Anyone who prays rosaries with children knows what an adventure it can be. Contemplative prayer and toddlers don’t usually inhabit the same space. Often, the solemn recitation of Hail Marys are suddenly disrupted with exclamations of “Stop touching me with your foot!” or “For the last time, quit eating your boogers!” But peppered in between are genuine moments of heartfelt prayer and silence. And by the time we reach our closing prayers, everyone has been sufficiently lulled into a peaceful posture. My hope is that our children will always remember that evenings are for lighting blessed candles and beseeching heaven together as a family, and in turn bring this tradition into their own homes one day. (*I was alone this particular evening with the boys, and had been shadowing them already with my camera, so I figured to take a few shots of our rosary time as well.*)
Sweet, blessed beads! I would not part
With one of you for richest gem
That gleams in kingly diadem;
Ye know the history of my heart…
For I have told you every grief
In all the days of twenty years,
And I have moistened you with tears,
And in your decades found relief…
Ah! time has fled, and friends have failed,
And joys have died; but in my needs
Ye were my friends, my blessed beads!
And ye consoled me when I wailed…
For many and many a time in grief,
My weary fingers wandered round
Your circled chain, and always found
In some Hail Mary sweet relief…
How many a story you might tell
Of inner life, to all unknown;
I trusted you and you alone,
But ah, ye keep my secrets well!..
Ye are the only chain I wear—
A sign that I am but the slave,
In life, in death, beyond the grave,
Of Jesus and His Mother fair.
By Abram Joseph Ryan (1838–1886)
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