“We don’t see them; they are invisible, and we drive by these big buildings and don’t see them unless we have family or a friend in one”
Teresa RodriguezParishioner
Teresa Rodriguez was already a selfless caregiver as a hospice nurse in 2019 when she struck up a conversation with a family at a memory care facility about the lack of spirituality offered to residents.
Residents were regularly provided exercise, music, and crafts, but spiritual activities were lacking, so Rodriguez offered to find some volunteers willing to recite the Holy Rosary with patients in elderly care.
“People rarely come to minister to [the elderly],” Rodriguez said, “We don’t see them; they are invisible, and we drive by these big buildings and don’t see them unless we have family or a friend in one.”
The hospice nurse, and graduate from the Augustine Institute with a degree in evangelization and catechesis, started with two volunteers who sat with patients and prayed the Rosary once a week. Soon more families requested this Corporal Work of Mercy to visit the sick and Rodriguez quickly found herself the founder of The Rosary Team.
The nonprofit reached out to more facilities and even continued to pray the Rosary with patients over video calls during the pandemic while facilities were shut down to visitors. The Rosary Team is now in more than 80 facilities with 200 volunteers throughout the Archdiocese of Denver, but is seeking more volunteers at therosaryteam.org.
Rodriguez said there are more than 50,000 elderly care facilities in the United States, so she created a kind of recipe for others who want to start this work in their own community. The Rosary Team will even provide a mentor to help get them started.
Volunteers say it’s the most important hour of their week and one resident told Rodriguez she was raised Catholic, but the Rosary was the first Hail Mary she said in 45 years.
Rodriguez lost her own mother to dementia last year, but even in her final days when her mother couldn’t speak or feed herself, her mother would still lift her right arm to make the Sign of the Cross, while Rodriguez recited the Rosary with her.
Congratulations, Teresa Rodriguez, for being the Archbishop’s Catholic Appeal, “Disciple of the Month.”
If you know someone else who is courageously spreading the Gospel, please share his or her story with us at archden.org/give/nominate and they may become the next “Disciple of the Month.”
The Archbishop’s Catholic Appeal funds over 40 ministries that are sharing the Gospel every day.