Continuing with our Series on Prayer: The Anglican Rosary

by Flo Masson
Flo Masson is the Director of the Emmanuella House of Prayer

This month we will look at the use of the Anglican Rosary as an aid to our prayer. Two main forms of the rosary have been used within the Christian tradition for many centuries. These are from the eastern Orthodox and western Catholic Christianity where there are several forms of prayers done with the rosary. Lynn Bauman designed the Anglican Rosary for use as a meditative tool within the contemplative tradition in the early 1980s. The Anglican Rosary is made with the cross, followed by an invitatory bead, four cruciform beads separated by four sets of seven beads called weeks. This creates the circle of time, which we enter at our birth and journey throughout our spiritual life. The cross at the centre separates the four quadrants upon which sit patterns or templates that hold the four seasons, the four gospels, the four directions, the church calendar, the spiritual journey, and the seven daily times of prayer. I am sure that there are other templates or patterns that could be laid over the rosary to make meaning.

I find rosary to be a wonderful tool for children as the tactile sense plus the use of breath, as the prayer is said or sung, makes this a whole bodied way to enter into prayer. I do find that children become attached to the first prayer set they learn and do not like to change this! For many adults this prayer form also works well, as so many different prayers can be adapted for use with the daily offices or as meditative chants. It can also be a good sleep aid and I often pray the rosary while going to sleep, awakening in the night with the rosary prayers circulating in my mind and returning to this until sleep enfolds me again.

Many of us have beads at home or a cross that we no longer use and this could be a start towards making your own rosary so that it is your own creation. This new form of the rosary does not impinge on the traditional forms of rosary prayer making us free to use the chants/prayers that suit our circumstances and times. A simple chant repeated over the twenty eight beads of the weeks like, "Be still and know that I am God," separated by Taize chants like "Bless the Lord my Soul," on the cruciform beads and the use of the Lord's Prayer on the invitatory bead with perhaps the Jesus prayer as the cross is held, might be one way of going around the Anglican Rosary.

Of course the important thing is to pray always and I think of the story of the Desert Father Abba whom many came to for advice. One day a man begged for help with his praying. He had read much and talked to a variety of people in this quest. As he was explaining his need to the Abba, the Abba simply bent down, picked up a stout stick and proceeded to hit him. The astonished man began to run away as the Abba chased him saying, "the way to pray is to pray here, now. Do it now." Perhaps what we all need to do is simply to pray right here, right now. But the reality is that in our busy world, with our heads full of so many things, we often need some assistance with our prayer life, and for me the rosary can often be that help.

The Ministry of Photography

photos submitted by Don Chadderton, parish of St. Christopher's, Osoyoos

LAY MINISTERS
Top row left: Tom Burton (assistant),Laura Brownjohn (celebrant), Miriam March (sermon), Dr. Robert Ritchie (sides person).
Bottom row left: (three readers) Kathy Burton, May Hoppit and Kathy Freer.
Top right: Beryl Blythe (organist)
SERVING THE COMMUNITY
Bottom left: Laura Brownjohn, Alec Tremeer and Vince Pethro, Don Chadderton (Osoyoos Elks).
90th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION (bottom right) of Helen Wiltshire.