EXETER — “How many is that? Is that 10?” Dominic Bartoli from Balloon Works asked Monday morning as he filled balloon after balloon with helium in the gym at Wyoming Area Catholic School.
Parents and grandparents held the balloons, which Bartoli strung together, 10 at a time, to form a large rosary the eighth-grade students would hold as they led their schoolmates in the traditional Catholic prayer.
“I pray the rosary every day,” said school principal Eileen Rishcoff. “We want to keep the traditions of our Catholic faith going.”
The rosary event has been held for seven years on or around Oct. 7, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and students and faculty like to do it outdoors.
This year, a steady rain moved them into the gymnasium, where the prayers went on just the same.
Taking turns with a microphone the eighth-graders led their schoolmates, teachers and some visiting parents and grandparents in the traditional “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers” that honored five “Joyful Mysteries,” or events in the lives of Jesus and Mary.
First was the Annunciation, which one of the eighth-graders explained was the time the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that God wanted her to be the mother of his son; second was the Visitation, when a pregnant Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was also pregnant — with John the Baptist. Third was the Birth of Christ and fourth was the Presentation, when Mary and Joseph took a very young Jesus to the temple to be dedicated to God. Fifth was the Finding of the Child Jesus when he became separated from his parents as a youth, but then reunited with them.
“It’s beautiful,” said mom Jodi Calabro, whose son Anthony is in third grade. “I’ve seen this on the news, but I never got to come before because it conflicted with my work schedule.”
This year the event was held earlier in the day and Calabro was happy to attend.
While the eighth-graders held the large balloon rosary, the smaller hands of the younger children held individual rosaries, some made from colorful plastic beads.
Eighth-grader Melanie Moran, 13, of Tunkhannock, also held an individual rosary, one that had been given to her as a First Communion present six years earlier.
Students at Wyoming Area Elementary Catholic School pray together everyday, Rishcoff said, with emphasis on the rosary during May and October because the Catholic church dedicates those two months to the Blessed Mother.
“We tell them which saint is being honored each day,” said Mary Ann Paddock-Kaminski of the school’s learning support staff. “On Friday (Oct. 4) we honored St. Francis of Assisi. He’s very popular.”
By the time the children had finished praying the rosary, the rain had slackened to a mist, so the eighth-graders stepped out onto a grassy field and released the helium-filled balloons.
Up, up, up their balloon rosary soared.
“This is very nice for the kids,” dad Arick Nunez, of Pittston, said.
“I like the fact that they release it up into the air,” grandmother Rita Moran, of Pittston Township, said. “Watching it float up to the sky, it takes my breath away.”
