Praying with Beads

Prayer beads offer a method of meditative and contemplative prayer.

Matthew 6: 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
There is nothing more memorable, more meaningful, more powerful than an encounter with God. Through meditative prayer, we can experience the ultimate expression of our relationship with God—union with the Lord.  All we  do is position ourselves for it, make ourselves ready; the actual encounter is up to God.  It’s called meditative prayer.

Saint Teresa of Avila describes contemplative prayer (oración mental) as follows. “In my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.’ Contemplative prayer seeks him ‘whom my soul loves’. It is Jesus, and in him, the Father. We seek him, because to desire him is always the beginning of love, and we seek him in that pure faith which causes us to be born of him and to live in him. In this inner prayer we can still meditate, but our attention is fixed on the Lord himself.”  St. Teresa of Avila Anglo-Catholic Parish in Grants Pass, Oregon.

Fr. Thomas Keating is one of three architects of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph’s Abbey in 1975. Frs. William Menninger and Basil Pennington, also Cistercian monks, were the other architects.  The thirty-three bead design was created by an Anglican Priest  through the prayerful exploration and discovery of a contemplative prayer group.

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Father Thomas Elliott

These are not your ordinary commercial bead sets. Father Tom, Rector Emeritus of St Jude's Anglican Church in Grants Pass, Oregon, painstakingly hand assembles each strand, praying over each bead and blessing the finished  prayer beads. He says part of his ministry is to provide a tool to help fellow believers focus when they pray. You can contact Father Tom at tomgell@msn.com.

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