What is the World Mission Rosary?
In February of 1951, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith from 1950 to 1966), in a radio address (The Catholic Hour), inaugurated a World Mission Rosary. “We must pray, and not for ourselves, but for the world. To this end, I have designed the World Mission Rosary. Each of the five decades is of a different colour to represent the continents.”
Praying this Rosary, Archbishop Sheen said, would “aid the Holy Father and His Society for the Propagation of the Faith by supplying Him with practical support, as well as prayers, for the poor mission territories of the world.”
The Origin of the World Mission Rosary
Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was a national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, a Pontifical Mission Society like the Missionary Childhood Association. He even had his own television show – and won an Emmy Award! Archbishop Sheen loved the missions, and he wanted us to pray for our mission family.
So in 1951 he created the World Mission Rosary, inaugurating it during his regular address on The Catholic Hour radio show. He used to say that when you had finished praying the World Mission Rosary, you have given the world a “great big hug!”
His cause for sainthood was opened in September 2002. He was declared venerable on June 28, 2011.
What do the colours signify?
Each decade of that World Mission Rosary calls to mind an area where the Church continues her evangelizing mission: GREEN for the forests and grasslands of AFRICA; BLUE for the ocean surrounding the ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC; WHITE symbolizing EUROPE, the seat of the Holy Father, shepherd of the world; RED calling to mind the fire of faith that brought missionaries to the AMERICAS, and YELLOW, the morning light of the East, for ASIA.
“The Rosary is a prayer that always accompanies me; it is also the prayer of the ordinary people and the saints…it is a prayer from my heart.” –Our Holy Father, Pope Francis.
The above has been extracted from https://missionsla.org/wmr/