A large, oversized, early 20th century rosary, hand carved and assembled from coroza or Tauga nuts. A Lourdes souvenir, carved in the inscription.
The rosary has roots in several early Christian prayer traditions. They share similar formats to the rosary with repetitive structures and prayers. Catholics were not the first to pray with beads. And while the exact origin of prayer beads is unknown, men and woman of many faiths and cultures (Hindus, Greeks, Buddhists, and more) have (and do) use beads to pray. In fact, the word bead in English is actually derived from an Old English word that means prayer. The use of prayer beads almost universally is to allow the person to keep track of the number of prayers that have been said, while at the same time focusing on the deeper meaning of the prayers themselves.
Today, Roman Catholics use a rosary made up of 59 beads. The 6 large beads are used for praying the Our Father prayer, and the 53 smaller beads are used for praying the Hail Mary prayer. Other prayers of the rosary include the Apostles’ Creed, the Glory Be, and the Hail, Holy Queen.
There are 5 decades, or groups of 10 small beads, that make up the main portion of the rosary.There are three parts towards a full filling meditative experience that some call "prayer".
1.) Introductory Prayers 2.) The Decades 3.) Closing Prayers
Third-century Christian hermits and monks in Egypt (known as Desert Fathers) used stones and later prayer ropes to keep track when praying the 150 Psalms. Various forms of “the Jesus Prayer” (such as “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”) became popular. The short prayer was said over and over again in a type of mantra while counting beads. The Our Father was also prayed 150 times, using a string of beads with five decades referred to as a Paternoster (Latin for “Our Father”).
