Question: Can we wear rosary beads?

[Young_Thinker]

AugustKnight, wearing a rosary around one’s neck has nothing to do with a parish. It has everything to do with superstition, as poster Choy implied.

Wearing a Rosary certainly need not be a superstition; it is largely serves as a reminder and symbol of devotion, like a scapular does.

 

[sophie_rz]

After reading all the replies, I think I won’t wear the rosary beads. Definitely we should show reverence.

 

[Young_Thinker]

After reading all the replies, I think I won’t wear the rosary beads. Definitely we should show reverence.

Oh, what a pity! If I were going to be a parent, I would probably make my children wear it. I love sacremental objects; I really do not see anything that is wrong with wearing one.

 

[choy]

Wearing a Rosary certainly need not be a superstition; it is largely serves as a reminder and symbol of devotion, like a scapular does.

i agree
the point of my post was there are some people out there who use it for superstition, such as warding off evil spirits

 

[Young_Thinker]

i agree
the point of my post was there are some people out there who use it for superstition, such as warding off evil spirits

All right.

 

[DeOppressoLiber]

AugustKnight, wearing a rosary around one’s neck has nothing to do with a parish. It has everything to do with superstition, as poster Choy implied.

Another poster said that she saw “older” people wearing them, which I question.

I am from pre-Vatican II and I can bet you will not find any CATHOLIC from my generation wearing a rosary around the neck. The older (whatever that means) people she said she saw would be after V2, when everything went astray.

But this thread is not about all the mis-interpretations of V2; it is about irreverence to the Rosary of Our Blessed Virgin Mary.

Please do not wear it around your neck or hang it from the rear view mirror. Keep it in your pocket or purse. Why is that so difficult to understand? Have some respect for a Sacramental of the Catholic Church

It’s your **opinion **that wearing a rosery is not showing proper reverence, or is superstition.

I wore one for years, right next to my dog tags. I didn’t wear either as a fashion statement, or for supersition. Each had their own use and purpose and both were around my neck for the same reason. My neck was the safest place that I could keep both of them, and keep them both with me at all times.

Keeping a rosery safe and secure around your neck, protected by your outer garments is showing at least as much reverence as shoving it in a lint filled pocket to rattle around with your loose change and cell phone.

Simply looked at as a storage place, the neck is no worse than any other place. It’s you who are jumping to some conclusion about **why **it’s hanging around a neck, and then making some judgment based on your questionable conclusion.

Many people wear items around their necks because it is a good place to store something that you need, or want, to have with you at all times or in quick access. I.D. tags, medical alert tags, whistles, stop watches, keys etc…
Do some people wear it for the wrong reason? Sure, but that’s no reason to stop anyone else from wearing one with the correct mindset.

 

[Erin_Anne]

After reading all the replies, I think I won’t wear the rosary beads. Definitely we should show reverence.

A Scapular is a good option, IMO.

E.A.

 

[mullenpm]

DanielP, you have just proven my point. I said you would not find any Catholic of my generation - pre V2 - wearing a rosary around one’s neck. We would have been taught by the Holy Nuns teaching us not to do such an offensive thing.

Your ushers in the 50’s - 60’s - are post V2. Things went amiss in many ways in the years after V2. Like many traditions in the Church reverence for Sacramentals are scoffed at by Catholics now.:knight2:

There seems to be a movement to knock down all reverence for things traditionally Catholic - just because “we want to do it.”

Wear a Crucifix or a Miraculous Medal around you neck - that would be the proper thing to do.

The beads have no power to protect you - their power is in the prayers that are offered to Our Blessed Mother.

 

[LilyM]

DanielP, you have just proven my point. I said you would not find any Catholic of my generation - pre V2 - wearing a rosary around one’s neck. We would have been taught by the Holy Nuns teaching us not to do such an offensive thing.

Your ushers in the 50’s - 60’s - are post V2. Things went amiss in many ways in the years after V2. Like many traditions in the Church reverence for Sacramentals are scoffed at by Catholics now.:knight2:

There seems to be a movement to knock down all reverence for things traditionally Catholic - just because “we want to do it.”

Wear a Crucifix or a Miraculous Medal around you neck - that would be the proper thing to do.

The beads have no power to protect you - their power is in the prayers that are offered to Our Blessed Mother.

If the beads are blessed then they are a sacramental, like the handkerchiefs etc that people gave to St Paul to bless in Acts. And just like a scapular or blessed crucifix or medal. Such sacramentals DO have powers, as his did - powers to effect healings, cast out demons and such. Our Lady is reported as claiming that faithfully wearing the Scapular is indeed an aid to salvation - so why not the wearing of other blessed objects with the same frame of mind? That alone is a good enough reason to wear blessed Rosaries as well as medals or crucifixes.

So don’t dismiss the idea of wearing a blessed object (any blessed object) as supersitition. It isn’t - and in that regard wearing a rosary is the exact equivalent of wearing a scapular or a blessed crucifix or medal.

In the first half of the 20th Century the idea of wearing them may have been seen as disrespectful, but this was a far from universal attitude. Portraits of earlier centuries show very frequent wearing of Rosary-style necklaces, or the wearing of rosaries around the waist of a gown. Were the people who did so disrespectful or irreligious? Of course not, they simply expressed their piety in a different way and had a different attitude.

In this regard your notion is similar to the idea, also commonly taught in the first half of the 20th century, that chewing on the Host was somehow disrespectful. It simply isn’t a consistent or universal attitude, but one that was commonly held at that time, and is not so often encountered nowadays and is nothing more than opinion.

And, although I’d have to do a bit of digging to find the exact citations, there are accounts of exorcisms where blessed rosaries were specifically placed AROUND THE NECK of the person to be exorcised. If memory serves, in fact, one exorcism was only successful after the Rosary had been so placed - after it had been placed in the hand with limited effect.

And who is there on earth who would dare assert that they don’t need all the protection they can get against the Devil, including the protection wearing a blessed Rosary around the neck, as opposed to elsewhere, seems to afford?

 

[qchi]

After seeing some answers about wearing a rosary, I should have just said it depends on the attitude of those around you. Not every parish is the same, so look at those around you and take your cue from them. Some people think it’s great and others will get angry about it.

In my little corner of the world practically every catholic, devout or not, wears a form of rosary on their person, especially the children. I myself wear a finger rosary, and as i dont partically like jewelry, i can’t say i am wearin it as a fashion statement. I do use it when am in a bus or elsewhere.

And we do believe that the Rosary is a blessed sacramental and it will protect us from evil, well I gave one to my little brother on his first day of boarding school for protection, i don’t see any thing wrong in him wearing it around his neck.

Although the Rosary has been abused to some extent by fashion, I believe it depends on your reason for wearing them, so if its for prayer, as a reminder to pray, or for protection, then i guess it is okay.

 

[shondrea]

It’s all intention. I wear a rosary during my more anxious and scrupulous times, tomes when my fear level is just through the roof. It calms me. I wear it under my blouse so it doesn’t draw attention. Even though I’m not praying it at the moment, just feeling the beads is very soothing. In the same respect, at home, I’ll often hold a rosary while reading or doing whatever, to help center and calm myself.

I feel it’s one thing to wear a rosary out of personal devotion, and another to…well, let me put it this way. When I was in school, a girl who’s mother married into a Catholic family took to wearing a dozen roasries around ehr neck to show off. I’ve seldom met a more unCatholic Catholic, and she just wanted to wear the to crow about the fashion statement.

Like I said, all intention/.

 

[PJM]

=sophie_rz;6492169]Hello, I’m a new Catholic converter. I have a question. Can we wear the rosary beads like jewelres? Thank you for your help!

The Rosary like Holy Water, and medals are “sacramentals”; signs of what we believe. es you can; but you’ll get many more graces by praying it than wearing it! :byzsoc::

Plus wearing it may give a wrong impression?

Love and prayers,

 

[mullenpm]

I wonder how many of the posters on this thread who appear to be bragging about the many ways in which they wear their Rosary beads or hang them from their rear view mirror actually use the beads for prayer.

Do you ever take the beads in your hands and pray the Rosary and meditate on the Mysteries each time or do you just adorn yourself.

By the way, the Scapular is MEANT to be worn next to the body. That is its purpose.

 

[LilyM]

I wonder how many of the posters on this thread who appear to be bragging about the many ways in which they wear their Rosary beads or hang them from their rear view mirror actually use the beads for prayer.

Do you ever take the beads in your hands and pray the Rosary and meditate on the Mysteries each time or do you just adorn yourself.

By the way, the Scapular is MEANT to be worn next to the body. That is its purpose.

I wear a Rosary bracelet, which often gets used for prayer, and sometimes wear a rosary around my neck at home, which I can assure you also frequently gets used for prayer.

What I object to is the use of the word ‘adornment’. I certainly don’t wear mine for adornment. I don’t wear it for other people to notice - on the contrary I try to keep it hidden under the clothing where possible, unless I’m at home where, because I live alone, no-one sees it.

Nor because I think it looks pretty or complements my clothing. I have many sets of Rosary beads, but there’s only two of them I wear around my neck. Both are much used, tarnished, discoloured in places, and generally pretty scruffy-looking - hardly worn for physical adornment, then!

So it’s nothing to do with adornment. I wear it as a sacramental, a blessed object, for purely spiritual purposes.

And what makes you think wearing a Rosary and praying it are in any way exclusive? I am often reminded to pray the Rosary by the fact of seeing it on my wrist or feeling it around my neck, and if anything I pray it MORE at those times when I wear it than when I don’t have one on my person to remind me to pray.

 

[Anian]

The answer to your question is Yes, you can wear a rosary around your neck. In most countrys it is commonplace, and here in San Diego most people do as we have many immigrants from Mexico who have brought the tradition with them. How the taboo came around in America nobody knows, but there is no encylical or command from a marian apparation etc. telling us not to, so wear that Roasary and show that Catholic Pride!

 

[shondrea]

I wonder how many of the posters on this thread who appear to be bragging about the many ways in which they wear their Rosary beads or hang them from their rear view mirror actually use the beads for prayer.

Do you ever take the beads in your hands and pray the Rosary and meditate on the Mysteries each time or do you just adorn yourself.

By the way, the Scapular is MEANT to be worn next to the body. That is its purpose.

You like to assume the worst of us, don’t you?

Yeah, i pray the rosary. Thus why I wear it. I think it’s a lot more respectful to put it at my throat than to cram it in my pocket next to my snot rags and ticket stubs

 

[MaryMagdala]

a lot of Catholics hang rosaries on their rear view mirrors

I have one on my mirror, and proud of it.

I pray the rosary in the car with a CD.

I look at it (occasionally, not the whole time) since I don’t hold it while I am driving (I don’t text or use a cell phone either). I also think it is a great idea to control road rage, which I will think of every time I see it from now on … good idea!

I don’t know that I would wear it around my neck, but if I did I would wear it in a way so as not to bring attention to it, and it would be in reverence, not as a fashion statement.

 

[mullenpm]

***“I think it’s a lot more respectful to put it at my throat than to cram it in my pocket next to my snot rags and ticket stubs.” ***

How crude. No, I don’t expect you to cram your blessed Rosary in your pocket - I would expect you would keep it in a Rosary pouch. Very simple, inexpensive and respectful solution.

MaryMagdala, okay, I will go along with you keeping your beads on your mirror since it probably does calm you to look at it in commuting traffic and also praying with a CD is a solution. I will withdraw the rear view mirror from my objections.

And, I am very happy you do not pray with the beads in your hand while you are driving. Would defeat the purpose wouldn’t it.

But I am still not sure why you would say “I am proud of it” because you happen to hang your beads from the mirror. That implies that you do want them to be seen. I hope I am mistaken there also.

 

[MaryMagdala]

That implies that you do want them to be seen. I hope I am mistaken there also.

I am “proud” of the rosary (prayer) and the fact that I can pray it.

The rosary “beads” hanging from the mirror may “identify” me as a Catholic, a fact I am NOT ashamed of, but so does the San Damiano cross/crucifix/pink cross that I wear at various times. They are a reminder to ME that I am a Catholic Christian and my “silent” witness** to** Christ and **of **Christ.

They are all my “silent witness” to all who see me or my car … that we belong to Christ and am proud to serve Him.

I believe there is a HUGE difference between “standing on the corner and making my prayers heard” to draw attention and “hanging a rosary as witness of my faith”.

Incidently, on that mirror also hang my 4 “hearts of hope” from my cancer survivor walks … another thing I am proud of but it is not meant to be anything but a reminder that I am a survivor and that I earned everyone of them by surviving.

 

[CatofAlexandria]

Bragging? It’s very hurtful and uncharitable to say this.
Someone asked a question, and so I offered my own experience. 99.9% of people who can even see my rosary bracelet (you can’t usually see it because I wear long sleeves most of the year) probably wouldn’t even recognize it as a rosary because the beads are so small. That’s why I wear it. I don’t like to draw attention to myself as I pray on the bus. And because I received it the night I was baptized, confirmed, and received my first holy communion, well, I just like to have it touching my skin. It has no power to save me, but it has the power to remind me of that night. You’re right to say that prayer and meditation are what the rosary is for! I agree with you 100%. But, when I’m not praying it actively, it is a sort of prayer to be reminded of your baptism and confirmation. It is a sort of prayer to feel the beads when you are nervous, and to think on God’s great saving power.

Please, friend. Do not think the worst of people. Always think the best. You will be happier in life.