How Many Rosaries Should I Have?

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Okay, this probably sounds like a stupid question, but…how many rosaries should I have? I’m big on having my rosaries match the liturgical year, and I have at this point:

-White Aves with red Paters (Easter, Christmas, and “white” days)
-Red beads with reversible Immaculate/Sacred medal (this is the nicest one I have - I use it for Pentecost and other “red” days)
-Red Aves and blue Paters (the “red” rosary I used before I got my pretty one)
-Brown Aves with pink Paters (“Ordinary Time”)
-Green Aves and white Paters (see above)
-Purple Aves and gold Paters (Advent and Lent)
-Pink Aves and white Paters (see above)
-Black Aves and white Paters (Good Friday)
-Black Aves and purple/red Paters (Funeral/Purgatory)
-Orange/black Aves and orange Paters (Halloween, because I’m goofy)

So that’s…10 rosaries. I plan to replace most of them (they’re plastic free rosaries from the parish store, and I’d like to get nicer ones when I have the money), and get others that are meaningful to me. So, those tally up to 12/14, which means I have 24 rosaries at that point. I’m gonna keep the plastic rosaries for my kids (God willing I marry and am so blessed), but I would feel goofy and somehow too Catholic for my own good to have that many for the time being. 😛

Could someone please reassure me that I’m not a weirdo?
 
I have dozens of rosaries. I lost count. I only carry two with me usually, though. As a seminarian people give me rosaries as gifts quite often. I also buy them as souvenirs when I visit pilgrimage sites sometimes. Nothing wrong with having a big collection–they can be wonderful mementos of places you’ve been or people you’ve known.

-ACEGC
 
I’m not sure one can have too many. That being said, I only own three. One in a box with my wife’s rosary in our living room, one in my valet tray in the bedroom, and one in my laptop bag for travel.

I sort of like your liturgical color idea, though! 👍
 
Well, logically the answer is one:) I have a few kicking around my house, I try to make sure I have one with me at all times.

I love rosaries too, I buy them when I see them being sold while on vacation. I have a few, one of which I payed $170 or so dollars for- it was a gift to myself when I joined the rosary confraternity. I figured it’d be a something nice I can some day pass on to my son to remember me by.
 
Magyargirl said:
Could someone please reassure me that I’m not a weirdo?
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:rotfl: You’re not a weirdo!

I spent ages trying to find ONE Rosary that I could use as my main Rosary. It took me quite a few before I got to that point.
 
I only actively use one or two, but I have others, all over the house as reminders.
 
The Rosary beads are not the prayer, the meditation on the mysteries are.

You can say the Rosary using your fingers, it doesn’t matter except where your heart is when you’re praying.

For St Bernadette, the Blessed Mother told her to use her simple Rosary made with wooden beads and string, instead of the fancy Paris made crystal beads her aunt gave her.

Jim
 
It’s not the number of rosaries but the number of devotions you are trying to juggle. You may own hundreds of rosaries if you like–that doesn’t matter at all. It’s what you do with them that matters. Being a private devotion, as opposed to liturgical prayer, it’s entirely up to you if you even pray the rosary. I’d advise against loading yourself down with too many devotions, which each of these rosaries represent. Rather, choose a devotion that best helps you keep your baptismal vows and go with that. Mary isn’t interested in you following every devotion to her that exists but in you drawing close to her son through her. Whatever devotion is an aid to your faith is sufficient. In time you may move on to another devotion–that’s fine too. As we mature our needs change. Devotions are not an end in themselves. If they become that, they’re no longer helping your faith and may even hinder it. Don’t be scrupulous about it. If you feel you are, a talk with your priest may be in order. 🙂
 
Magyargirl said:
Okay, this probably sounds like a stupid question, but…how many rosaries should I have? I’m big on having my rosaries match the liturgical year, and I have at this point:

-White Aves with red Paters (Easter, Christmas, and “white” days)
-Red beads with reversible Immaculate/Sacred medal (this is the nicest one I have - I use it for Pentecost and other “red” days)
-Red Aves and blue Paters (the “red” rosary I used before I got my pretty one)
-Brown Aves with pink Paters (“Ordinary Time”)
-Green Aves and white Paters (see above)
-Purple Aves and gold Paters (Advent and Lent)
-Pink Aves and white Paters (see above)
-Black Aves and white Paters (Good Friday)
-Black Aves and purple/red Paters (Funeral/Purgatory)
-Orange/black Aves and orange Paters (Halloween, because I’m goofy)

So that’s…10 rosaries. I plan to replace most of them (they’re plastic free rosaries from the parish store, and I’d like to get nicer ones when I have the money), and get others that are meaningful to me. So, those tally up to 12/14, which means I have 24 rosaries at that point. I’m gonna keep the plastic rosaries for my kids (God willing I marry and am so blessed), but I would feel goofy and somehow too Catholic for my own good to have that many for the time being. 😛

Could someone please reassure me that I’m not a weirdo?
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Of course you’re not a weirdo. You should see my collection of Bibles - 21 and counting! 🙂

As for rosaries, I have three: one in mother-of-pearl, one in metal and one wooden. Your post has inspired me to get a plastic one. 😉
 
RPRPsych said:
Of course you’re not a weirdo. You should see my collection of Bibles - 21 and counting! 🙂

As for rosaries, I have three: one in mother-of-pearl, one in metal and one wooden. Your post has inspired me to get a plastic one. 😉
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My parish shop has blessed plastic rosaries that are free to a good home all over the church building. I also really like the rosaries made completely out of cord (can’t easily break), but I would prefer to have “nicer” ones made with flexwire or chain. I’ve been custom making rosaries (not buying them, just seeing how they’d look) via this shop: rosaryshop.com/. It’s made me think custom made rosaries (with a couple exceptions) is really the way to go for me. It’s more expensive, certainly, but I’ll be happy with them and they’ll help me focus on each mystery.

One of the ones I’m just buying outright is this poinsettia rosary to use during the Christmas season: catholiccompany.com/christmas-poinsettia-rosary-i33418/
 
Ok I’m really glad you asked this because I was beginning to think I was nuts for having so many.
I have one hanging on my wall with in my “prayer closet”. I have a corner of my bedroom where I have all my Holy things - pictures of Our Lady, Jesus, the Pope and candles ect. its my lil slice of Heaven where I go to pray. It reminds me that Heaven amd those I love there, are not so far away.

I have several that I use, on Sundays before mass, I like to get to church early enough that I can say a whole one before service starts. And I like it to match what I’m wearing- sad I know LOL must be a girl thing I probably go to confess for someday. 🙂

I have this one that my oldest son and his wife gave me. They went to Rome for their honeymoon and its been blesses by Pope Frances. 🙂 and one I got when I went through RCIA it came from Jerusalem.

I have only been in the Church 3 yrs.
According to my RCIA director, you can never have too many rosaries. Just use them as often as possible!

It is seems a little “time consuming” to say a whole one- do it in parts or do what I do, I have the Ladate ap for my cell and it has a pod cast from Catholic Bridge. David McDonald saying the rosary. I listen and say it with him at night and its so peaceful.

Enjoy your rosaries! And may they draw you ever closer to our Heavenly Family!
 
TBH, having a large number of rosaries seems to pass from devotional into something else.

I used the rosary I won in an eighth-grade spelling bee for about 15 years. When my DM died, I took hers and buried her with mine. She had fallen in love with a crystal rosary some years before and paid it off a dollar a week. It’s been my only rosary for 43 years.

Have you thought about donating some of your rosaries to those in the mission lands? I would feel guilty spending money on multiple rosaries when there are so many people who cannot affor even one.
 
I think it’s nice that you have a lot!

I have a few-1 Is pink that I have with me all the tme. I have another pink one on my bedpost. I like pink.

I have a blue reparation rosary. I have a multi colored rosary on a Virgin Mary statue that a very kind older woman gave me it at mass and I have a 1 decade blue rosary bracelet on my car rear view mirror.

I don’t think you are a weirdo.
 
Iron_Donkey said:
As many or few as you find helpful.
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I carry my missionary rosary with me. Each decade is a different color, representing the continents of the world, and allows me to pray for the world each time I pray the rosary.

A friend just gave me a beautiful black rosary, and when I owned a vehicle I hung a small simple wooden rosary from the rear view mirror.

The reality is that I can only pray using one rosary at a time so I only need one rosary.

Like the clothing that makes up our wardrobes, how many, what color, style and texture is personal. Does it help you grow closer to our Lord in your devotion? Is the rosary easy to use in a color and style that you like, or that has meaning because it was given as a gift, because of the saint on the medal, etc.? For example, I once found a red rosary that looked like drops of blood reminding me of Our Lord’s Passion. I have never found another like it.

More important than the physical rosary is the devotion itself.
 
Thanks for all your replies, folks! I pray the Rosary twice a day (once with EWTN Holy Land Rosary, and once in a rosary novena for a particular intention), so it’s not as if my beads are going unused. I’ve wanted to pray the Rosary since I was a child in the Lutheran church, so it’s very freeing and calming to be able to pray it now that I’m in RCIA. I’m learning German, so I’m even trying to learn how to pray the Rosary in German (not easy, let me tell you :p).
 
Magyargirl said:
Thanks for all your replies, folks! I pray the Rosary twice a day (once with EWTN Holy Land Rosary, and once in a rosary novena for a particular intention), so it’s not as if my beads are going unused. I’ve wanted to pray the Rosary since I was a child in the Lutheran church, so it’s very freeing and calming to be able to pray it now that I’m in RCIA. I’m learning German, so I’m even trying to learn how to pray the Rosary in German (not easy, let me tell you :p).
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Check this out, it might help: chapelgifts.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=15607

-ACEGC
 
Magyargirl said:
Thanks for all your replies, folks! I pray the Rosary twice a day (once with EWTN Holy Land Rosary, and once in a rosary novena for a particular intention), so it’s not as if my beads are going unused. I’ve wanted to pray the Rosary since I was a child in the Lutheran church, so it’s very freeing and calming to be able to pray it now that I’m in RCIA. I’m learning German, so I’m even trying to learn how to pray the Rosary in German (not easy, let me tell you :p).
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That’s sounds great. 🙂 I was merely fearful that you may be piling on devotions, which can lead to burn-out. Welcome home to full communion with the Church. The rosary is a great and lovely devotion based on the Divine Office/Liturgy of the Hours, which is the daily liturgical prayer of the Church. You may want to take it up at some point. Most lay people pray Morning and Evening and Night Prayer. Just a suggestion for future consideration. :tiphat:
 
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