The Holy Rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you’ll be amazed at the results. – St. Josemaria Escriva

October is the Month of the Holy Rosary, and a wonderful time to reflect on the ways in which this powerful devotion affects the lives of those who pray it. Many people have profound experiences that come from praying the Rosary – sometimes as simple as a renewed sense of peace, and sometimes something truly miraculous.

In honor of the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary this week, Drew Mariani, host of The Drew Mariani Show™, shared how the Rosary made a tremendous difference in his own family.

He told his listeners, “My father was a great man. He taught me great virtues and great values. He was the most selfless person I think I’ve ever met, the most generous person I ever met. But he was a flawed man. He suffered from addiction. He had the disease of alcoholism, and it was a cross for my mother. It was a very difficult cross for my mother, and my mother prayed non-stop for his conversion.”

“My mother always prayed the Rosary, ever since I was a little boy,” he explained. “And my mother and father one day were taking a walk, in this beautiful little Pennsylvania arboretum called Rose Tree Park. They were walking the trails deep in the woods, and my mother had been praying for my father’s conversion for a while.”

After setting the scene, Drew recounted a remarkable story that changed the course of his family’s entire life. He said, “It was just the two of them, nobody around. They weren’t talking, they were basically just walking and looking at the scenery when all of a sudden my father said, ‘What did you say to me?’ My mother said, ‘John, I didn’t say anything to you.'”

He asked, “You didn’t say to pray the Rosary?”

“No. What are you talking about?” she replied.

He said, “I swear, I just heard a woman’s voice. And this woman said to me, ‘John, pray the Rosary.'”

“He totally discounted it,” said Drew. “He wasn’t praying the Rosary, though my mother was a big devotee of it. So they talked a little bit more and continued to walk, and they were coming to the end of their walk when all of a sudden a very audible voice came out again. And he heard a voice that said, ‘My son, pray the Rosary.'”

“Again he asked my mother, ‘Did you say anything?’ He knew who it was at that moment. He knew that was a divine intervention. The mother of God was inviting him to pray the Rosary.”

Drew explained that after that fateful day, everything changed for his father. “He began to pray that Rosary every day for the rest of his life,” he said. “In fact, I was with him when he died, and in his hand was his Rosary. He prayed it with his last breath. In fact, I prayed it at his bedside. He was a man devoted to it.”

Drew is grateful to the Blessed Mother for reaching out to his father that day, but pointed out that the prayers of his own earthly mother played an important role in the conversion of his father.

“She never gave up,” Drew pointed out. “She prayed 54-day Rosary novena after 54-day Rosary novena. And he was eventually liberated from his addiction. Miraculously cured from his addiction. All of that desire, that hunger, that bondage that comes with addiction totally left him. There was no inclination anymore to drink.”

His parent’s devotion to prayer, and particularly the Rosary, not only affected their own lives and marriage, but affected Drew in a life-changing way as well. He shared that, “Two of my favorite prayers are the Rosary and the Chaplet [of Divine Mercy]. And I pray both of them every single day. Every day.”

Listen below to hear Drew’s story, as well as other listeners sharing their own stories about the power of the Rosary.

The Drew Mariani Show can be heard weekdays from 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. Eastern/noon – 3:00 p.m. Pacific on Relevant Radio and the Relevant Radio App.