The Rosary Lady Website Revamp and Relaunch

Autumn Jasper and Carnelian Gemstone Sterling Rosary

February 2015 marked the 18th year since my conversion to Catholicism. It was an issue I struggled with for several years, being a former Lutheran, and originally Baptist. I had a problem with the “idolatry issue”, especially concerning the Blessed Virgin. My stepsons were coming home from school with questions I could not answer, and for their sake, I began catechism lessons. The more I studied the catechism, I understood this issue differently. One of the students in my Bible study group made this comment: “What better way to get to the heart of a Man, than through His Mother.” I really wanted all of our family to feel unified in our religious beliefs since my own sons were attending preschool at our parish. I felt a great urge to be married within the church, for my own selfish reasons, and for everyone involved.

Shortly before my confirmation, I purchased for myself a lovely rosary made from crystal Aurora Borealis beads. I did not know how to pray the rosary yet, but I was going to learn! When my confirmation Mass was over, Father Byrnes presented me with another rosary, one made of Job’s Tears. My oldest son fawned over the gift and said he would like to have one on his confirmation. Many years ago, after searching several shops, I gave up on the idea of locating a Job’s Tears rosary for him. After all, I had some time until his confirmation.

In the meantime, I contacted Our Lady’s Rosary Makers, hoping they would have a lead. They did not, but I ordered a kit for the mission cord rosaries and also the wire rosaries. In no time at all, I was making rosaries myself and quite pleased with the feeling of stewardship it gave me.

A grandmother who attended daily Mass with my youngest son and I asked me to make single decade rosaries for her prison ministry. I gladly obliged. Then my first grader asked if I could teach his classmates how to make the rosary. I solicited the help of another mother who attended Mass with me, and we were on a roll! I began to think of us as the rosary ladies. After first grade, we went to the Kindergarten classes. When the new school year started up again, the second grades made rosaries for the missions in Fiji. We received a wonderful letter from the priest, stating that the rosaries arrived a few days before the students’ First Communion, and they were able to give each of them a new rosary. They even sent a picture of all of them proudly displaying their rosaries.

Each school year, we visited the classrooms and continued to make rosaries for donation to the various missions and pro-life groups. After the 9/11 Tragedy, the second graders made rosaries  to send to a Catholic parish near the World Trade Center. The children were so pleased to be helping others. One year the kids made a personalized rosary to keep for themselves.

In order to help fund my mission rosary project, I began selling the wire rosaries at my sons’ school, for First Communion and Confirmation gifts. Soon I was selling on eBay (momof5boys1) and began my own massive collection of unusual rosaries. A local Catholic store purchased my rosaries and sold them in their store and on their website.

Aside from raising funds for the mission projects, I pray that my efforts will further the devotion to the rosary and the Blessed Mother. It gives me great joy to know that my creations are in the hands of people all over the world and are being used to strengthen their commitment to their faith, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Mother. May the Holy Spirit come down upon me and continue to bless me with this gift for years to come, and may our Heavenly Father find pleasure in my works.

Incidentally, my family now has no shortage of Job’s Tears rosaries!

I love to custom design personalized rosaries and gladly welcome all inquiries.  

Yesterday I relaunched my website, it is now mobile friendly and easier to navigate.  I hope you will stop in and have a look.  Please share it with your family and friends as well!  

God Bless and Peace be With You,

The Rosary Lady

Handmade Job’s Tear Teardrop Crucifix Catholic Rosary available now in The Rosary Lady Etsy shop.  

This rosary is the type seen often in photos of Saint John Paul II and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.    

It is also the type of rosary that caused my fascination with rosaries, and how I became The Rosary Lady!  One such as this was given to me when I came into the Catholic Church eighteen years ago, and I have been making them myself for fifteen years.  

The beads are from a plant and have a natural hole in them.  Stringing is a tad messy, as they have little “weeds” growing from the top, which must be pushed out.  

Source:etsy.com

Virgin A Day ~ Day 7

Can you just imagine what this little one is saying?  How wonderful that in her innocence, she knew right where to go for quality conversation.  

Hail Mary, Full of Grace

the Lord is with Thee,

Blessed art Thou amongst women,

and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus

Holy Mary, Mother of God

Pray for us now 

and at the hour of our death.

AMEN

***********

recuerda mi corazón

Virgin A Day continues until December 12, join in!

Dominus tecum

      Numerous stories, some apocryphal, some true, abound in the literature describing the spread of devotion to Mary through the use of the Hail Mary.  One legend recorded widely during this period tells the amusing story of Eulalia, who was very devoted to the Blessed Virgin.  One day our Lady appeared to the holy woman.  Although Eulalia was at first alarmed, the legend tells us that the apparition reassured her in the following words:

    "Do not, my daughter, be afraid of the fond Mother to whom each weekday you pay all homage in your power.  But I caution you that if you wish the services you render me to benefit yourself more and to be more acceptable to me, then do not in the future pronounce the words [of the Hail Mary] so rapidly, for let me tell you that when you greet me with the Angelical Salutation, I experience a great thrill of joy, and more especially when you utter lingeringly the words  Dominus tecum [the Lord is with you].  The delight I feel then is more than can be expressed in words.  For then it seems to me that I feel my Son within me even as He, true God and man, was with me when he vouchsafed to be born of me for the sake of sinners.  And this was an unspeakable joy for me at that time, so is it now when Dominus tecum is said to me in the Angelical Salutation."

Taken from The History and Devotion of the Rosary by Richard Gribble, C.S.C.

Pray It Forward Rosary Giveaway Countdown

 So, here it is, the Pray It Forward Rosary that I decided to add to my original giveaway.  

As the story goes, Mother Teresa of Calcutta gave to a fellow passenger her World Mission rosary at the end of a flight.  The rosary was then passed on to those in need as time goes on.  

My hopes are that whomever wins the giveaway will in turn pass this rosary on to someone else in need.  Then it could be returned or passed on to yet another person in need.  Pray It Forward to help those who need our prayers, and those of the Saints and Angels in Heaven.  "Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!" (Ps. 103:20-21).

If you would like to be included in the giveaway, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post.  Drawing will be next week, so there is still time to get your name in!  

Peace be with you!

Rosary Giveaway - Pray It Forward

To follow up on my previous post, here is the rosary I designed that is similar to the one that I was given when I came into the Church.  

It is made with Job's Tears seed, the same type rosary that Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II were so fond of.  I've attached a medal that has been blessed during an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Medjugorje, similar to the one I was given by the woman in the pew behind me when I was Confirmed.

While searching for a photo of Mother Teresa with her rosary, I came across this story, which has been circulated via email for years.  You've probably seen it already:

Jim Castle was tired when he boarded his plane in Cincinnati, Ohio, that night in 1981. The 45-year-old management consultant had put on a week-long series of business meetings and seminars, and now he sank gratefully into his seat ready for the flight home to Kansas City, Kansas.

As more passengers entered, the place hummed with conversation, mixed with the sound of bags being stowed. Then, suddenly, people fell silent. The quiet moved slowly up the aisle like an invisible wake behind a boat. Jim craned his head to see what was happening, and his mouth dropped open.

Walking up the aisle were two nuns clad in simple white habits bordered in blue. He recognized the familiar face of one at once, the wrinkled skin, the eyes warmly intent. This was a face he'd seen in newscasts and on the cover of TIME. The two nuns halted, and Jim realized that his seat companion was going to be Mother Teresa.

As the last few passengers settled in, Mother Teresa and her companion pulled out rosaries. Each decade of the beads was a different color, Jim noticed. The decades represented various areas of the world, Mother Teresa told him later, and added, "I pray for the poor and dying on each continent."

The airplane taxied to the runway, and the two women began to pray, their voices a low murmur. Though Jim considered himself not a very religious Catholic who went to church mostly out of habit, inexplicably he found himself joining in. By the time they murmured the final prayer, the plane had reached cruising altitude.

Mother Teresa turned toward him. For the first time in his life, Jim understood what people meant when they spoke of a person possessing an "aura." As she gazed at him, a sense of peace filled him; he could no more see it than he could see the wind, but he felt it, just as surely as he felt a warm summer breeze. "Young man," she inquired, "do you say the rosary often?" "No, not really," he admitted.

She took his hand, while her eyes probed his. Then she smiled. "Well, you will now." And she dropped her rosary into his palm.

An hour later Jim entered the Kansas City airport, where he was met by his wife, Ruth. "What in the world?" Ruth asked when she noticed the rosary in his hand. They kissed and Jim described his encounter. Driving home, he said. "I feel as if I met a true sister of God."

Nine months later Jim and Ruth visited Connie, a friend of theirs for several years. Connie confessed that she'd been told she had ovarian cancer. "The doctor says it's a tough case," said Connie, "but I'm going to fight it. I won't give up."

Jim clasped her hand. Then, after reaching into his pocket, he gently twined Mother Teresa's rosary around her fingers. He told her the story and said, "Keep it with you Connie. It may help." "Although Connie wasn't Catholic, her hand closed willingly around the small plastic beads. "Thank you," she whispered. "I hope I can return it."

More than a year passed before Jim saw Connie again. This time, face glowing, she hurried toward him and handed him the rosary "I carried it with me all year," she said. "I've had surgery and have been on chemotherapy, too. Last month, the doctors did second-look surgery, and the tumor's gone. Completely!" Her eyes met Jim's. "I knew it was time to give the rosary back."

In the fall of 1987, Ruth's sister, Liz, fell into a deep depression after her divorce. She asked Jim if she could borrow the rosary, and when he sent it, she hung it over her bedpost in a small velvet bag.

"At night I held on to it, just physically held on. I was so lonely and afraid," she says, "yet when I gripped that rosary, I felt as if I held a loving hand." Gradually, Liz pulled her life together, and she mailed the rosary back. "Someone else may need it," she said.

Then one night in 1988, a stranger telephoned Ruth. She'd heard about the rosary from a neighbor and asked if she could borrow it to take to the hospital where her mother lay in a coma. The family hoped the rosary might help their mother die peacefully.

A few days later, the woman returned the beads. "The nurses told me a coma patient can still hear," she said, "so I explained to my mother that I had Mother Teresa's rosary and that when I gave it to her she could let go; it would be all right. Then I put the rosary in her hand. Right away, we saw her face relax! The lines smoothed out until she looked so peaceful, so young." The woman's voice caught. "A few minutes later she was gone." Fervently, she gripped Ruth's hands. "Thank you."

Is there special power in those humble beads? Or is the power of the human spirit simply renewed in each person who borrows the rosary? Jim only knows that requests continue to come often unexpectedly. He always responds though whenever he lends the rosary. He says, "When you're through needing it, send it back. Someone else may need it."

Jim's own life has changed, too, since his unexpected meeting on the airplane. When he realized Mother Teresa carries everything she owns in a small bag, he made an effort to simplify his own life. "I try to remember what really counts-not money or titles or possessions, but the way we love others," he says.

Since reading the above story, I have decided that the giveaway will include two rosaries. The second rosary is sent with the intention that it, too, be a Pray It Forward rosary. Pass it on to someone in need, and ask them to return it to you when they are finished, or Pray It Forward to someone they know who is in need.  It's the littlest things that often mean the most.  

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post and I will choose a winner using a random number generator.  I am not posting a deadline as of yet, let's see how many entries we get in the next few days and go from there!  Please consider following and/or sharing my blog with others.  Visit my Etsy shop:   www.etsy.com/therosarylady and my website: www.therosarylady.com  Each one has items not available at the other!

Peace be with you,
Shannon ~ The Rosary Lady

September is Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month

As  a young woman, I was diagnosed with severe cervical dysplasia, a condition where cells of the cervix become abnormal.  If left untreated, it can lead to cancer.  Luckily, mine was caught early during a routine Pap smear.  A cone biopsy was done, and Cryocauterization froze all of the abnormal cells.  I have been symptom free since then.  


The Foundation for Women's Cancer has a web page with information and links for even more information.  It is always good to keep oneself informed, please take time to visit them.  

Teal is the color of Cervical Cancer Awareness.  I have designed a rosary to help support this cause, a percentage of profits will be donated to The Gynecologic Cancer Foundation.  

You can purchase this rosary at my website or from my Etsy shop.