When I think about my grandmother, I remember her fingers etched in my memory. Her fingers knew music, and she often sat at the piano near her window in the Inner Sunset home of the city. Equally etched in my memory is how her fingers counted through the beads of her rosary each night.

She gazed upon the image of Our Lady of Fatima as she prayed the rosary each night. I remember gazing on the motherly image of Mary in her bedroom.

Since her death, that same statue has found a home in my office. I am always reminded of my loving grandmother when I gaze upon Our Lady of Fatima. She reminded me that she had carried this statue from Portugal to her home in San Francisco. I especially think of her on a feast day like today. May 13th is the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, and it is also the 45th anniversary of the assassination attempt of Pope Saint John Paul II.

At 5:19 p.m. on May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II collapsed in the popemobile, struck in the abdomen by a bullet. There is a marble plaque in the cobblestone of Saint Peter’s that marks the spot where this event took place.

Mary deflecting the bullet to protect the pope and her call for sinners to turn to God through the rosary are on my mind today. The Rosary was something that bonded my grandmother and me, whether in her bedroom, at Church, or at a funeral home. The Rosary was a compass through life.

The Rosary is the first prayer many Catholics learn. In it is the entire message of the Gospels. While it is Marian in character, the Rosary is fundamentally centered in Christ. Mary always points to Jesus. As we thumb through beads, we meditate on the life of Jesus through the one who knew him best.

The Rosary is a meditation that forms us as agents of peace. In all her apparitions, Mary called for peace through prayer. Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the Rosary as a prayer for peace:

“The Rosary, when it is prayed in an authentic way, not mechanical and superficial but profoundly, it brings, in fact, peace and reconciliation. It contains within itself the healing power of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, invoked with faith and love at the center of each Hail Mary (Pope Benedict XVI, 3 May 2008).

Praying through the mysteries of the life of Christ grafts his very life onto ours. Mary has a motherly, tender way of taking our lives and offering them to her Son as a beautiful gift.

Through the beads we utter Ave Maria. The monumental faith-filled greeting of the angel Gabriel becomes our prayer and the prayer of every disciple of Jesus: Hail, full of grace …

Let us take this greeting to every corner of our lives. May we give thanks to all those who taught us the Gospels through the discipleship of Mary. As we thumb through a string of beads, may we always imitate Mary’s life and ask her to give us her heart so that Jesus may be formed in us.