Praying the Beads

About two years ago, I went to a religious goods store to buy my mother a nice rosary for a Christmas present. While choosing it, I thought to myself that I hadn’t owned a rosary for probably 15 years, so I bought one for myself: a handsome medium-sized rosary with rosewood beads, comfortable to the hand.

Later, by myself in the chapel, I gave it a "Test Run." It, of course, instantly brought back childhood memories of learning the prayers and praying the rosary in school. I fingered the beads, then slowly started saying the prayers. And as I did, my mind wandered all over to thoughts about God and the spirit, and sometimes to thoughts about yesterday’s meetings or tomorrow’s dinner, or other mundane things. That’s when I tugged on the rosary like a life line of sorts and returned to very deliberately saying those short prayers.

To me, a rosary is a kind of holy abacus or a blessed cribbage board. By using a certain formula and keeping track with the beads, it frees my mind to go exploring. Like breadcrumbs on a trail, I can usually find my way back.

Custom has it, you choose a group of New Testament events or “Mysteries” to think about while saying the prayers.
I also have some spiritual reading to glance at between the decades. (These days it’s been Henri Nouwen’s “Here and Now.”)

Let me pause here and show you this unbelievable picture:

Rosary Bead, early 16th century
South Lowlands (Brabant)
Boxwood; Diam. 2 1/16 in. (5.2 cm)
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.475)

Rosary beads, miniature altars, and other small devotional objects produced in Brabant in the early sixteenth century inspire awe by the detail and minuteness of their carving. Produced in relatively large numbers, these rosary beads were carved of many pieces of fine-grained boxwood that were then fitted together, presumably with the aid of a magnifying glass. On the outside of this bead is the crown of thorns among pierced Gothic arches and circles accompanied by biblical inscriptions. The upper interior depicts Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge when closed; when opened, a triptych is formed, with depictions of, on the left, the Journey to Nazareth and the Nativity; in the center, the Journey with the Adoration of the Kings in the background; and, on the right, the Presentation and the Offering of Doves. In the lower half is the Crucifixion with ancillary scenes of the Agony in the Garden and Peter cutting off the ear of Malachus.

(This is from the Metropolitan in N. Y., Here'sthe link.)


Since before Thanksgiving, I have had a rotten time praying. I just haven’t been able to focus. I want a quiet space inside me, and instead my head feels like a piñata full of bees. But the other night, tucked away in a corner of the chapel before Mass, the rosary once again seemed to pull me out of that for just a while.

I used the first few prayers of the rosary to de-frazzle my brain, calming down, getting the heart and lungs in sync. I thought of, out of the huge world population, how many people might actually be saying these same prayers at this same time.

I chose to dwell on the “Luminous Mysteries”, starting with “The Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.” I tried to picture what the river might look like at this moment---- it would be somewhere just past dawn. Are there many people there? Are any praying the rosary or other prayer beads? This body of water, standing as witness to the Spirit for millennia, has washed how many clean? Nouwen writes that Jesus rose from Jordan’s waters, pronounced by the Father to be “His Beloved”, and it was this truth that enabled Jesus to withstand the devil’s temptations to prove Himself. And we, likewise, are “the Father’s beloved” with nothing to prove and plenty to share with others.

The second “Mystery of Light” is the changing of water into wine at Cana. Many commentators use this to discuss marriage. I like the ones who talk instead about the mammoth amount of wine Christ produced; even a month-long wedding feast would have a surplus. How much love can God flood us with? I’m back to the image of rivers: rivers of water, rivers of wine, rivers of spirit.

The next two mysteries, “The Sermon on the Mount” and “The Transfiguration” have me leaving the waters and climbing mountains along with, I try to imagine, many Holy Land tourists.
But Nouwen writes that Jesus’ way is “downward mobility”: down to the poor, the suffering, the marginal----- those in need of compassion. I believe it was C. S. Lewis who said he converted to Catholicism when he realized the Beatitudes were not just platitudes to memorize and repeat, but were actually meant to be lived out. To serve the poor, you become poor, and that transfigures you into a part of the kingdom of justice.

I began the final mystery, “The Last Supper”:
Staring at the altar being readied for Mass, the wine and the bread, I’m back to thinking of wine for the feast, more than anyone could ever consume, and how many people in the world might at this time be in a church or synagogue or mosque, or clearing in a forest, or a quiet room in their house, looking for compassion, wanting to know they are loved by a God who is well-pleased in them. I close my eyes and am met with an image of dark river water carrying me who-knows where.