A joyful cacophony of laughter and conversation swelled as David Campbell walked into the Campus Ministry office at St. Paul VI Catholic High School in Chantilly. As he seated himself at a crowded table of students beading rosaries, students approached him with their finished products to await his approval.
Every Tuesday, students join Campbell to craft rosaries that are donated to the Stella Maris apostolates, who ship rosaries abroad, at the Port of Baltimore, Md. and the Port of Charleston, S.C. As each student turned in a completed rosary, Campbell asked if he or she wanted to donate it or give it to a family member or friend.
Campbell has crafted rosaries for years, but his devotion to the rosary goes back decades to when he was a Presbyterian minister in Salem, N.J. Three months into his church assignment, Campbell was struggling in his prayer life, and a friend and Catholic priest Father Jack Casey recommended the rosary to him.
“I’ve had a rosary in my pocket every day since,” Campbell said. “That was 40 years ago.”
This love for the rosary eventually led Campbell to the Catholic faith. Today, Campbell makes 1,000 rosaries per year and has crafted more than 10,000 so far.
Last summer, he said, he began to experiment with beading rosaries using gemstones and Swarovski crystals. These unique rosaries, “for the hard-to-buy Catholic,” he joked, are sold at Paul VI and at St. Bernadette Church in Springfield. All sales go to two charities: the Ecumenical Community Helping Others in Springfield and Project Manger, a ministry within A Woman’s Choice in Falls Church that provides cribs to families in need.
At Paul VI, Campbell uses rosary-crafting sessions as opportunities to tell students about his life story and notably, his own witness to the powerful intercession of St. John Paul II.
Thirteen years ago, Campbell welcomed his first grandchild Jesse into the world, but at 10 days old, Jesse was diagnosed with herpes simplex virus, HSV-1. After he was brought to Children’s National Hospital in Washington, doctors told the family that Jesse had triple the lethal level of ammonia, a result of HSV-I, in his bloodstream and had 48 hours left to live. After two days passed without change, Campbell prayed a rosary and asked for St. John Paul II’s intercession. The next morning, Jesse’s nurse reported that Jesse’s levels and vitals were back to normal.
“I’ve been on the lookout ever since for ways to bear witness to the presence and power of Christ,” he said.
After many years teaching at Centreville High School, Campbell said he was ready to retire. The day he submitted his retirement paperwork, he saw an advertisement in the Catholic Herald for a social studies teaching position at Paul VI.
“I had been telling my wife for the longest time that I wanted to be somewhere where I could be a Catholic ‘out-loud,’ ” he said.
After Campbell’s wife, Ellen, encouraged him to apply, “I sent them my resume at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning. By 11:30 on that Wednesday morning, I received an email back for an interview.”
Campbell, who has two children and four grandchildren, uses family outings as opportunities to evangelize. For instance while waiting for his grandson at Taekwondo classes, Campbell takes the opportunity to knot a rosary, generating conversations with those around him about the faith. These opportunities to talk about the faith with others, Campbell said, are inspired by the healing of his grandson.
“I owe, but it’s a joyful kind of owing.”
