Catholic Dopers: Tell me about your rosary

In My Humble Opinion
1

As I’ve mentioned a few times on the boards, I make glass-bead jewelry, including a fair amount of wireworking. A few of my supply catalogs include tools and patterns for rosaries (there is even a tool called “rosary pliers,” although it is simply a 3-in-1 tool for wireworking), and more than a few times I’ve wondered what the market is for them. Are they hand-me-downs or heirlooms? Is the object itself particularly revered, or is it just an object? Do people collect them? I once saw an interesting one made from brightly colored clay beads in whimsical patterns; would this be considered an art piece only and inappropriate for actual use? If you saw a particularly beautiful or unusual rosary, would you buy it for yourself or for a gift? Are any materials particularly symbolic?

I understand the basic idea behind the purpose of the rosary (keeping track of where one is in the prayer cycle); please educate me about how personal rosaries are actually acquired and handled in everyday life.

2

Well, even though I’m now Baha’i, I was raised Catholic. I have a set of glass rosary beads that my mother gave to me when I made my confirmation.

On a related note, my mother had a set of sterling silver rosary beads that were given to her by her mother. When my mom was terminally ill, she requested that when she die, the beads should be buried with her. I told her I’d see to it. My MIL thought I was making a mistake (“those things are an heirloom. You could pass them down to your kids. You’ll be sorry”, etc.), but I kept my promise. Maybe I’ll be sorry someday, but it’s been 15 years, and I’m not sorry yet.

As for buying rosary beads as a gift, I don’t know. But Baha’is use prayer beads, too, and I’d definitely buy them as a gift! I don’t think it’s disrespectful or anything.

3

I have bought rosary beads as a gift for an older relative. She has several sets and I have never asked how many she actually uses for prayer and how many just sit around. My feeling is that Rosary beads are frequently given as gifts to young people, especially around the time of their first communion (or maybe this is a little young) or confirmation. For a gift set I would look for something nice, sturdy, quality materials but I think for regular use many people prefer something utilitarian.

4

Don’t practice now, but I agree with Melandry about the gift thing - a lot of people I know got theirs during their first communion or confirmation.

I got mine from my grandmother when she died - family heirloom.

5

My heirloom rosary is sterling silver and jet, this belonged to my great aunt and she gave it to me for my first communion. It just screams “old lady” but I guess that’s what heirlooms do. I also own the ugliest rosary ever made, which was also a gift, and it’s a bit of an albatross because I would feel weird about throwing it out. It’s vintage 1973, and features enormous orange and white plastic beads. It would come in handy if you ever needed to pray for the University of Miami to win the Sugar bowl.

People do give them as gifts, although at least in my experience most people know that a child doesn’t really have use for 10 rosaries, so the “duty” (or privilige, I guess) of giving the rosary usually falls to the godparents.

Among my older, rosary-collecting relatives, most of theirs are souvenirs of some sort (like from the Vatican, or the National Shrine of the North American Matryrs), or blessed by a particular person, say the Pope or Cardinal Spellman or whomever. I’ve seen a few that are not very traditional, the one that stands out in my mind was a beaded Native American type design. With the exception of something like that, that has a regional significance to the design, I personally would lean toward the more traditional in my rosary shopping. Unusual is good, but “whimsical” seems a bit much.

If you happen to live near a Catholic shrine or other popular site, you might want to check out their gift shop. They might be interested in featuring rosaries made by a local artist, made out of local materials. I think there is a Mary Help of Christians shrine in Wisconsin.

In terms of materials, beads made of wood are often a traditional choice for a man. The word rosary comes from the latin word for a rose garden, which is associated with Mary, so rose quartz beads are pretty popular.

6

I’m not Catholic, but I do occasionally use a rosary. Mine is very plain, just thin cord and narrow beads. If you’re making rosaries, I think it’s important to remember that people will be running them through their fingers, so they should be made of a material that’s pleasant to the touch. That’s why I’d probably pass up the clay beads you mention in favor of glass or stone.

7

How old is this tradition? I grew up Catholic (post Vatican II era) and I’ve never seen a man (not even my great uncle the priest) use a rosary. To me, it’s always been a “church lady” thing; i.e. only the old ladies who go to Mass every morning do it. That’s not to say we weren’t taught about it in CCD, though – ISTR the CCD teacher giving us cheap glow-in-the-dark plastic rosaries before receiving first Communion.

8

Wow, thanks for all the great insight, everyone. I must admit that I’m not about to run right out and start making rosaries, as there are several item types I’ve actually had requests for that I haven’t gotten around to making either; ths was just an idle thought that came up this weekend.

A few follow-up questions:

Interesting. May I ask why/how?

Also, I’m obviously not Catholic (my father’s family is, but he is not; long story short, I was actually baptized in the Catholic church, but raised Lutheran, and now call myself agnostic). Would it matter to anyone buying a rosary that its maker was not Catholic, as long as it was made correctly?

That’s an interesting observation about men and rosaries. I haven’t had much exposure to Catholic practice, but now that you mention it, it does seem to be a “church lady” thing IME.

9

Heh, you’re absolutely right. I should have said “traditional choice for a MALE” in that a boy might receive a rosary with wood beads from his grandmother for first communion or confirmation, at which point it will live in his sock drawer until kingdom come (literally, I suppose :wink: )

10

Mine were a gift from my parents on my confirmation—olive wood , I think. I’ve used them two or three times while praying the rosary prior to relatives’ funerals.

11

Well, I know there’s at least one guy out there who still uses a rosary. :slight_smile: My devoutly Catholic male friend was just telling me last night about how he carries around a wooden rosary with him all the time. He’s in his mid-20s, for the record.
I didn’t know it was considered unusual for a man to have one.

12

I have 4 rosaries. There are two that I use primarily - one is a large rosary made of Connemara marble. I love that one, but it’s pretty large and heavy. I’d like to find a different crucifix for it, as the one it came with is so of cheap looking. I’d like a Celtic cross for the crucilix, but I don’t know if they make them with a corpus on it. My “travel” rosary is actually quite masculine looking, with dark beads and an enamelled crucifix. I have a third which has sort of large pearlescent beads attached with mono-filament line. It’s not very comfortable to use because of the fishing line, so I don’t use it much. It was given to me by a male friend who visited a shrine in Mexico. The fourth I picked up on sale, because I couldn’t bear to see a clearance rosary. I’ll probably give it to someone if I think they’ll appreciate it. I often give them as gifts to Catholic converts.

StG

13

My dad has his beads-I don’t know if he uses them, but he stopped leaving them on top of his dresser when the cats started stealing them.

I have two sets-one is of turquoise glass beads that are carved like diamonds-they were my mom’s and she gave them to me when I was little because I loved them so much. And my mother of pearl communion beads.

I don’t use them, though, but I’ll keep them as heirlooms.

14

I’ve never thought of the praying the rosary as a “church lady” kind of thing. Funny thing is, I was talking about this today with someone who had been to mass at my old parish. Just as I recalled from many years ago, there was a regular Legion of Mary group that met at church every weekday morning to say the rosary out loud together, either immediately before or immediately after mass. The group always looked rougly evenly divided between male and female. Interestingly, although most of the Legion of Mary group are past retirement age, there is a group of younger people who work in the health professions (doctors and nurses) who also say the rosary with them. Occasionally their beepers go off and then so do they. Those who deal with the stress of life and death situations on a daily basis may appreciate the calm meditation that saying the rosary offers.

To answer the OP: as others have said, most Catholic children receive one or more rosaries from family and relatives at the time of their first communion. I don’t recall anyone getting one with multicolored beads or semi-precious stones. If they were going to be fancy, the fanciness was done with the cruxifix and the medallions separating the decades. The crucifix might be made of several materials, with gold or silver gilding on the cross and mother-of-pearl bas-relief for the Christ figure. The medallions might have been polychrome. But a lot of the rosaries were quite simple. One thing almost all rosaries came with was a case or bag to hold it, made of leather or suede or crochéd. I suppose you could come up with some creative ideas for rosary pouches.

And as someone above also said, a lot of the rosaries are thrown into sock drawers and forgotten. As children, we didn’t necessarily think of them as sacred objects – when nobody was looking we liked to swing them around like lassos. My favorite rosary was a heavyweight glow-in-the-dark model, which, when I wasn’t praying with it, made a cool glow-in-the-dark lasso.

Other places where a person might obtain a rosary: church rummage sales, church gift shops (yes, the larger parishes have gift shops, usually open only a few hours a week), church supply stores, and I suppose also as heirlooms.

I have seen rosaries used as wall decorations (nothing wrong with that), particularly ones that were larger and/or hand carved from wood.

15

I’m not exactly a practicing Catholic anymore, but I do have two rosaries, and I do sometimes pray the rosary. One of them, I bought at a very pretty church in Ottawa, Canada. It’s a very small red/medium-colored wood one on a sort-of-coiled string thing with no spaces between the 10 beads in the decades. The other is smooth, natural looking light wood on some sort of silver colored chain; I got that one from my grandma.

16

I’ve got a bunch rosaries lying about. One was a gift that a friend of mine brought back from Medjugorje – its beads are wood carved to resemble little rosebuds and scented with rose oil (overscented, I should say…it gives me a headache). One belonged to my great-grandmother and has baby-blue enamel beads, a few of which are missing. The one that I actually use (which, admittedly, is not too often) I bought for myself and has tiny red glass beads.

If I saw a beautiful or unusual rosary for sale, I’d certainly buy it (probably to keep for myself). I’ve always wanted to make my own rosary with beads I’d pick myself. I once read about a saint that eschewed the jewelled rosaries popular at the time and carved his own rosary beads out of fish bones – I thought that was pretty cool.

17

Mine is made of olive wood, strung on nylon braided cord. Our priest brought it back from a trip to Jerusalem a couple of years ago. I presume they turn them out by the tens of thousands for the tourist trade. It is rather crude-looking, which is one of the reasons I like it.

I do pray the rosary from time to time.

18

I try to pray the rosary every day. I have perhaps eight or ten sets of beads in various places, as well as a “finger rosary” with ten little bumps on a circle with a cross.

My current practice is to buy one GOOD - semi-expensive, well-made - rosary per year. One of my first gifts to my wife was a sterling silver rosary, which she still has.

And I would very much like to find a stainless steel rosary, for reasons that are kind of hard to explain. If the OP can branch out from glass beads and wants a custom commission, please e-mail me!

  • Rick
19

rosaries are one of my “collectibles” categories. i’ve probably got a couple hundred by now (thanks, eBay! thanks, antique stores and thrift shops!)

my first one, from First Communion, was a lovely irregular round glass bead in a light blue shade, complete with matching light blue leatherette, velveteen-lined pouch. (still have it.) i bought a fancy gilt silver-filigree one with matching filigree container when i was in Rome as a souvenir for my grandmother, which i took back when she died. (my own personal, much smaller one vanished when my purse was stolen. : sniff : )

but enough about my collection. generally speaking, since i have so many now, what i look for is, in no particular order of importance: [ul]

  • unique bead - could refer to color, shape, material (semi-precious stone), images on/in bead
  • unique hardware - center medallion or crucifix that does not look like all the other cookie-cutter findings (unique shape, design elements, additions (enameling, stones, etc.))
  • overall attractiveness - there are zillions of crystal-bead rosaries out there (well, in here too), but if i see one that just seems to stand out for some reason, i might well buy it.
  • overall uniqueness - handmade (but WELL-made), precious or semi-precious materials, one-of-a-kind case or holder for said rosary, decade beads different from ordinaries. [/ul]

to answer another of your questions – most rosary owners/buyers don’t have a clue if the maker is Catholic, Buddhist or a three-toed sloth. it shouldn’t make any difference what your personal beliefs are, as long as your product is attractive and well-made. (i cannot stress the “well-made” portion enough. i’ve gotten some ‘hand-made’ rosaries that i looked at and thought “sheesh, i can do better than that myself”. which i can, too, since i make jewelry as a hobby.)

and there is always a specific male market for rosaries… a good percentage of priests and other male religious say the rosary as part of their daily prayers. however, they are most likely to lean towards the utilitarian and plain when it comes to looks.

so if you’re looking to make something that would stand out from the crowd, i’d think along lines of unique beads you could make. i wouldn’t make them much larger than 8-10 mm max, however, because the end product will wind up being quite long (and a trifle unwieldy). similarly, a smaller bead is less likely to get split or broken when the rosary ends up in the bottom of a purse or pocket. larger/differently shaped decade-marker beads would be ok, but i wouldn’t advise an entire rosary made out of 8mm long oval beads. (generally speaking, if i were doing it, i’d tend to 6mm ordinaries, with 8 or 10mm decades.)

but unique color combinations would be a big draw for me. one of my favorites is the one my MIL gave me–beads are (um, lemme think)… faceted trianglish (blunt ends) glass, but have a color play from blue to green within the beads themselves.

and remember – any projections WILL most probably get chipped or broken, unless this is a display-only piece.

20

I’m Catholic, and am the repository for old religious stuff in my family. I have several plain rosaries with black beads, a mother of pearl rosary, and a clear crystal rosary. My mom has a sterling silver rosary.

I have a rosary from the steps of St. Peter’s in Rome. The beads were made of rose petals. We buried one of these with my grandma.

Most rosaries that I’ve seen have been made in Italy, or in Rome, specifically. In my opinion, rosaries from Rome are the best, since they’re made closest to the religion’s power base. I know it’s silly to think that, but all of that Catholic energy is there. I prefer churches that are old, for the same reason.

A few years ago, my mom and my sister and I took a road trip to visit a great aunt. The night before we took off, I dreamed about going to a nun’s garage sale, and buying a rosary made with red crystals.

My cousin suggested we go visit the Mission. I assumed it was an Indian Mission that had been restored for tours; we were in Nebraska. It was a Benedictine mission, founded by monks who concluded in the late '30s that they would be unable to continue their missionary work if they stayed in Germany. They do missionary work in Africa.

Someone left them her rosary collection, so in the entry way there were cases and cases of rosaries of every type you can imagine hanging in them.

In the gift shop I found the rosary from my dream. My mom bought it for me because she figured if I dreamed about it so vividly, I must need to have it.

With regard to rosary sales, unless you have a method of reaching a Catholic rosary-toting audience, I’d suggest making a sample rosary and taking orders. Take a picture of the sample and of any rosaries you have ordered and have photos available to show.