Children's Corner: Brother Francis Presents The Rosary

As many of you know, the month of May in the Catholic Church is dedicated to Mary. On top of that, today is the day before Mother's Day. So what better way to honor Jesus' mother and ours than by praying the Rosary? It is for these two reasons I chose to review Brother Franics Presents The Rosary today. I have actually had this in my review queue for a little while, but wanted the perfect day to review it.

This episode of Brother Francis starts off with Brother Francis receiving a letter from his nephew thanking him for the gift he received on his First Holy Communion. Brother Francis then goes on to explain how letters are special because you can take them out and read them anytime you want, and ties in the idea that God probably feels that way about our prayers. He then gives a simple explanation and some examples of ways we can pray to God, i.e., singing or just talking to God.

Most of the time though, like Brother Francis points out, we talk to God through the prayers of the Church, like the Our Father. He then goes on to explain how people, generally Protestants, accuse us of just saying the same prayer over and over again without it meaning anything. He does a nice job debunking this claim using the example of having a song that reminds you of someone. Your child then gets to hear the Our Father sung, like in Episode 1 "Let's Pray!" I found this useful as it helped reinforce what the child already heard and will help them commit it to memory.

We then get to the meat of the episode, which talks about Mary. I enjoyed the cartoon representation of the Annunciation. They also did a nice job sneaking in some more knowledge by teaching your kids that we call Mary the Mother of God. Your children are then taught the other prayers that make up the Rosary including the Hail Mary, Glory Be and the Apostles' Creed. Brother Francis then compared the Apostles' Creed to the Pledge of Allegiance. This was an interesting take, which I had never thought of, but I could see that registering with kids. Finally, your kids learn all twenty Mysteries of the Rosary, with visual representation, and the Hail Holy Queen prayer.

I thoroughly enjoyed this video presentation of The Rosary, and it easily gets 5 stars. It will make a great resource for Catechists of young children, or simply serve as a favorite video for your kids to watch at home over and over again. It seems with each subsequent Brother Francis DVD they release, the product gets better and better. They already have a CD of the prayers of the Rosary put to song, but I hope that they will consider releasing a CD of the entire Rosary, with each set of mysteries, prayed by Brother Francis and the children. This would make a useful additional tool to encourage your little ones to pray the Rosary every day. Tune in next month when I review Episode 4 "Forgiven!"

If you found this review helpful, please click the link and hit Yes!