“They think those beads offer blessings to them”
That never even crossed my mind. Truly. The blessings are the words from Scripture and the depth of meaning they bring to everyday life.
I have never once thought of rosary beads offering blessings, but rather the focus of the mind and heart on the Biblical records of Christ among us.
I regret that I didn’t express myself well.
That's probably because you don't test as high as I do on the "Help! They're after me!" scale.
Please don't think I was ragging on you. I pinged Quix, though, because of the old "dirty pictures" joke.
Look, let's acknowledge one thing. As even Tillich understood, the MAIN disobedience, the most disastrously efficient way to clamber OUT of the stream which flows from the temple, is idolatry -- worshipping first the work of one's hands, and then the hands themselves. What in our scheme is the chief of the Capital Sins, pride, is just the most disastrous element in the capacious set of idolatries.
SO, our non-Catholic friends,while they may be wrong in their attribution of idolatry to our teaching and practice, are VERY right indeed to be on their guard against the sin itself.
We might quibble with methods and rhetoric, but we'd be wrong to complain about their intent and concern.
But, being aware of this careful concern, we feelthy papists will also be aware that they may construe what seems to us to be a natural expression as an instance of idolatry.
Even when I was a non-Catholic holyD00d, I used to caution people about saying,"Prayer works." NOT that it's not true,but that it's imprecise. If we think of prayer as something WE do, then we flirt with saying, "I have the spiritual thing I do and it brings results," -- worshipping the works of our hands. If we remember that prayer is something the Spirit does in us, then the usage is okay.
So in charity and prudence and in appreciation of the laudable concern about idolatry, I guess we need to think how our natural and unforced language may impress others.
No harm no foul.