Posted on 09/25/2004 11:35:34 AM PDT by Destro
Posted on Sat, Sep. 25, 2004
Rosaries made just for troops
Volunteers string beads in military colors
By Kristin E. Holmes
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
PHILADELPHIA - Lisa Torres sits at her kitchen table most evenings assembling parachute cord, plastic beads and a crucifix into something U.S. troops can hold onto.
The 27-year-old former New Castle, Del., bank manager fights through her double vision, swiftly moving her fingers to tie knots and string beads. She is making a rosary, a prayer tool she hopes will be a source of strength for military personnel.
Torres is part of a growing volunteer movement of people working through church groups, school classes and Boy Scout troops, or just sitting home alone, to make what are called Ranger rosaries.
The rosaries have been designed for the conditions of military service. They are inconspicuous, quiet, durable and lightweight.
Torres said the soldiers "are risking everything, laying down their lives for me. The least I can do is make a rosary."
She and members of her congregation, Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church in New Castle, have made about 1,400 rosaries.
CSR Inc. in Sellersville, Pa., a braided-cord manufacturer, has become the major supplier of parachute cord for the effort, selling close to 100,000 feet to groups around the country. CSR is listed on the official rangerrosary.com Web site, which gets frequent hits from groups seeking to get involved.
The rosaries, which cost about $1 each to make, have been sent to Catholic and non-Catholic troops in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Turkey and elsewhere, said Pat Evans, who coordinates the project at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Maryland.
That congregation has been at the forefront of the effort, producing more than 20,000 rosaries since 2001. Donations of $20,000 from the parish have funded the work.
Evans took over the project at the behest of Sgt. Francesco "Bo" Ristaino, a Maryland Army National Guard recruiter who created the Ranger rosaries three years ago.
"It's gotten mammoth. I get e-mails from all over the country," Evans said. "It's getting to be more than we can handle."
Ristaino went to Evans, his fellow parishioner, after creating the first Ranger rosary. Several of his daughters had learned how to make rosaries in religion class. When Ristaino saw his daughters making them, he started to think.
"My unit was training to go to Bosnia in 2000, and I started developing the idea," he said. "I came up with a design I thought would fit."
That design used green parachute cord, black pony beads and a black plastic crucifix, in accordance with the Army colors. The resulting rosary was lightweight and didn't rattle or reflect light. It was too small to be placed around the neck, which might cause a choke hazard, and small enough to fit easily in a pocket. Later, rosaries would be made in blue and gray for the Navy and tan and brown for desert use.
"The soldiers may not be interested in praying the rosary. They're 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kids, and their spiritual maturity isn't there yet," Ristaino said, "but they want that reminder."
Ristaino gave them to members of his unit who were shipped out to Bosnia. Soon, he was getting requests from chaplains overseas.
The rosaries are generally shipped through chaplains, Evans said. St. Mary's suggests that the packets include a small card with instructions on how to pray the rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Sometimes there is a message from the person who made the rosary.
"The general reaction is one of deep gratitude that someone had thought to bring together two things that mean a lot to these guys: their life in the military and, secondly, their faith," said the Rev. W. Ray Williams, chaplain for the 1/158th U.S. Cavalry of the Maryland Army National Guard.
Williams has distributed 1,500 Ranger rosaries to troops here and overseas. He also has given one to Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, who leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, U.S.A.
You've just got to be kidding!
Beads won't stop terrorism.
ONLY praying to God will.
Ignorant statement. Rosaries are aids in prayer.
Spoken like true Protestant. I suppose the Bible won't stop it either.
"Ignorant statement. Rosaries are aids in prayer."
Objects do NOT aid anyone in prayer.
"Spoken like true Protestant. I suppose the Bible won't stop it either."
The Bible won't stop anything. The Bible is a book, an object. What would help is you reading the Bible and praying directly to God without these silly things.
So, what you are saying is that the Bible, an object, aids you in prayer?
Fancy that. And here I thought we had just established that objects don't aid anyone in prayer.
Good one!
Me: "What would help is you reading the Bible and praying directly to God without these silly things."
You: So, what you are saying is that the Bible, an object, aids you in prayer?
Me: No, that's not at all what I said. Trying to twist my words won't help your rosary cause or pagan ways. What would help YOU would ALSO be to READ the BIBLE. THEN you would see that OBJECTS are not needed for prayer. Geesh, are you usually this idiotic or just when you want something the Bible DOESN'T want you doing?
You: Fancy that. And here I thought we had just established that objects don't aid anyone in prayer.
Me: Hate to rain on your twisted self created parade but Bible is what you should be reading. A Bible is an object. Praying TO the Bible won't do you any good either. Having a Bible present won't do you any good. KNOWING what the Bible says and ACTING on that will do you a world of good since you wouldn't need silly objects like rosaraies around (quite pagan) when you speak directly to God.
Rosary beads or other such aids in prayer pre-date the New Testament.
Rosary beads are to prayer as glasses are to reading the bible.
You'd best slink off the thread now while you have a shred of decency left.
If you don't leave, it's because you're just a mean-spirited narcissist.
If you sing out of a hymnal or read out of a bible, you use a prayer aid.
Am-scray.
Pretty neat. Bump
I would recommend that you s--- up and stop making yourself look like a fool. I assume you are normally a rational person, but on this specific post, you are a lunatic.
They aren't praying to the rosary. If you in fact knew what a Rosary was, you would know that it is a prayer aid on the events of the Bible. It is meditation and prayer. Next time you read the Bible, think about an event in the Life of Christ, and pray to Christ, you are doing the exact same thing.
Then again, rational arguments make little headway with someone as yourself.
Excellent point. Or better yet, ask him where Sola Scriptura is in the Bible.
Just trying to educate. Sometimes like St. Nicholas of Myra, you need to smack some sense into fellow Christians :)
OK, you need to think through this logically. I am not the one being "idiotic".
If you are reading from the Bible (an object), and that reading aids you in prayer, then you are using an object as an aid to your prayer. This is fairly simple.
I'm not sure where you are coming up the the Bible condemning either objects aiding you in prayer, or to support the idea that it is somehow contrary to the praying of the rosary (meditating on the life of Christ), but you should really consider this when you are tossing these ideas around: it was the Catholic Church who gave you that Bible. If that Church has no authority, your Bible has no authenticity.
Yes, it was the same Church which promotes the praying of the rosary which codified the Bible, and was also resposible for preserving and promoting that Bible until now. She doesn't see anything contradictory in it, nor do I.
A very poorly worded statement indeed. I think what you meant to say, is that from some theological standpoint, which you share, you don't think God listens more attentively to those who use objects in their prayers. Fine. That is your leap of faith. But to suggest that objects do not help some for whatever reason to feel they are getting closer to their God, or in a more spirtual frame of mind, is false. Frankly, I who do not pray at all, much less with object aids, and you I think, are going to the same place - to dust, period. But that's just my "leap of unfaith."
Religion and religious discussions are the wrong place to exhibit hubris. JMO.
Ha ha, he painted you into a corner. Of course you mean that the Bible is a prayer aid. Spanked!
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