Praying with beads: an introduction
God knows us from within ourselves, not as objects, not as strangers, not as intimates, but as our own selves. - Thomas Merton
We’re living in an age of relentless distraction. All of us are bombarded with more words, more sounds, more images than at any other time in human history. Yet, we absorb less and less as our senses simply can’t manage this constant, unprecedented overwhelm. Our attention spans are fraying and it’s putting our relationships at risk. Our relationship to ourselves. Our relationships with each other. Our relationship with God. And it is in relationship with God and one another that we find our truest and most authentic self.
It is a vital, life-sustaining practice to make time every day for silence and stillness, prayer and connection. For me, having an active prayer life is something that requires discipline. And lots of it. Making the time to pray isn’t the problem, it’s what happens when I sit down and start praying. Because if I’m not careful, my praying very quickly becomes worrying and my mind begins to race in a thousand directions, imaging a million different catastrophes. In those moments, I have found that there is one simple thing I can do to bring myself back to God: hold a cross in my hand.
Using prayer beads to guide me in my prayer practice has been a tremendous help in recent years. The practice begins by taking the cross in your hand and praying over it. Then, move to the bead directly above the cross. This is called the “invitatory bead” and you hold it while praying an invitation for the Holy Spirit’s presence. The bead above the invitatory bead is the first of the “cruciform beads” - these four beads form a cross and divide the rosary into four “weeks” of seven beads.
There are four cruciform beads - this prayer book contains prayers to be prayed over each. After praying the first cruciform prayer and moving up and to the right, you arrive at the first of the “weeks” beads. Some of the prayers in this book have one prayer that repeats seven times for each of these beads. Others have seven different prayers for the “weeks” beads. How you choose to pray over these beads is up to you!
Continuing to move the prayer beads to the right in your hand, you’ll arrive at the next cruciform bead, repeat the cruciform prayer, then you’ll arrive in the second set of weeks. Then, the third and fourth set of weeks which will lead back to the invitatory bead and the cross.
The prayers in this book are ones that I crafted using passages from Scripture, poems, and excerpts from the writings of mystics, preachers, and theologians across the centuries. This prayerbook is a small offering of the spiritual treasures that shape my prayer life. You will find in these pages the words of prophets like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, Dorothee Soelle, and Howard Thurman alongside the meditations of St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Symeon, and St. Augustine.
For me, joining words with the community of saints guides me in my prayer practice. Using their words to pray, grounds me in stillness, and makes a way for me to pray urgently, contemplatively, and without ceasing. My hope is that using the prayers assembled here will empower you to create your own.