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NunWhoPrays
Guest
Hello friends,
It’s been years since I have last made a post. I sometimes get messages in my inbox from the website, but it slips my mind to return. Today I had wanted to talk to you about one of my first rosaries. My first rosary was actually a plastic one, and someone gave me an instructional booklet in order to learn how to pray it (because I am only converted for about 6 1/2 years now). I looked at the rosary, how pretty the beads were, and was awestruck about what it meant-- prayer to the Blessed Virgin. But the prayer looked daunting. I had trouble memorizing the prayers, and it seemed like it would take forever.
So, a few years went by, and then I started the process to become a Roman Catholic. Almost immediately I decided to invest in a more valuable rosary: a solid sterling silver and real garnet rosary, with an inscription on the back which means something to my family, and it has become a motto.
The inscription reads, “In God’s Hands,” because my grandpa, who was from Sweden, gave me a wall hanging in the shape of a heart one time which read the same thing in the language of Swedish. My grandma and my grandpa were staunch Protestants, and they even forbade my aunt from dating a Catholic boyfriend one time when she was in high school.
I do not come from a Catholic family, by any means. All the Catholics in my family were married into the family, so, we are tracing our lineage, and I would assume that we go back to the Great Schism under Martin Luther.
So anyway, my confirmation name was also perfect in the sense that the name, “Annie” was the name I went by in high school, also in Catholic high school, without legally changing my name. Of course, St. Anne became my confirmation name, at my choosing.
Back to the rosary, one priest once told us that it is the preferable way to pray. Not to refute what St. John Paul told us about short, heartfelt prayers to God, or to refute St. Catherine’s admonishment of repeated prayers, but the Holy Rosary is strikingly important because it is the honor we give to our Blessed Mother.
I wanted to share all this with you because I have been praying a lot of rosaries lately, and I wondered if this would encourage you to pick up the rosary again, yourselves. By the way, I passed down the rosary to my eldest niece. Don’t worry; I have another one. But it is her inheritance, and her story is similar to mine: as of the moment, she is 18, and still a Protestant, and so I pray for her and the rest of the children, but especially for her.
The rosary is not just a thing, a treasure, but a method through which we honor and pray to God. The rosary is valuable because it is like pouring the expensive, perfumed oil upon Jesus Christ our Savior, through which we give offering to God and to the Church. The rosary does not just help us keep count. The rosary is a valuable which means something spiritual. And it is what we offer to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thank you. God bless you.
It’s been years since I have last made a post. I sometimes get messages in my inbox from the website, but it slips my mind to return. Today I had wanted to talk to you about one of my first rosaries. My first rosary was actually a plastic one, and someone gave me an instructional booklet in order to learn how to pray it (because I am only converted for about 6 1/2 years now). I looked at the rosary, how pretty the beads were, and was awestruck about what it meant-- prayer to the Blessed Virgin. But the prayer looked daunting. I had trouble memorizing the prayers, and it seemed like it would take forever.
So, a few years went by, and then I started the process to become a Roman Catholic. Almost immediately I decided to invest in a more valuable rosary: a solid sterling silver and real garnet rosary, with an inscription on the back which means something to my family, and it has become a motto.
The inscription reads, “In God’s Hands,” because my grandpa, who was from Sweden, gave me a wall hanging in the shape of a heart one time which read the same thing in the language of Swedish. My grandma and my grandpa were staunch Protestants, and they even forbade my aunt from dating a Catholic boyfriend one time when she was in high school.
I do not come from a Catholic family, by any means. All the Catholics in my family were married into the family, so, we are tracing our lineage, and I would assume that we go back to the Great Schism under Martin Luther.
So anyway, my confirmation name was also perfect in the sense that the name, “Annie” was the name I went by in high school, also in Catholic high school, without legally changing my name. Of course, St. Anne became my confirmation name, at my choosing.
Back to the rosary, one priest once told us that it is the preferable way to pray. Not to refute what St. John Paul told us about short, heartfelt prayers to God, or to refute St. Catherine’s admonishment of repeated prayers, but the Holy Rosary is strikingly important because it is the honor we give to our Blessed Mother.
I wanted to share all this with you because I have been praying a lot of rosaries lately, and I wondered if this would encourage you to pick up the rosary again, yourselves. By the way, I passed down the rosary to my eldest niece. Don’t worry; I have another one. But it is her inheritance, and her story is similar to mine: as of the moment, she is 18, and still a Protestant, and so I pray for her and the rest of the children, but especially for her.
The rosary is not just a thing, a treasure, but a method through which we honor and pray to God. The rosary is valuable because it is like pouring the expensive, perfumed oil upon Jesus Christ our Savior, through which we give offering to God and to the Church. The rosary does not just help us keep count. The rosary is a valuable which means something spiritual. And it is what we offer to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thank you. God bless you.