Venerable Beads!

On August 9, eight people from Emmanuel’s fellowship and the neighbourhood gathered to learn about the history and practice of using and making prayer beads. From the ancient Desert-Fathers and Celtic practice of praying through the entire book of Psalms, keeping track with pebbles, to the more convenient form of a rope with 150 knots, and from there to the many varients of knots and beads with different counts and different divisions and groupings, Pamela Mclean lead the seminar participants through a wealth of tradition and practices, winding up by teaching the technique of knotting between beads while most participants chose and constructed their own very personal set of prayer beads, three of which are shown here. The choices made by seminar participants show the variety of prayer beads in use today.

Pamela’s talk was accompanied by a slide presentation, which is available to anyone who would like to investigate the practice of praying with beads. The presentation slides include figures showing the different types and shapes of prayer beads, and a collection of prayers that are often used when praying with beads.