab a glass of wine (Tom-a beer), sit on the couch and reminisce over the last year and review each of our children and life’s happenings.  Only the intro and closing sections are posted. 


Sunday, December 09, 2012
T’was the night of the blizzard
     and all through the house
was a roar of eight children
      and even my spouse

….
Now what’s on everyone’s mind dear, we mustn’t delay
“You’ve got eight kids, are there more on the way!?

Have you no control, dear man, don’t you know how ‘it works’?
Don’t you know they make meds so you can still have the ‘perks’?”

Should I tell them, honey, we don’t know and request advice?
Or should I admit that we do and are lucky to have so much ‘spice’?

For those who say ‘better you than me’, should I tell them our kids concur
For if it were them, most of the kids would not be here.

For those who can’t imagine there to be enough love to cover every babe
Should I tell them how many kisses Jesse gets before he hits the shade?

For those worried that you can never make enough money
Should I tell them how God has worked it out, should I tell them, honey?

How although we may not have every nicety out there, theirs is a misconception
Every need of ours has been met, without a single exception.

I suppose I could mention how lucky they all are to have our eight children pay
their future Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security one day.

And then I could tell them the theology behind it, why God’ plan is such a way
With a quiver full, comes peach & joy – life’s beautiful bouquet.

Lastly should I try to draw a picture for them – later when we are old
All the love and sacrifice we gave our children being repaid a hundred-fold?

Na, It’ll suffice to just tell them we feel lucky to be blessed eight times over
And they shant worry, we won’t be inviting ourselves over.

T’was still the night of the blizzard
    but the roar was now gone
        Nine sleepers last count
              all but the mom

Christmas music off
lights off the fire hazard (tree)
 – now out of sight
Happy Christmas to all
and to all a good night!

Blessings,
The Ballalatak Family"