Use of prayer beads QUESTION from Linda Chlebik December 31, 1998 I am a new Catholic. I have known about the Rosery but just recenty found out about what a chaplet is. How inportant to our prayer life are Roserys and Chaplets? How often should we pray with them? Do you have some advice on how to use them? God bless. Linda
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius on January 2, 1999 Dear Linda:
The devotions of praying the Rosary and the various Chaplets goes back many centuries. They have been EXTREMELY beneficial to the spiritual lives of the people who pray them.
How important? Well, the rosary has been credited with helping millions to convert to the faith. Praying the rosary has been credited to winning battles in war.
It was said that St. Louis de Montfort, the great Marian priest, would just touch a person with a Rosary in his hand and people would convert.
Now, we need to be careful not to consider the Rosary a magical device. It is not. But it is a powerful guide for prayer. God grants MANY graces for praying it because praying the Rosary give honor to His mother.
Prayer is always a powerful thing for us to do. God wants us to pray and when we do, He will answer our pryaers.
The most important prayers of the Church are the Celebration of the Mass, followed by the Liturgy of the Hours. These two official prayers of the Church take priority over all other prayers. Then in third place comes the various Personal Devotion Prayers of which the Rosary is the most important.
How to use them? Well, pray the Rosary, or the Chaplets, according to the instructions for that Chaplet (there are also many different styles of saying the Rosary). Try to pray 5 decades of the Rosary daily and maybe also one of the chaplets if your life situation allows you the time to do that.
But in addition to regular prayer with the Rosary and Chaplets, you can also pray them at special times – such as just before making an important decision, or at times of stress and danger, or at times of great joy – or for special needs of a person – such as spouse, a marriage, a child, or a friend.
Pray the Rosary and the other prayers whenever the Spirit leads you. Ask our Blessed Mother for her intercessions that the grace of God will be ever strong with you and your family.
God Bless.
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