‘Mary Mondays’ help Brother Martin students recharge

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

Brother Martin senior Mark Armbruster says his devotion to the rosary took off a year ago, when his mother started playing a YouTube recording of the prayer during their commutes together in the car.

Another major “rosary moment” came into the teenager’s faith life at around the same time.

Every Monday for the last two school years, Armbruster and his Brother Martin schoolmates have been invited to lead and pray a rosary inside their on-campus chapel during the first 20 minutes of their “unstructured period” – the 45-minute chunk of time that is reserved for eating lunch and enjoying a bit of downtime before the onslaught of afternoon classes.

Armbruster said the Brother Martin rosaries – called  “Mary Mondays” – are tailor-made for students and teachers who want to escape the hustle and bustle of high school life and enter into a quieter space.

“I feel refreshed. I feel renewed,” said Armbruster, a parishioner of St. Angela Merici Church in Metairie, following the Mary Monday rosary on Oct. 3 – the day before the start of mid-semester exams.

“It’s a great way to calm down, refocus, put your thoughts somewhere else that’s outside of school, outside of sports or whatever it is, and rethink about what’s going on in your life,” Ambruster added. “It’s a great way for us to get together and be a part of something that’s pretty foundational to our religion.”

Calming start to school week

Mary Mondays were brought to Brother Martin by Mark Bordelon, the high school’s campus minister. Although early-arriving students already had access to a Thursday-morning Mass celebrated before school hours and “drop-in” eucharistic adoration on Fridays, Bordelon wanted to add another prayer option to the weekly schedule – one that intentionally took place during the heart of the school day.

“Mary Monday just seemed like a good fit for the start of the week,” Bordelon said. “That’s been a theme (of the students’ feedback) – they really like starting the week with some form of prayer. They’ll go to Mass on Sunday – and that’s their family thing – but they really like coming together as a school community to start their week off.”

Serene setting

Participation in the Monday rosaries is completely voluntary, with the schedule permitting the young men to complete a full rosary and still have time to eat lunch afterward. About a dozen students gather in the chapel for each of the rosaries conducted during Brother Martin’s three, consecutive, grade-specific unstructured periods. Each rosary decade is led from the lectern by a different student volunteer, and a rosary prayer guide is always in front of the prayer leaders as an emergency reference.

“I told the guys, even if you know the rosary, when you’re in front of people, sometimes you get tongue-tied,” Bordelon said, smiling.

Another rosary regular, senior Luke Alvendia, said his Monday chapel time gets him through the school week.

“It always calms me down and makes me more focused on what I have to do the rest of the day,” said Alvendia, who grew up praying the rosary with his parents at home and in his parish of St. Edward the Confessor in Metairie.

“The chapel is separated from the classrooms, so you get that distinction. You get to enter into God’s house,” Alvendia said. “We’re all grateful to have this time to be alone with God and say our rosaries together.”

Students lead the way

Bordelon, now in his second year as campus minister, said he borrowed the idea for Mary Mondays – and even the name for the endeavor – from his elementary school alma mater of St. Philip Neri in Metairie. For about 20 years and up until the time of Hurricane Katrina, St. Philip Neri families were invited to come to church on Monday nights to pray the rosary.

“It was totally voluntary,” Bordelon recalled. “Families would come and bring Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters. Whole crews would come. So, I thought, ‘This is perfect. We can start a rosary group here on campus.’” 

But before formally launching the idea, Bordelon passed it by his Student Ministry Team of upperclassmen to gauge interest. Team members not only lead and solicit new leaders for the weekly rosaries, they also talk them up in religion classes, school Masses and the retreats they help plan for the younger grades.

Bordelon said his rosary leaders must also keep track of which set of mysteries were meditated upon the previous week, so that Mary Monday participants can cycle through all five sets of mysteries over the course of five weeks.

“They took the ball and ran with it – they were really the driving force to have it continue,” Bordelon said. “I can be here for the rosaries, but if it’s just me (coordinating them), it’s not really going to take shape. They took ownership of it.”

Growing devotion

Although he was initially unsure about how the rosaries would go over with the young men in his care, Bordelon said he is “extremely proud” of his students’ reverence and commitment over time.

“I always had a devotion to Mary myself, and when I suggested this, it was based, in part, on my own personal devotion, thinking there might be other guys out there (who had this devotion),” Bordelon said. “As it turned out, there are, and I think there are even more out there. Our group can definitely grow in the future. As word gets out, we’ll get more and more takers.”

On Oct. 5, Brother Martin resumed another on-campus rosary opportunity for the first time since the pandemic: the Parents’ Rosary is recited on the first Wednesday of every month at 8 a.m. in the chapel.

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