Immaculee Ilibagiza - The Rosary: The Prayer That Saved My Life

ALSO BY IMMACULE ILIBAGIZA
WITH STEVE ERWIN

THE BOY WHO MET JESUS: Segatashya of Kibeho

LED BY FAITH: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan
Genocide (also available as a 4-CD abridged audio book)

LEFT TO TELL: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan
Holocaust (also available in Spanish and as
a 4-CD abridged audio book)

OUR LADY OF KIBEHO: Mary Speaks to the World
from the Heart of Africa (also available in Spanish)

All of the above are available at your local bookstore,
or may be ordered by visiting:

Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com
Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au
Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk
Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za
Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Copyright 2013 by Immacule Ilibagiza

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Cover design: Amy Rose Grigoriou Interior design: Nick C. Welch

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ilibagiza, Immacule.
The Rosary : The Prayer That Saved My Life / Immacule Ilibagiza, with Steve Erwin. 1st edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4019-4017-1
1. Rosary. 2. Catholic ChurchPrayers and devotions. I. Title.
BX2163.I45 2013
242.74dc23
2013014311

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-4017-1

16 15 14 13 4 3 2 1
1st edition, August 2013

Printed in the United States of America

The rosary is the most excellent form of prayer.
It is the remedy for all our evils,
the root of all our blessings.

POPE LEO XIII

I sit down to write this book with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. With the exception of the precious moments I devote to praying the rosary each day, nothing gives me more happiness than discussing the beauty and power we can all bring into our lives when we pick up these sacred beads and turn our hearts toward heaven.

The power of the rosary will bring blessings into our lives too numerous to count. It can clear confusion from our thoughts, chase trouble from our hearts, resolve problems that plague us, restore us to health, and fill us with happiness and hope. Those are big promises to make and may sound too good to be trueI probably wouldnt believe them myself, except that they are promises that have been fulfilled in my own life and in the lives of countless other people.

The Virgin Mary, my favorite saint, promised that anyone who prays the rosary from their heart will receive anything their heart desires and I am living proof that Our Lady keeps her promises.

IVE HEARD COUNTLESS TESTIMONIALS about rosary prayers transforming lives shattered by despair, healing bodies ravaged by sickness, curing addiction, and reviving hearts withered by hatred, loneliness, and betrayal. I have seen the rosary work wonders in the lives of people all over the world, be they Catholic or non-Catholic, or even those who have little to no religious belief at all. So please know that this is not a book solely for Catholics; it is a book for anyone who has faith in God and who believes prayers can be answered.

I assure you, prayers are always answered when offered by a humble, believing heartno matter how trivial or how great the request may be. The rosary can and will bring you everything you need to live a happy and prosperous life, as long as you pray with faith and sincerity. And, amazingly, it only takes 20 minutes a day!

But make no mistake, the rosary is not magic; it is faith in action. Jesus told us that with faith only the size of a mustard seed, any one of us can move mountains. The rosary is a tool that focuses our prayers and helps us develop our faith to the point that we can get those mountains moving. It is a tool that will deepen and strengthen our relationship with God, and in doing so all the treasure heaven has to offer can be ours.

These are no idle boasts; the enormity of the rosarys power has been well documented throughout history. As we will look at later, the Virgin Mary, according to legend, presented the first rosary to St. Dominic de Guzman in the 13th century to combat the sin and heresy of his age. Since then the Blessed Mother has appeared to saints and visionaries across the centuries telling us of the rosarys immense powers. She appeared to the children of Ftima in Portugal, promising that World War I would end and millions of lives would be spared if people prayed the rosary. She appeared to the young visionaries in Rwanda in the early 1980s, promising the genocide could be avoided if everyone prayed the rosary to cleanse hatred from their hearts. We didnt listen, and 12 years after she gave her warning the country was destroyed by genocide as she had predicted.

As you can see, the rosary has enormous power: power that can change the world; that can defeat evil; and that, perhaps most important of all, can bring a permanent peace to our hearts. I should know. I would not be here today if not for the prayers of the rosarywhich literally saved my life.

For those of you who dont know me, my name is Immacule and I am a survivor of the bloody 1994 genocide that devastated my beautiful African homeland of Rwanda. I was a 24-year-old university student when a government-backed holocaust of unimaginable evil was unleashed upon my countrys minority tribe, the Tutsis. To be Tutsi in Rwanda, like my family was, was a death sentence. In less than 100 days almost the entire Tutsi population of Rwandamore than one million innocent men, women, and childrenwere mercilessly tortured, raped, and butchered during what is now acknowledged as one of the most vicious campaigns of ethnic cleansing in human history. Almost every member of my immediate and extended family was murdered during the slaughter, and so was just about every other person I had ever loved or called a friend.

I survived, thanks to the kindness of a local pastor who took mercy upon me and seven other Tutsi women by hiding us in a tiny bathroom for three months. The pastors kindness prevented me from being murdered, but it was the prayers of the rosary that saved my life, and my soul.

My experiences during the genocide and its aftermath are chronicled in my first two books,