Early Life
This history of our founder, Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton, CSC, is in his own words as it is taken from his autobiography, All for Her.
"My getting to know Mary began in that little home in the west of Ireland where I was born and raised, and learned to pray the Rosary."
Father Patrick Peyton
I was born on January 9, 1909, in a picturesque valley in County Mayo in the west of Ireland. On one side were the Ox Mountains, on the other was the Atlantic Ocean.
From my earliest memories, I saw my father with the Rosary beads in his hands and my mother holding hers. My older brothers and sisters and I knelt around them, praying. Father began with the Sign of the Cross, then the Apostles' Creed, the Our Fathers, the Hail Marys, the Glory Be's. What impressed me most was the voice of my mother talking to Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."
For the first 19 years of my life, this was our daily practice as I grew from childhood to boyhood to my teens. In good times and bad, in sickness and health, in poverty and hard work, we ended each day speaking to Jesus and His Mother, offering them the greatest tribute that could possibly be given, making the greatest act of faith, and honoring Mary above all the angels and saints. Because of the daily family Rosary, my home was for me a cradle, a school, a university, a library and, most of all, a little church.
In May 1928, my brother and I emigrated to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to join our three older sisters. A day or two before we left him forever, my father asked me to kneel before a picture of the Sacred Heart. He addressed Our Lord with an intensity from his heart as he entrusted me completely to His care and protection. Then he said words, which were engraved on my heart: "Be faithful to Our Lord in America."
At the railway station, I saw my mother for the last time. She waved her handkerchief until the train disappeared from sight. My heart was crushed with sorrow, and tears blinded me.
Not in our wildest imaginings did my parents or my brother or I dream what Our Lord had in store for us in America. He called my brother to the priesthood from the coal mines of Scranton. He called me from being the janitor in St. Peter's Cathedral. In the fall of 1929, we entered the seminary at Notre Dame, Indiana. There, we continued the family Rosary with our new family, the priests and our fellow seminarians.