Beads: Global Prayer Tools VID 7





Every culture, religion, and almost every continent has prayer tools; Jewish and Muslim families, as well as Buddhist, Hindu, Christian Orthodox, and Roman Catholics all do.  To enter into a spiritual realm, humans need concrete items, which express profound beliefs, deep emotion, drawing quiet insight, into meditation. For some cultures it’s incense, images, lights, creation’s flowers, and symbolic foods.



Beads cross cultures. This realization inspired me to develpo my personal collection of Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Rosaries to include other faiths, as personal prayer tools.  But, why beads?  Using beads, as a spiritual tool, expresses prayer as a union of soul and body.  Prayer which brings together flesh and spirit is more holistic, more human, than mental prayer alone. Touching and holding connected beads bonds us to a reality beyond ourselves, our minds, our cares, our worries, and our ruminations. 



Uniting recited or word prayer to physical prayer (for example: beads), we pass beyond thought about God, to encountering God.  Praying on beads symbolize a living connection, a relationship.  Holding beads itself is prayer, so is keeping a chaplet or Rosary in your pocket or purse.  When this circle-chain gets in the way of change, keys or whatever, they remind us that we’re connected to eternity and of our need to connect with God.  Most world faith cultures use some form of beads.

The Family Faith International Exhibit (pictures here from St Casimir’s Social Hall, Buffalo, NY) gathers samples from a number of countries and religions.  Asia and Africa are represented by Chinese Buddhist and Indian (fragrant sandalwood) meditation beads, and the 99 divine attribute beads of Islam (above).

Jewish “forget-me-knots" on prayer shawls appear with

Byzantine Greek “worry beads represent Orthodox piety.  Here, Greeks string together olive pits, precious metals, and unique plastic basketballs of Greek sports enthusiasts.

Russian Orthodox cloth tied “Tiotki,
here with finger and single decade Rosaries.

Among the more intriguing Roman Catholic examples are those formed from seeds –called the “Tears of St Ann,” Native American semi-precious stones, a Mayan calendar Rosary, 



lead fishing sinker beads, in addition to natural rough or polished, maritime, and forest amber and coral beads (below).



An exceptional artifact is a copy of a German concentration camp Rosary made by Polish Roman Catholic prisoners.  The original three rosaries were made of granite from the camp’s severe-labor quarry, wood from gallows, and plexiglass from a downed US fighter plane.  The prisoners formed a living Rosary, carrying a bead apiece, each one filled with their colleagues’ ashes from the camp’s crematoria. These beads were formed into cube shapes and painted to resemble dice, because possessing a faith object was punishable by immediate death.

Another unique adaptation is a blessed “prayer shawl.”  Crocheting parishioners attached
beads of 10 plus 1-5 separate fringes of this health-care garment for my Mom who was breaking and losing all her Rosaries. The welcome covering comforted her body and soul.




Chaplets, too, come in many forms. The most popular being the Divine Mercy Chaplet – a mantra-like way to pray the beads of the Rosary. The International Exhibit mentioned above, displays five, knotted, red cord decades with a Jesus medal. 
As a child, on purchasing a miniature, plastic, Baby Jesus shrine at a local department store (!), I was introduced to the one-decade tool.  On opening the tiny drawer, at the shrine’s base, I discovered 10 linked, red cut-glass beads finished off with a medal of the Infant of Prague.  Chaplets of the Holy Spirit, St Jude, St Ann, and one prayed for an increase of faith are among other types.

The second most popular Catholic Rosary is the Franciscan meditation chaplet of Our Lady of Sorrows.  Each of its seven decades calls to mind different hurtful events in the life of Jesus and his Mama Mary.

The word Rosary literally means a bouquet of roses. 
Each bud of the above Rosaries stands for one of the prayer beads. 
Check Domestic Church Series Video 7   https://youtu.be/OLMuHj8tJ28 
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Next Saturday: Heaven Door’s Action Prayer Tool Box: Holy Sprinkle
All video and textual content of St Casimir’s Series on the Domestic Church and Tandem Blog Articles © CzMKrysa, Buffalo, NY April-May 2020

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