Balloon Rosary makes annual flight above Bethel Park school

Tribune-Review | Tuesday, October 11, 2022 6:01 p.m.

Harry Funk | Tribune-Review

A Rosary formed by balloons floats above the school driveway on Oct. 7 at the Bethel Park campus of Ave Maria Academy.

A longtime tradition continued this year at Ave Maria Academy’s Bethel Park campus, albeit with a slight change of venue.

To help celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary each year, the campus — formerly St. Thomas More School, before its merger with St. Bernard in Mt. Lebanon to create Ave Maria — celebrates morning Mass outdoors with a series of balloons shaped like a Rosary floating nearby.

Usually, the Rosary over the athletic field, with volunteers steadfastly holding ropes to make sure the balloons don’t fly away.

This year, the field turned out to be a bit too damp and muddy early on Oct. 7. So the event was relocated to the circular parking lot in front of the school’s main entrance.

Whatever the setup, everything went well as some of the older students led their classmates and visitors in praying the Rosary.

According to the Catholic News Agency, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary takes place in honor of a 16th-century naval victory that secured Europe against Turkish invasion, and which Pope St. Pius V attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.