Making Prayer Beads: February 23rd

This week we made our own set of prayer beads to use for the Jesus Prayer.

We begun with the book The Monk who grew Prayer by Claire Brandenburg. This story shows a monk cultivating the Jesus prayer as he goes about his daily work living on his own in the forest.

We used wooden beads and thin elastic to make our prayer beads. We asked the children to choose 33 beads: three sequences of 10, separated by 3 special beads to represent the trinity. We were not organised enough to have cross beads to mark the beginning but they easily adapted with choosing another bead to represent the cross.

This activity was very successful, although the elastic was not so strong and a few repairs have already been made to our beads. Having said that, they are wearing them all the time and even teaching the prayer to their friends.  "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me."

It is good to have been able to equip them with a tool that they have made themselves and can use themselves too. Matari told me the next morning that he did not need to say prayers with me, he had already done them with Eloi on their prayer beads!

(Text: Jacqui, images: Bec)