How To Make Rosary Beads
Creative Strategies For Teaching About A Form of Medatative Prayer
Rosary Beads are made from many different types of materials. They always follow the same style and pattern. Here is a guide to follow when making this functional art.
Before you teach the students how to make Rosary Beads it is important to explain to them what they are and how they evolved. Rosary Beads are counting beads that have a specific style and formation. You will find an explanation of the way they function for counting prayers at How To Pray the Rosary.
On the Family Ministry website you can find all you need to know about the History of the Rosary. The prayer form originated and evolved to become a beautiful aesthetic craft piece that can be understood as representing the Mysteries of The Rosary. The phenomenon of meditating on the mysteries of the rosary has spread world wide. The practice is Catholic in origin and came about because of a devotion to Mary. She is historically acknowledged as the mother of Jesus Christ a Jew whose life became foundation of the Christian Religion.
Why Is The Rosary So Popular?
Praying the Rosary is a form of meditation. The beads help the prayer keep count whilst focusing on one of the mysteries. The repetition of the prayer, the intentional keen focus, the gentle handling of the beads, can be combined with walking meditation.
Whether out walking, settled in a safe warm cozy space or caught up in a dramatic situation the meditation is very calming and reassuring because
- gently rolling the beads calms people when they are anxious
- they help keep count and prayer focus without losing place
- they become an aesthetic piece of art
- they remind the prayer of how they felt when they were praying and by doing this become an anchor at stressful times
- they are a device when teaching people how to pray
- making them can be the basis of a fun, interesting art activity for your class
Materials
This can be a simple craft exercise or it can be as elaborate as you like. The beads can be made from almost any material that you can manipulate. In older times rosary beads were often very ornate and elaborate. Modern beads seem to be less ornate and less expensive, so that people can afford them easily.
They can be made from many different materials such as
- wooden beads held together with wire
- clay beads which are fired and glazed and held together with cord or leather thonging
- knotting rope or cord
There is even a way that students could make rosary beads from rose petals!
Wooden, clay or any other consistent sized bead is strung on some kind of thin chain, rope leather thong or twine. There are consistently sized beads and one large bead which acts as a centre piece.
The beads are strung to form a loop that joins to itself at a centre piece (usually a larger bead) and after a few more beads are added a cross finishes the formation. This is a picture of what they look like. You can see that they are designed so that the 10 beads of a "decade" are differently coloured. It is important to count them carefully when threading.
Here is a Guide to Follow.
- Repeat a formation of 10 beads and a separator 5 times
- Loop the chain of beads back onto itself
- Join with a larger bead called a "centre piece"
- Bring both strands of material through the larger bead
- Thread 1 separator 3 beads and 1 more separator
- Once threaded through these beads, tie on the cross
- Tie it all off neatly to finish the piece.
If you are making your set from clay, like this raw set placed on a drying tray ready for firing, make the cross from clay. Otherwise make a cross (wooden) or buy a crucifix to attaché to the end of the set.
These beads can be bright and trendy if that is what your students would like, or, they can be made formally and demurely. You will find that once students have formed the habit of praying in this style, the beads will become an often used tool with which they centre and calm.
